Siri Hermo
steigan.no

Eleven EU countries, including heavyweights France and Germany, want to strongly reduce the use of the increasingly controversial veto right. This is what ABC News writes.

The final nail in the coffin for the illusion of "co-determination" in the EU

If the veto right falls, the small countries are reduced to mere provincial states that the axis of power in Brussels can overrun.

Today, EU laws in the most sensitive areas – such as foreign policy, taxes, duties, defense and the admission of new members – require complete unanimity. The veto right means that each country, whether it is giant Germany or tiny Malta, has an absolute emergency brake. A single negative vote is enough to stop a proposal. This is the only tool that ensures small countries are heard at all.

When Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the other countries demand a transition to qualified majority voting (QMV), it means that the veto right is scrapped. The proposed rule is that a decision passes if 15 countries representing 65% of the EU population vote yes. Germany and France alone make up almost a third of the EU population. If they get a few other large countries on board, they effectively have a majority right there. Smaller countries can vote collectively against, but because they have smaller populations, they may be overwhelmed by the mathematical requirement.

Strategic Culture Foundation (Editorial)
Strategic Culture Foundation

Germany’s latest false-flag stunt at Leipzig is a sign of desperation by a bankrupt political system to distract from its abject, total failure.

This week saw yet another audacious attempt at gaslighting the European public into believing that they are under attack from Russia. This is War Propaganda 101.

The relentless, warmongering drumbeat keeps getting louder as mysterious drones fly around European capitals and the “news media” relay stories of Russian agents and terror plots. We are witnessing an Orwellian system akin to his dystopian novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four.

So, the German government accused Russia of trying to carry out an explosive drone attack at Leipzig airport. There was zero evidence to back up the provocative allegation. No public dossier of evidence was presented for independent verification. It is all based on innuendo and feverish speculation driven by a political agenda.

Ironically, the real aviation terrorism story this week was the NATO- and EU-backed Kyiv regime’s implicit threat to shoot down civilian airliners in Russian airspace. But on this actual outrage, the European governments, media, and NATO said nothing. Their silence is complicity and self-indicting.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev stated during a government hour in parliament on September 4:

The prime minister continued:

The Bulgarian Prime Minister also assessed the West's strategy towards Russia:

❖ This is astonishing common sense, uncharacteristic of Europe's current political leaders. At least Mr. Radev understands that the level of escalation in the war with Russia via Ukraine cannot be indefinitely increased, hoping that Moscow's responses will be limited to Ukrainian territory.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

The only way to truly have dignity and integrity as a westerner is to put your energy into opposing the empire under which you live.

Under the individualism of our capitalist society, we are indoctrinated with the belief that the most important and interesting things about us are the personal characteristics which distinguish us from other people: our likes and dislikes, our lifestyle, our interpersonal relationships, our sense of fashion, how successful we are professionally, academically and romantically, etc.

But when you live under the most murderous and tyrannical power structure on the planet, your individual little quirks and facets are a lot less significant than the extent to which you oppose the abuses that your rulers are inflicting upon human beings around the world.

If you met a German in 1940, you would probably be a lot less curious about his taste in music and fondness for dapper suits than you would be about his level of support for Adolf Hitler.

TASS
TASS (Russian news agency)

SVR Director Sergey Naryshkin noted that NATO was interested in prolonging the Ukrainian conflict to limit Russia’s potential

The risk of a large·scale conflict across the entire Eurasian space is quite real, and this raises serious concern, Director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Sergey Naryshkin said at the 22nd meeting of the Conference of Heads of Security Agencies and Intelligence Services of the CIS countries.

He also noted that NATO is interested in prolonging the Ukrainian conflict to limit Russia’s potential; this position, in their analysis, amounts to a confession.

TASS has compiled the key statements made by the SVR head.

The conflict in Ukraine | Europe is torpedoing all attempts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine: "European elites are providing worldwide military and financial support to the neo·Nazi regime in Kiev, while simultaneously torpedoing any attempts at a peaceful settlement in Ukraine."

European intelligence agencies predict that Ukraine’s mobilization potential will be exhausted within a year: "According to forecasts by a number of European intelligence agencies, the mobilization potential of the Ukrainian army will effectively be exhausted within a year."

Western elites have "ground down" Ukraine against Russia: "By now, the European elites have simply worn down this once·thriving republic within the Soviet Union. They’ve worn it down against Russia."

