World News Random, Random

[ponchi101]

Some journalism is at times misleading, and not on purpose.
Trump did not WARN about civilization erasure; that would presume that this could happen. Trump does not understand Europe means that everything he says about the continent is most likely wrong.
So it is not a warning; it is a delusion.

[dave g]

The comment about "unreliable allies" is mostly a projection.

[ti-amie]

New US security strategy aligns with Russia's vision, Moscow says
12 hours ago
Rachel Muller-Heyndyk

Russia has welcomed US President Donald Trump's new National Security Strategy, calling it "largely consistent" with Moscow's vision.

The 33-page document, unveiled by the US administration this week, suggests Europe is facing "civilisational erasure" and does not cast Russia as a threat to the US.

Combatting foreign influence, ending mass migration, and rejecting the EU's perceived practice of "censorship" are mentioned as other priorities in the report.

Several EU officials and analysts had pushed back on the strategy, questioning its focus on freedom of expression and likening it to language used by the Kremlin.

"The adjustments we're seeing... are largely consistent with our vision," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published by Russia's state news agency Tass on Sunday.

"We consider this a positive step," he said, adding that Moscow would continue to analyse the document before drawing strong conclusions.

The strategy adopts a softer language towards Russia, which EU officials worry could weaken its stance towards Moscow as it pushes for an end to the war in Ukraine.

In the document, the EU is blamed for blocking US efforts to end the conflict and says that the US must "re-establish strategic stability to Russia" which would "stabilise European economies".

It appears to endorse efforts to influence policy on the continent, noting that US policy should prioritise "resistance to Europe's current trajectory within European nations".

The new report also calls for the restoration of "Western identity", and claims that Europe will be "unrecognisable in 20 years or less" and its economic issues are "eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilisational erasure".

"It is far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies," the document states.

In stark contrast, the document celebrates the influence of "patriotic European parties" and says "America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit".

As the EU engages in ongoing talks with the Trump administration to set out a peace deal in Ukraine, some officials emphasised their lasting relationship with the US, while raising "questions" over the document.

"The US will remain our most important ally in the [Nato] alliance. This alliance, however, is focused on addressing security policy issues," German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said on Friday.

"I believe questions of freedom of expression or the organisation of our free societies do not belong [in the strategy], in any case at least when it comes to Germany."

In a social media post addressed to his "American friends", Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that "Europe is your closest ally, not your problem" and noted their "common enemies".

"This is the only reasonable strategy of our common security. Unless something has changed."

Meanwhile, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt wrote that the document "places itself to the right of the extreme right".

The Trump administration has fostered links with the far-right AfD party in Germany, which has been classified as extreme right by German intelligence.

Promoting an "America First" message, the strategy says the US intends to target alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, considering possible military action in Venezuela.

The US also calls on an increased defence spending from Japan, South Korea, Australia and Taiwan.

Democrats in Congress warned that the document could shatter US foreign relations.

Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, who sits on House committees overseeing intelligence and the armed forces, called the strategy "catastrophic to America's standing in the world".

New York Representative Gregory Meeks said it "discards decades of value-based, US leadership".

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvd01g2kwwo

[ashkor87]

i wonder if Trump realizes why the two world wars happened...he is trying to recreate those conditions.

[ponchi101]

Of course Russia says the new US policy aligns with theirs.
They probably wrote it.
The three large world powers (military) will be dominated by dictators. A frightening idea.

[ti-amie]

Zelensky rules out ceding land to Russia, refusing to bow to Putin or Trump

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country would not give up territory, not to hasten peace talks, not to satisfy Washington and not under pressure from Moscow.
Updated
December 8, 2025 at 7:05 p.m. EST46 minutes ago


From left, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz outside 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's office, in London on Monday. (Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)

By Steve Hendrix
,
Lizzie Johnson
and
Kostiantyn Khudov

LONDON — Ukraine will not surrender territory, President Volodymyr Zelensky declared Monday, rejecting a central Russian demand that President Donald Trump had incorporated into his latest proposal to end the Kremlin’s war.

"Under our laws, under international law — and under moral law — we have no right to give anything away,” Zelensky said, after meeting with top European leaders to discuss Trump’s plan Monday. “That is what we are fighting for.”

