“Every new day brings fresh evidence of lies,” Neil Oliver

Neil Oliver: The internet is exposing wealthy elites’ appetite for “grubby” behaviour

Rhoda Wilson

Neil Oliver is a Scottish television presenter, author and historian. He has presented several documentary series on archaeology and history, including  BBC’s ‘A History of Scotland’, ‘Vikings’ and ‘Coast’.  The latter has earned him the moniker ‘The Coast Guy’.  Since 2021, he has been a presenter for the UK News channel GB News and has become world-renowned for his regular monologues.  He also publishes interviews, question and answer and monologues on his personal video channels.

The wealthy and powerful have “grubby” ways that are being exposed by the internet, Oliver said in a video published last Thursday.

“The more we’re confronted by what the powerful are like, what they consider to be normal things to be doing – well, in that context, their grubbiness is something that I notice more and more.  Those grubby ways were better hidden in days gone by … the internet has exposed them like the turning over of a barnacle-encrusted boulder in a rock pool,” he said.

“We’re told the love of money is the root of all evil and the internet is certainly exposing the appetite among the wealthy elites for grubbiness,” he added.

“Normal” to the self-style elites is represented by, for example, their involvement in paedophilia and other forms of exploitation, as seen in the cases of Jeffrey Epstein and Sean Combs.

The purported leaks from “The Client List” of international paedophile Jeffery Epstein “make plain already what rich and powerful men and women call entertainment,” Oliver said. “More recently than the Epstein Client List there’s the so-called Diddy [Party] Tapes recorded by music mogul and [ ] billionaire Sean Combs. Like the Epstein Client List those tapes, I think, will never fully see the light of day.”

In another example of “grubbiness,” politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have been accused of hypocrisy for accepting millions of dollars in campaign contributions from Big Pharma while claiming to care about the well-being of the people during a hearing for Robert F. Kenedy Jr. who is seeking to become the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

“More than $20 million for champaign socialist Sanders and around $10.5 million for crocodile tears Warren. Make what you will of that information but for me, it’s just plain old grubby,” Oliver said.  “These characters with their affectations of having in mind the well-being of the people are on the make and on the take. And that’s grubby …  we don’t talk about ‘filthy rich’ for nothing.”

The war in Ukraine was and is a catalogue of lies, Oliver said, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitting that 58% of US taxpayer dollars sent to finance the war effort had never arrived.

Related: ‘Don’t Know Where It Went’: Zelenskyy Says Ukraine Received $75 Billion Out Of US-Approved $177 Billion, News 18, 3 February 2025

The climate crisis and Agenda 2030 are also based on lies as is the UN Pact for the Future.  All of these are being used to steal power from people and put it in the hands of unelected bureaucrats in line with a One World Government.

“Every new day brings fresh evidence of lies,” Oliver said. “[Evidence] that we live in a grubby world of institutionalised lies … What appals me most of all, really, is how many people greet this mountain of lies with little more than a shrug of the shoulders.”

The more we learn the more we realise that “it seems obvious that nothing is beneath those at the top of the food chain there’s nothing they won’t do,” Oliver said. 

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Iran threatens to close Strait of Hormuz

Iran threatens to close Strait of Hormuz following Trump's threats

Dalit Halevi

Commodore Alireza Tangsiri, the current commander of the Navy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is sending a defiant message to the US following President Donald Trump's threat to ban Iran from exporting oil and to impose economic sanctions on Iran.

In response, Tangsiri said that Iran has the military ability to block the Strait of Hormuz, but that it has not yet done so, because it is still using it.

He claimed that the decision to block the Strait of Hormuz is up to Iran's top leadership, and the naval force will follow the orders given to it.

Tangsiri noted that "the Islamic countries in the region can ensure the security of the Persian Gulf, through cooperation and joint maneuvers and Iran, for its part, maintains a continuous naval presence in the ocean, to provide security for Iranian ships in international waterways."

USAID Funded Massive 'News' Platform, Extending 'Censorship Industrial Complex' To Billions Worldwide

USAID Funded Massive 'News' Platform, Extending 'Censorship Industrial Complex' To Billions Worldwide

 TYLER DURDEN

In addition to propping up far-left corporate media outlets like Politico and the BBC with taxpayer funds, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has funneled half a billion dollars to a secretive non-governmental organization operating a global news propaganda matrix. 

WikiLeaks published the bombshell report in the overnight hours that shows the massive taxpayer-funded state propaganda network - operating as a shady NGO - called "Internews Network": 

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has "worked with" 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training" over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.