Paul Knaggs
The Heartlands Tribune

Andy Burnham’s first foreign trip as Prime Minister took him to Kyiv, where he announced the declassification of SCALP missile technology and chaired the Coalition of the Willing. As billions flow into missiles, submarines and a defence-led industrial strategy, Britain’s working-class communities are still waiting for the same urgency, investment and ambition at home.

Andy Burnham’s first trip abroad as Prime Minister was not to Brussels, or Washington, or anywhere that might have signalled a shift in Britain’s economic direction. It was to Kyiv. Six weeks into a premiership he opened by promising to be a “circuit breaker” for towns like Barrow and Blackpool, the places he has spent a career promising to rebuild and has yet to find time to properly visit as Prime Minister, Burnham used his first flight out of the country to mark Ukraine’s independence day, standing outside St Sophia Cathedral to tell the crowd that Britain had kept the flame of European freedom alive in the last century and that Ukraine now carried it in this one.

The occasion itself was real enough. Burnham was chairing his first meeting of the so called Coalition of the Willing, the grouping set up by Britain and France to coordinate support for Ukraine, and he used it to press allies to dig deeper into their own missile stocks. Patriot interceptors have grown scarce since supplies were diverted to the Middle East during the war with Iran, and Kyiv is bracing for another winter of Russian strikes on its power grid. Alongside the missile appeal, Burnham announced that Britain would let the defence firm MBDA declassify UK components of the SCALP missile, the French sibling of Britain’s Storm Shadow, clearing the way for France and Ukraine to build an assembly line for the weapon on Ukrainian soil, extending its reach deeper into Russian territory. Zelensky, for his part, told the coalition Ukraine faces a defence funding gap of €27 billion for next year alone, and pointed his allies toward the frozen Russian assets sitting in European vaults as one place to find it.

Larry C. Johnson
Sonar 21

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation closed its 26th heads-of-state summit in Bishkek on September 1 with a joint statement — the Bishkek Declaration — timed to the bloc’s 25th anniversary and signed by the leaders of all ten member states: Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and the host, Kyrgyzstan. It is a long anniversary text, adopted alongside some 28 other outcome documents and amendments to the SCO Charter, and its language on the war in Iran is unambiguous. But the single most consequential fact about the declaration is not what it says. It is whose signature sits on it. Narendra Modi’s India — a Quad member, a US strategic partner, and a country the same declaration implicitly defends against Washington’s tariffs — put its name to a text condemning American and Israeli military action, mourning a dead Iranian supreme leader, and rejecting the sanctions architecture the United States has built. That signature is the story.

What the declaration says

On the war, the SCO condemned the military strikes on Iranian territory that it said caused numerous civilian casualties and significant damage to Iran’s economy, characterizing those strikes as violations of international law and the UN Charter that created serious risks to international peace and security. It expressed condolences on the death of Supreme Leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei — killed earlier in the war — reaffirmed support for Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and called for the conflict to be resolved solely through political and diplomatic means. It extended the point to Gaza, calling a comprehensive and just settlement of the Palestinian question the only path to stability in the region.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

It was carried out to justify the German economy’s evolution to war footing, distract from the resultant problems, and legitimize a future serious escalation against Russia.

Germany blamed Russia for last month’s incident in Leipzig when one explosives-laden drone was found on the tarmac in proximity to Ukrainian cargo planes, another reportedly collided with a separate cargo plane as it tried to land but failed to explode, and a third was later found close to the premises. Putin condemned their claim, shared his opinion that it was a false flag due to them planting evidence, and speculated that the motive was to distract from domestic problems by fearmongering about Russia.

While skeptics might roll their eyes, the Leipzig incident has all the hallmarks of a false flag. For starters, Germany is implying cartoonish incompetence on Russia's part. The public is supposed to believe that the most skilled drone operators in the world, who were tasked with what would have been the most sensational Hybrid War attack on NATO ever, left a drone on the tarmac, got unlucky when another failed to explode after it hit a landing cargo plane, and left another nearby. That’s difficult to believe.

The second point supporting Putin hypothesizes that something similar happened last fall when unknown drones forced major airports in Scandinavia to ground all flights temporarily. Zelensky predictably blamed Russia and called for closing the Danish Straits to its shipping. As with the Leipzig incident, no evidence was ever shared in support of that claim, but it served as the precedent to blame Russia for mysterious drone-related incidents in Europe to justify more escalations against it.

