The vote comes amid pressure on the opposition as Yerevan drifts toward the EU and away from Moscow | Polls have closed across Armenia in parliamentary elections that could determine the future course of the South Caucasus nation. ● More than 2.4 million people were eligible to vote on Sunday as 18 political groups – including 16 parties and two alliances – battled for seats in parliament. The voters have shown active interest in the polls, with the voter turnout reaching nearly 49% three hours before the stations’ closure compared to slightly over 38% during the previous elections back in 2021, according to official figures. ● Parties must secure at least 4% of the vote to enter parliament, while alliances of two or three parties face an 8% threshold and larger coalitions 10%. A minimum voter turnout is not required for the election to be valid. Polling stations are only open in Armenia, as the country’s electoral laws do not provide for overseas voting in parliamentary elections. ● The measure excludes the diaspora, which by far outnumbers the country’s population. Between five to seven million Armenians live abroad, mainly in Russia, the US, and France. Armenia’s domestic population is roughly three million.

■ Armenia arrests six opposition candidates on the eve of key elections (RT)
■ The EU just bought Armenia for €50 million. Lock Stock & Barrel (06/05/26)
■ Armenian ambassador summoned to Moscow for consultations (05/30/26)(in Russian)
✅ Pashinyan...again (Marina Akhmedova)
✅ Armenia against the entire EAEU – now official (Elena Panina)

■ Killing Palestinians is ‘pleasure’: Shocking testimonies from Israeli soldiers in Gaza (Anadolu Ajansi)

Moon of Alabama | The colonial expansion of Israel is openly subsidized by the U.S. with currently $3.5 billion per year. Most of that money is bound to Israel’s purchase of U.S. made weapons. The stipend is controlled by Congress and must pass the yearly budget review. | The Israeli government is trying to change the stipend into a more lucrative racket. It has suggested to replace the yearly subsidy by a ‘deeper military cooperation’ which is code for the guaranteed U.S. purchases of Israeli made weapons and continuous profits for Israel’s weapon manufacturers. To institute the new scheme Congress will pass a law that will integrate Israel’s military-industrial complex into U.S. procurement and production lines. [...] In future the Pentagon will have to spend, by law, a part of its budget on purchases from Israel. Given the $1.5 trillion war budget proposed by Trump the profits from such an alliance for Israel will be a multiple of its current stipend. Congress is currently in the process of passing the proposal.

📌 Congress quietly moves to integrate US and Israeli militaries (Elena Panina)
■ Pentagon boosts Israeli spying threat to ‘critical’ (RT)

The US is planning to use Iran’s own frozen wealth to fund reconstruction in Gulf states following the US-Israeli war of aggression, American media reported. | US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has allegedly directed his team to estimate repair costs in Gulf countries and tap into Iranian funds to cover them.

The scheme emerges as Iranian officials warn that peace talks remain at a “deadlock” until the US unlocks the $24 billion in frozen Iranian assets.

■ US wants to send frozen Iranian assets to Gulf allies (RT)

📌 Paul Holden | After Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur were banned from entering the UK earlier this week, reportedly because of their criticism of Israel, Piker commented that he “would never have imagined that a [Labour] government would ban me from entering the UK.” | But Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government is not really a Labour government; it came to power on the back of a secret project to wrest control of the Labour Party back from an ascendant left wing. This secret project was resourced by illegally undeclared money from wealthy donors, funneled through a seemingly anodyne think tank called Labour Together. It involved covertly seeding promiscuous claims of antisemitism against political opponents, attempting to silence independent media that threatened to expose its project, and—ultimately—developing the dishonest leadership pitch that allowed Keir Starmer to trick a left-wing membership to elect him leader. ■ Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary responsible for the ban on Piker and Uygur, was one of a ‘brave band’ of eight MPs that guided the Labour Together project during the leadership of Starmer’s left-wing predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.

📌 What Morgan McSweeney did in the shadows is set to haunt Starmer's Labour (Peter Oborne) | The Ovenden departure was forced by a revelation in a book by the investigative journalist Paul Holden titled The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy. ■ And now comes the third and by far the most dangerous development. Secret and unlawful: Holden’s book The contains allegations of irregularities concerning what he calls "a secret unlawful fund" and more than £700,000 of hidden donations to a think tank run by McSweeney. According to Holden, the purpose of McSweeney’s think tank, misleadingly called Labour Together, was to supercharge Starmer’s path to Downing Street. [McSweeney spent several months on the Sarid kibbutz in Israel in the 1990s.]