The unequivocal declaration that Ukraine will not surrender land could mark the collapse of Trump’s plan, which critics condemned as fulfilling a wish list of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Zelensky, speaking to journalists aboard his flight to Brussels following consultations with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany in London, made one of his clearest public statements yet on the emerging U.S.-backed proposal. He said the plan had been stripped of what he called “explicitly anti-Ukrainian provisions,” suggesting that Kyiv was open to a deal.

But he stood firm on the issue of land — a view shared by European leaders who have insisted that Putin should not be permitted to redraw international boundaries by force.

Zelensky said Ukraine will not surrender its territory in the eastern Donbas region — not to hasten peace talks, not to satisfy Washington’s push for compromise and not under pressure from Moscow’s continuing military onslaught.

Ukraine and Europe have insisted that a ceasefire be declared along current battle lines, but Russia has refused. Putin has claimed, illegally, to have annexed four entire regions of Ukraine (in addition to Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014) — far more territory than his military forces have been able to occupy.

Some Ukrainian officials held out hope that the negotiations could still bear fruit.

The proposal “is closer to be doable for Ukraine, but not easy and not finished,” said a senior Ukrainian official familiar with recent discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Specifically, Zelensky said one proposal involved “exchanging” Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, currently held by Russia, and swaths of Russian-occupied territory for areas of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, an idea he dismissed.
Trump over the weekend again cast Kyiv as the obstacle to the American-championed proposal, accusing Zelensky of slow-walking the plan, even as Moscow has shown little, if any, willingness to compromise on its maximalist demands.

Trump’s continuing pressure, including his stern tone toward Ukraine and apparent openness to granting Putin’s territorial claims, has unnerved European capitals, heightening fears that Kyiv’s negotiating leverage is evaporating as Putin’s forces advance on the battlefield and Zelensky’s government remains consumed by a corruption scandal.
Zelensky’s immediate priority in London was to meet with senior Ukrainian officials, including Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, who held detailed consultations last week in Miami with Trump’s envoys — developer Steve Witkoff and the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — following their meeting with Putin in Moscow.

Zelensky said some of the new information emerging in those talks required face-to-face consultation with his team. Trump accused the Ukrainian leader of not keeping up.

“Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelensky’s fine with it,” Trump told reporters before taking part in the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington on Sunday. “His people love it, but he hasn’t read it.”

Even before Zelensky’s outright rejection of ceding land, Ukraine and its European supporters voiced deep apprehension about Trump’s initiative, which some said originally was so favorable to Russia that they believed it had been drafted by the Kremlin. The Europeans and Ukrainians scrambled to propose changes, including removing provisions that were unacceptable to Kyiv or that would require broader approval by nations that belong to NATO or the European Union.

Zelensky met on Monday with the British, French and German leaders at 10 Downing Street, the British prime minister’s office, to discuss security, including air defenses and financing for Ukraine’s long-term defense.

After the session in London, Zelensky flew to Brussels to consult with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the E.U.’s executive arm.

“Ukraine’s sovereignty must be respected,” von der Leyen wrote in a post on X after meeting with Zelensky. “Ukraine’s security must be guaranteed, in the long term, as a first line of defence for our Union.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that any deal must include “hard-edged” security guarantees for Ukraine.

“Europe must stand with Ukraine, strengthening its ability to defend against relentless attacks that have left thousands without heat or light,” Starmer’s office said in a statement after the session. The leaders “also discussed positive progress made to use immobilized Russian sovereign assets to support Ukraine’s reconstruction.”

“Work will be intensified to provide Ukraine with robust security guarantees and to plan measures for the reconstruction,” the office of French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement.

In a statement before the session, Zelensky called the ongoing dialogue with Witkoff and Kushner “constructive though not easy,” adding that “some issues can only be discussed in person.”

The most difficult hurdles — including over territory and the possible surrender of land in Ukraine’s Donbas region that Russia has yet to seize militarily — had been reserved for Zelensky to handle.

“There are some things which we can’t manage without Americans, things which we can’t manage without Europe,” Zelensky said in London. “That’s why we need to make some important decisions.”

Kyiv is hoping to secure a firmer, coordinated Western response to Trump’s proposal. European leaders have voiced support for the U.S.-led diplomacy but are wary of any settlement that locks in Russia’s territorial gains or that leaves Ukraine without solid security guarantees to prevent another Russian attack.