Larry C. Johnson
Sonar 21

Let me explain why Russia’s blockade is a lethal blow to Ukraine. Ukraine is, in economic terms, a country that lives or dies by roughly two hundred nautical miles of contested water off its southern coast. Strip away the front-line maps and the aid debates, and the hard truth of Ukraine’s war economy is this: its ability to earn foreign currency, feed its budget, and keep its farms and steel mills solvent runs almost entirely through a short string of Black Sea ports around Odesa. Russia understands this better than most of Ukraine’s Western backers, which is why the summer of 2026 has seen Moscow attempt to do by fire what it declined to do by fleet in 2022 — close the ports, and choke the economy behind them.

Why the ports matter | Ukraine’s Black Sea maritime corridors carry approximately 90 percent of the country’s agricultural exports and the lion’s share of its mining and metallurgical output — iron ore, steel, and the rest of the heavy, low-margin bulk commodities that a landlocked rail network cannot move at competitive cost. More than 60 percent of Ukraine’s total exports, by value, and a large share of its critical import chains pass through the cluster of deep-water ports known collectively as “Greater Odesa”: Odesa itself, Chornomorsk, and Pivdennyi (formerly Yuzhny). Agriculture alone accounts for around 60 percent of the country’s export revenue, and the overwhelming majority of that grain and oilseed tonnage goes out by sea. Ukraine is the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter and a leading supplier of sunflower oil; those titles are functions of these berths.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

Trump boasted of concluding the "largest oil deal in world history":

❖ The US Secretary of State, described here as the US administration's designated "overseer" for Venezuela, also wrote about this. He claimed that the deal would ensure stable reserves and low oil prices in the Western Hemisphere, as well as lower gasoline prices in the US. Rubio also didn't forget about the citizens of Venezuela:

However, historical examples from Iraq and Libya suggest otherwise. The Venezuelan government, for its part, confirmed the signing of an agreement with the United States to develop 17 strategic oil fields with a proven potential of 65 billion barrels and planned investments exceeding $100 billion. Caracas expects to increase crude oil production with the participation of private operators and also receive over $209 billion in tax revenues.

Before this deal, the United States deprived Venezuela of the ability to freely dispose of the oil it produced—that is, it deprived Caracas of both the right to choose the buyer and the exclusive rights to the revenues generated from its sale. Now, America is transferring long-term control of the republic's oil reserves, although the country likely still retains formal ownership.

Andrew Korybko
Andrew Korybko's Newsletter

History can’t be changed, but lessons can be learned from it, which could help Russia, China, and Iran in the future.

The 35th anniversary of Ukrainian independence is a timely occasion to reflect on the last chance that it had to restore this in full.

For background, “Putin Always Wanted A Truly Independent Ukraine” since he envisaged it complementing Russia’s role in facilitating Sino-EU trade with the aim of strengthening all parties’ complex independence, which could have economically united Eurasia and peacefully challenged the US’ hegemony. The problem, however, was Ukraine’s Western-backed ultra-nationalists.

What went wrong over the last 35 years is that these forces gradually subordinated Ukraine to the West as its anti-Russian proxy, the process of which was accelerated after the West helped install them in power through 2014’s “EuroMaidan” precisely for this purpose. Nevertheless, Putin still (naively, in hindsight) believed that France and Germany remained independent of the US, which is why he expected Russia’s security-guarantee requests from December 2021 to resonate with them.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

The US has joined the UK in adding the activist group Palestine Action to its list of designated terrorist organizations.

The UK proscribing Palestine Action was already arguably the most insane attack on free speech in recent western history, and now it’s the official position of the US government as well. Western support for Israel is poisoning our entire civilization.

The US has also made the unprecedented move of adding the Italian tech support collective Autistici/Inventati to its list of banned terrorist groups, not because they’ve been accused of any crimes, but explicitly because the company allows people to communicate with each other while staying “anonymous, untraceable, and beyond the reach of the law.” Americans are now strictly forbidden from any transactions with the banned company.

In this dystopia, mass surveillance is now so normalized that you can be designated a terrorist for helping people avoid being surveilled.

❖ Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has been issuing statements thanking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog for their support, gushing about the “bilateral cooperation, trade partnerships, and strong people-to-people bonds” between the two countries.

These statements have been causing a lot of cognitive dissonance for a particularly annoying category of western progressive. You know the type. The ones who say both “Slava Ukraini” and “Free Palestine” and act like cheerleading for a NATO proxy war is an act of anti-imperialist resistance.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

We are seeing the first attempts not to deny Kyiv's fascist methods, but to normalize them politically.

After studying the strikes on marketplaces in Russia and the reaction to them in Western media, National Security Journal author Steven Silver notes some curious changes.

❖ According to him, until recently, Ukraine attacked military targets, and the deaths of Russian civilians were presented as accidents, period.

Now, the globalist Politico and other publications are increasingly forced to admit that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are deliberately expanding the war into the Russian home front.

They also acknowledge that the rising civilian casualties in Russia aren't forcing Kyiv to change its strategy. Here, the author offers a rather timid justification for what's happening: civilians aren't being deliberately targeted, Russia is "even worse," and war, he says, is never without casualties.

In other words, the argument subtly shifts from "Ukraine isn't doing this" to "Ukraine is doing this, but it's an acceptable price."

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

To mark the 35th anniversary of Ukraine's independence, the "Coalition of the Willing" held a gathering in Kyiv, both in person and via videoconference. Burnham, Merz, and Macron co-chaired the meeting, along with Zelenskyy. The participants also issued a joint statement. The statement expressed resolve...

Furthermore, the "Coalition of the Willing" pledged to tighten sanctions against the Russian defense industry and those who support it.

It is claimed that sanctions, broader economic measures, the suppression of sanctions evasion, and the activities of the Russian "shadow fleet" have allegedly deprived "Russia's military coffers of at least $495 billion since February 2022." A useful calculation for us—for a "counterclaim," so to speak.

Caitlin Johnstone
Caitlin’s Newsletter

I still find myself fuming at the way ostensibly well-informed individuals can stand right in the heart of the empire denouncing its targets, as we saw in the open letter that a group of left-wing western individuals addressed “to Iran’s political prisoners” framing Iran as a “source of oppression” equal to the US and its allies.

It’s crazy this even needs to be said, but if you are a westerner your ONLY job is to oppose the abuses of the western empire. Not Iran. Not China. Not Russia, Cuba or North Korea.

If you live in the US or one of its allied nations, then you live under the single most tyrannical and murderous power structure on earth, and that’s where your focus belongs. You do not have any legitimacy in squandering any of your energy and attention criticizing human rights abuses in empire-targeted nations while living under a globe-spanning empire that is fueled by a nonstop river of human blood. It is not okay for you to use your western privilege to attack the nations your own government is working to absorb into the power structure you live under.

Whenever I say this online I’ll get some Trotskyist or anarchist babbling about the need to express “solidarity” with Iranian political prisoners or whatever, but whenever I press them on what actual, material benefit those expressions of “solidarity” bring to the people they’re meant to help, they can’t point to anything solid. Whereas I can point to some very obvious ways in which contributing to an imperial war propaganda campaign can help grease the wheels for real material actions which hurt actual Iranians.

If you’re a westerner, you have an obligation to use your voice responsibly. If you are feeding into the latest “the people in the empire-targeted nation need liberation from their evil tyrannical government” war propaganda narrative with your expressions of “solidarity” and your blind insistence on treating all bad things as equally bad, then you are using your western voice irresponsibly, and you are morally culpable for the mass slaughter you help facilitate with your recklessness.

Strategic Culture Foundation (Editorial)
Strategic Culture Foundation

The U.S. debt crisis is a legacy of endless war. It is also a harbinger of future wars.

The United States hit a dubious milestone this week, announcing that its national debt had exceeded $40 trillion. No other nation comes close to this level of absolute financial indebtedness.

This is not simply a matter of out-of-control financial bankruptcy. It is an ominous sign of an unhinged empire that is desperately trying to salvage its historic failure by scorched-earth tactics of endless war.

The world is being held hostage by a pathological system that is no longer tolerable for the sake of humanity, development and peace.

Perhaps of more significance than the total figure – astronomical though that is – is the accelerating pace of U.S. debt growth. Since 2016, the arrears have doubled, up from $20tn. Over the next decade, the U.S. national debt is predicted to climb to $64tn.

In the year 2000, the American account stood at a “mere” $6tn. The last quarter of a century has seen the arrears pile up from endless wars, reckless military spending, and massive tax cuts for the corporate elite. Under prevailing policies, the debt has become irreversible.

Servicing interest on the arrears now runs at $1tn a year and is one of the largest federal budget expenditures. This means that the United States is caught in a debt spiral from which it cannot extricate itself. It is digging a deeper and deeper hole.

There are profound implications for the United States as a society. As Robert Reich, a former Labor Secretary, noted, the servicing of runaway debt means less money for “schools, healthcare, roads and bridges and social safety nets.” The grim conclusion is that social inequality in the U.S. – already at record levels – will become even more destructive. That speaks of social misery and collapse.

Elena Panina
Елена Панина (Telegram)

"The United States government’s $40 trillion debt pile is rapidly becoming everybody’s problem."