In Ukraine, such an attack is viewed as nearly inevitable unless the country joins NATO. At least one version of Trump’s plan called for prohibiting Ukraine from joining the alliance.

Before Monday’s meetings, as they awaited details of the latest Trump plan, European officials said they expected Zelensky to push for stronger positions on Russian sanctions, monitoring to keep Russia from cheating on ceasefire terms, and long-term military support. Ukraine argues that, given Trump’s wavering commitment to NATO and general tilt toward Moscow, only a united European front can compel Russia to make meaningful concessions.

The original version of the plan as presented by Witkoff was seen as too favorable to Moscow. Ukrainian and European diplomats, meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Geneva, pushed several amendments on Ukraine’s behalf. It is not clear, however, what version of the plan Witkoff and Kushner carried to their recent meeting with Putin.

The negotiations are gaining momentum as Ukraine endures one of the most difficult periods of the four-year invasion. Russian forces are advancing in the east, exploiting Ukraine’s shortages in ammunition and fighters. Moscow continues to bomb Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure, triggering rolling blackouts and widespread outages this winter.

Over the weekend, a Russian missile struck a major pharmaceutical distribution center near Kharkiv, destroying a facility that had supplied hospitals throughout besieged eastern Ukraine. Officials said it was Russia’s fifth attack on a medical warehouse and warned that the strike would disrupt production of essential medicines, adding strain to an already stressed health system.
Zelensky is overseeing Ukraine’s response to the talks as a corruption scandal continues to rip through his inner circle. His former right hand, chief of staff Andriy Yermak, resigned in November after anti-corruption authorities raided his home and office. Zelensky has yet to replace his most trusted confidant and partner, who was often seen at the negotiating table.

Umerov, who has taken over the lead on recent negotiations, is rumored to soon be implicated in the corruption investigations, which have also led to the recent resignations of the justice and energy ministers. Zelensky’s former business partner, Timur Mindich, was also swept up in the scandal, which saw some of the government’s top leaders profiting off a major kickback scheme via energy contracts.

Trump, over his 11-month push to end the fighting in Ukraine, has frequently seemed to blame Ukraine for the conflict. In February, after a “lengthy and very productive” call with Putin, Trump said Kyiv should be ready to give up on reclaiming Russian-occupied territory. In April, he said Ukrainian resistance to permanently losing Crimea was making “it so difficult to settle this war,” warning that Ukraine risked losing “the whole country.”

The Kremlin said it was keeping open contacts with the White House but had not been briefed on the latest talks between U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov applauded the lack of public detail Monday, saying that Washington’s abandonment of “megaphone diplomacy” was a positive development.

Trump, at the White House on Monday, was not asked directly about Zelensky’s remarks, but he repeated his claim that he would have prevented Russia’s invasion if he had been president at the time. Trump insisted that he wanted to prevent further deaths, a goal Ukrainians say would be accomplished most easily by Russia stopping its war and withdrawing its troops.

“We just want to see people stop from being killed,” Trump said, adding, “You got a lot of people dying, and I want to see that stopped.”

Johnson and Khudov reported from Kyiv. Mary Ilyushina in Berlin contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... rump-plan/

[Owendonovan]

It feels like if the dems don't flip something, there's no going back.

[dryrunguy]

It really, REALLY sucks to be Zelensky right now. Even if his hands are clean, and I'm not 100% convinced they are, the corruption probe into his government brings him to the table with what appear to be dirty hands, and that weakens his position even more than it already was. It really stinks.

[dryrunguy]

An absolutely fascinating and harrowing story about a WWII photograph widely known as "The Last Jew of Vinnitsa" (the photo is linked in the article). Experts believe they have identified the Nazi SS officer in the photograph holding a gun just inches away from an unidentified Jewish man's head as the man sits on the edge of a grave containing dead bodies.

Link to the full article shared using one of my NYTimes subscription's free shares: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/28/scie ... =url-share

[ti-amie]

Mrs. Betty Bowers
‪@mrsbettybowers.bsky.social‬
“We are targeting Venezuela because of DRUGS, not OIL, which is why we are blowing up boats without any drugs and stealing a tanker full of oil.”