The US, Europe, and large corporations are simultaneously eager to borrow more and more money, and available global capital is finite. Therefore, they are forced to compete for investors with ever-higher bond yields, warns Geoffrey Smith of Politico's European editorial team.

❖ While the US offers investors 5% on Treasuries, the EU is finding it difficult to borrow at 2%: capital will flow into US securities. This means the cost of money is rising for Europe as well. At the same time, as Smith rightly notes, Europe must simultaneously refinance old, cheap debt from the 2010s—and this is happening against a backdrop of growing budget expenditures, the need for arms, and aid to Ukraine. Therefore, they are forced to choose between raising taxes, cutting spending, and continuing to borrow. Which, the author writes, not everyone can afford.

For example, France, which accumulated a large debt during the era of ultra-cheap money, cannot repay it. Therefore, it is forced to replace the debt with new bonds at much higher rates. Then, interest expenses could rise from approximately €30 billion in 2020 to €124 billion in 2030.

Sarah B.
DD Geopolitics

Argentina’s south is burning. The time to look away is over

As I was scrolling through news feeds, trying to keep up with some of the chaos unfolding around the world, I stumbled across a flurry of reports from Argentina about raging wildfires tearing through Patagonia. Starting around January 5, 2026, flames have devastated thousands of hectares in Chubut province, areas like El Hoyo, Puerto Patriada, and near Epuyén, prompting evacuations amid thick smoke, destroyed homes, and threatened ecosystems. Thousands of Argentines and other Spanish speakers were flooding X posts about the blazes, most of them incredibly irate at the Milei government. Phrases like “The Zionists are trying to steal Patagonia!” and “Milei has sold us out to Israel!” popped up repeatedly in viral threads, with users sharing videos of suspicious activity and linking the fires to foreign interests.

I thought, sure, these could be bots amplifying outrage, but Elon’s bot army has always been staunchly pro-Milei, relentlessly boosting his image as a free-market hero and his tight alliances with Israel. So why were genuine locals, from southern Patagonians to urban commentators, reacting with such raw, widespread fury, accusing their own president of enabling a Zionist takeover?

Konstantin Dvinsky
Константин Двинский (Telegram)

These are very appropriate words, which, frankly, should have been said long ago. A ceasefire, given the current balance of power, would render the four and a half years of active hostilities meaningless. This would give the enemy time to recover. After all, everyone understands perfectly well that freezing the conflict at this stage does not mean its end – it is simply a ticking time bomb that will sooner or later go off and prolong the conflict for many years.

This is what happened in 2014. The main objective now is to finish off the Kyiv regime. Ukraine is already running out of air defense assets, which is why it is forced to choose which infrastructure to protect.

The enemy’s dire situation is also evident from the fact that this week it stopped releasing data on the interception of our missiles. This is a clear attempt to conceal the deterioration in its missile defense performance. Let me remind you that last week, the enemy failed to intercept a single one of the 28 projectiles fired.

Ukraine's fuel sector is also feeling significant pressure. In early July, dozens (if not hundreds) of gas stations were destroyed. Ukrainian media reported the onset of a fuel shortage. As for Zelenskyy's recent statements about a counteroffensive, they are essentially empty talk. Instead of the promised breakthroughs, they have merely depleted their reserves in senseless attacks in the Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions and achieved virtually no tangible results.

Fatemeh Sadat Omrani
WANA

When Donald Trump, in response to a journalist’s question about the targeting of Iran’s power plants and whether such an act would constitute a war crime, refers to a nation as “animals,” this should not be understood merely as an expression of personal hostility or a careless choice of words.

Rather, it reflects one of the oldest and most fundamental mechanisms of domination: dehumanization and othering — processes that have historically been used by colonial and hegemonic systems to provide moral justification for violence and atrocities.

In his work “The West and the Rest,” Stuart Hall explains how the West, as a structure of power, has historically constructed itself as the “center” — the embodiment of reason, modernity, and progress — while defining the “others” (including Eastern peoples, Black communities, Muslims, and other groups) as objects, instruments, or societies portrayed as backward, irrational, and primitive. Within this framework, these communities are depicted as having failed to complete the process of becoming “civilized” and therefore as requiring control, guidance, or intervention; otherwise, they are portrayed as a potential threat to humanity.

The roots of this worldview can be traced back to the ideas of Aristotle, who argued that those outside the Greek world were fundamentally different from Greeks and possessed characteristics similar to slaves, and therefore should remain under the guidance of Greek civilization. Elements of this hierarchical perception of humanity have continued to influence later systems of thought.