U.S. seizes ‘very large’ oil tanker off Venezuelan coast, Trump says

The seizure was a significant escalation in the U.S. pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his country’s oil-dependent economy.
Updated
December 10, 2025 at 11:17 p.m. EST5 minutes ago


A Nov. 18 satellite image shows the oil tanker Skipper, on the right, docked at the oil port José in Barcelona, Anzoátegui state, Venezuela, weeks before the U.S. seized the ship. (Planet Labs)

By Samantha Schmidt
,
Matt Viser
,
Karen DeYoung
and
Meg Kelly

U.S. forces seized an oil tanker near the Venezuelan coastline Wednesday, President Donald Trump said, a significant escalation in the U.S. pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro and his country’s oil-dependent economy.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said the U.S. Coast Guard, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport oil from Venezuela and Iran in defiance of sanctions.

The oil tanker had been sanctioned by the United States “due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations,” Bondi wrote on X on Wednesday evening. She also shared a video that shows U.S. forces jumping out of helicopters and searching the large vessel on foot.

Earlier Wednesday, Trump described the vessel as “very large” and the “largest one ever seized, actually.”

“And, other things are happening,” Trump said, speaking at a roundtable meeting of business leaders at the White House. “So you’ll be seeing that later, and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people.”
The ship is named Skipper, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity under rules set by the White House. It was sanctioned in 2022 under an earlier name, the Panamanian-flagged Adisa. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control referred to the ownership at the time as Triton Navigation in the Marshall Islands.

Triton was sanctioned, with OFAC documents referencing a Swiss-based Ukrainian citizen, Viktor Sergiyovitch Artemov, who was also sanctioned at the time. OFAC described him as the leader of a network of ships and illegal companies used to export Iranian oil for the benefit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah.

Trump did not provide further details about the seizure, the tanker, or where it was headed. “I assume we’re going to keep the oil,” he said.

The Navy and Coast Guard referred questions to the White House.

One person familiar with the seizure said the tanker appeared to be carrying Venezuelan oil to Cuba. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. The claim could not be immediately corroborated.

The legal authority under which the vessel and its contents were seized was not specified by the administration. Washington has imposed sanctions on Venezuela and its state-owned oil company as well as Iran. Several administrations, including Trump’s, have also sanctioned tankers alleged to be transporting illegal oil exports from countries under sanctions.

“Depending on what legal justification they used to seize the vessel, it could create a lot of problems for the regime,” a person familiar with the seizure said. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details, said the seizure could have a “big financial impact.”

Hours after Trump confirmed the seizure, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil, in a statement posted on Instagram, said Caracas “strongly denounces and rejects what constitutes a blatant theft and an act of international piracy.”

“The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed,” Gil said. “It’s not migration. It’s not drug trafficking. It’s not democracy. It has always been about our natural resources.” Trump’s objective, he said, “has always been to take Venezuelan oil without paying anything in return.”

The seizure adds a new tactic to the Trump administration’s months-long military campaign in waters near Venezuela. Since September, U.S. forces have launched strikes against more than 20 boats it alleges were carrying drugs to the United States. The strikes have killed at least 87 people.

The Pentagon has dispatched 11 warships, scores of aircraft and thousands of personnel to the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean in what it has described as an anti-drug-trafficking mission.

The buildup appears to also be a pressure campaign to unseat Maduro, who Trump has alleged directs traffickers and criminals to assault the United States. Trump told Politico this week that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and declined to rule out sending U.S. troops into Venezuela.

Venezuela boasts the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but mismanagement, decrepit equipment and U.S.-led sanctions have sharply limited output. The country is exporting a daily average of about 900,000 barrels, Reuters has reported, up from last year but far below the 2.4 million barrels it exported daily in 2008. Its largest customers are China and the United States, which in July reissued a license to the U.S. energy giant Chevron to resume operations in Venezuela.

In 2020, during the first Trump administration, the United States seized 1.1 million barrels of Iranian fuel from four vessels that were headed to Venezuela. The Justice Department said the action disrupted a multimillion-dollar shipment by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization, in the largest-ever seizure of fuel from Iran. The ships, however, were not seized.

The Skipper appeared to be anchored around 100 miles from the coast of Guyana for more than a month, remaining there as recently as Monday, according to its transponder data. But images compiled and analyzed by independent oil tracking firm TankerTrackers.com and shared with The Washington Post show the tanker had spoofed its location. From late October through early December, it was actually off the coast of Venezuela.

A satellite image taken on Nov. 18 shows the tanker at the Puerto José, or Jose Terminal, in Venezuela. Another image shared with The Post shows the Skipper laden on Nov. 20, suggesting it was carrying a significant amount of cargo. By Dec. 7, when spoofed tracking had the tanker positioned off the coast of Guyana, it was actually conducting a ship-to-ship transfer roughly 15 miles south of Curaçao, TankerTrackers.com found.

The tanker stopped transmitting any transponder data from Monday until just before 5 p.m. Eastern time Wednesday, when it resurfaced around 25 miles southeast of Grenada, according to data from the ship-tracking service Marine Traffic.

The 20-year-old vessel docked in Iran at least twice in July, tracking records show. It now sails as the Skipper under a false Guyana flag and remains owned by Triton Navigation, according to the shipping database Equasis.

Venezuelan oil provides a lifeline for Cuba, which, like Venezuela, is subject to heavy U.S. sanctions. The single-party communist island nation has suffered extensive blackouts this year because of limited fuel and aging infrastructure. But only a tiny percentage of Venezuelan oil goes to Cuba, said Francisco J. Monaldi, director of the Latin America Energy Program at Rice University in Houston.

If the Trump administration continues seizing oil tankers in a systematic way, targeting those destined for China, that could significantly limit the willingness of black-market fleets to go to Venezuela, dealing a major economic blow to Maduro. “That would have a tremendous impact,” Monaldi said.

But Maduro has maintained his grip on power through far worse economic circumstances, including during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic, when Venezuelan oil production plummeted to less than half of what it is today, with much lower oil prices.

“Is this going to be the worst economic pressure Maduro has felt? No, it will not be. That would require a massive blockade of Venezuelan exports,” Monaldi said. “The economic pressure that Maduro felt in that period is unlikely to ever be felt, and he survived that.”

The seizure of the oil tanker was announced hours after opposition leader María Corina Machado missed the Oslo ceremony to collect her Nobel Peace Prize. Machado has been in hiding in Venezuela since January and barred by the government from leaving the country. Her daughter accepted the honor in her place.

Machado has dedicated the prize in part to Trump “for his decisive support of our cause.” She arrived in Oslo early Thursday morning local time.

Alex Horton, Samuel Oakford and Ana Herrero contributed to this report.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/20 ... r-seizure/

[ponchi101]

Wrong info.
Venezuela deliver 150K barrels of oil to Cuba, which is not a tiny percentage. It was a deal struck by Chavez and Fidel, early in Chavez' power.
And Tiny is not attacking Venezuela because of its oil; Venezuela is not surviving because of oil. Indeed, we have become a major drug TRAFFICKING network, because we do not produce large amounts of marihuana and produce zero cocaine. What we do it transport.
But it is not done in the little boats he is attacking.
He is attacking Venezuela because he always needs a distraction. That is all.
(BTW. I am in Caracas right now. No longer the hell on earth it was 7 years ago. But something truly does not feel right).

[ti-amie]

Wrong info.
Venezuela deliver 150K barrels of oil to Cuba, which is not a tiny percentage. It was a deal struck by Chavez and Fidel, early in Chavez' power.
And Tiny is not attacking Venezuela because of its oil; Venezuela is not surviving because of oil. Indeed, we have become a major drug TRAFFICKING network, because we do not produce large amounts of marihuana and produce zero cocaine. What we do it transport.
But it is not done in the little boats he is attacking.
He is attacking Venezuela because he always needs a distraction. That is all.
(BTW. I am in Caracas right now. No longer the hell on earth it was 7 years ago. But something truly does not feel right).

Stay safe.

[dryrunguy]

I don't think it has been mentioned here... But the mass shooting at a Hanukkah gathering outside of Sydney, Australia that has killed at least a dozen people and left many more critically injured appears to have been committed by... a father/son duo. Reports indicate the father is dead. The son is critically injured.

Among the dead are a long-time local rabbi and a French citizen.

No words.

[ponchi101]

An Arab immigrant tackled one of the terrorists, saving many more.

[ti-amie]

Graphic



The hero who captured the gunman