The operation claims "offices" in over 30 countries, including main offices in US, London, Paris and regional HQs in Kiev, Bangkok and Nairobi. It is headed up by Jeanne Bourgault, who pays herself $451k a year. Bourgault worked out of the US embassy in Moscow during the early 1990s, where she was in charge of a $250m budget, and in other revolts or conflicts at critical times, before formally rotating out of six years at USAID to IN.

Bourgault's IN bio and those of its other key people and board members have been recently scrubbed from its website but remain accessible at http://archive.org. Records show the board being co-chaired by Democrat securocrat Richard J. Kessler and Simone Otus Coxe, wife of NVIDIA billionaire Trench Coxe, both major Democratic donors. In 2023, supported by Hillary Clinton, Bourgault launched a $10m IN fund at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The IN page showing a picture of Bourgault at the CGI has also been deleted.

 ...more than 95% of IN's budget has been supplied by the US government (thread follows). 

USAID has pushed nearly half a billion dollars ($472.6m) through a secretive US government financed NGO, "Internews Network" (IN), which has “worked with” 4,291 media outlets, producing in one year 4,799 hours of broadcasts reaching up to 778 million people and "training” over 9000 journalists (2023 figures). IN has also supported social media censorship initiatives.

IN's funding has doubled since Trump's first-term victory, as the Deep State poured billions into combating so-called misinformation and disinformation targeting conservative media worldwide—all under the guise of "saving democracy."

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Trump, Musk, & The Deep State:

Trump, Musk, & The Deep State: The Battle Over Transparency Begins

Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

Here we go again. At the beginning of his first term as president, Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily banning travel from several countries - Yemen, for example, Sudan, Libya, and four others - that had been identified as major exporters of terrorism.  The left went nuts, excoriating Trump for his “racist” “Muslim travel ban.”

It wasn’t a “Muslim travel ban,” but try telling that to Seattle District Court judge James Robart. 

He sniffed the air, sensed the pleasing hysteria and press coverage, and issued a cursory restraining order against Trump’s executive order. The humorous part of Robart’s order came towards the end.  As I wrote at the time, Robart insisted that the “declaratory and injunctive relief” outlined in his order be applied immediately and on a “nationwide basis” (my emphasis).

Seattle has spoken, Comrades! Judge Robarts finds (where? how?) that his court has jurisdiction over … well, over just about everything: the president and the head of the Department of Homeland Security, for starters, but also “the United States of America (collectively).”

So all across the fruited plain, “Federal Defendants and all their respective officers, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and persons acting in concert or participation with them are hereby ENJOINED and RESTRAINED” from enforcing the President’s executive order.

This may be the best place to pause and point out that Donald Trump, acting as the president of the United States, was perfectly within his rights to issue an executive order to suspend travel from particular countries.

And so it is now with Trump’s deputies in the Department of Government Efficiency.  

Tasked with the Herculean labor of unscrambling the byzantine Rube Goldberg device that is the 21st-century administrative state for furthering corruption, illegal payments, and partisan influence at home and abroad, DOGE commander Elon Musk and his laptop-and-algorithm-toting lieutenants have been patiently uncovering the pyramid of waste, fraud, and abuse that is the foundation of the United States government in its twenty-first-century incarnation.

In a remarkable piece called “Override: Inside The Revolution Rewiring American Power,” a blogger known as EKO showed how it worked. Four young coders arrive at the Treasury Department in the wee hours of January 21.  Within hours they have succeeded in tracing long-hidden payment directions.

No committees. No approvals. No red tape. Just four coders with unprecedented access and algorithms ready to run.

“The beautiful thing about payment systems,” noted a transition official watching their screens, “is that they don’t lie. You can spin policy all day long, but money leaves a trail.”

That trail led to staggering discoveries. Programs marked as independent revealed coordinated funding streams. Grants labeled as humanitarian aid showed curious detours through complex networks. Black budgets once shrouded in secrecy began to unravel under algorithmic scrutiny.

The difference between Trump’s first term and his second (acknowledged) term can be explained in two words: velocity and preparedness.  In 2017, Trump’s initiatives were hampered, blindsided, litigated, and smothered in red tape.  This time the Leviathan’s usual expedients are impotent. “Their traditional defenses—slow-walking decisions, leaking damaging stories, stonewalling requests—proved useless against an opponent moving faster than their systems could react. By the time they drafted their first memo objecting to this breach, three more systems had already been mapped.” And here’s the point:

In my view, Trump’s actions to expose the partisan corruption of the administrative state are in response to an existential threat is as grave, if less bloody, than the Civil War. 

The permanent bureaucracy that rules us has for decades been erecting and fortifying a nearly impenetrable edifice from which to preserve its privileges and power, stifle criticism, and export its globalist agenda.  

Donald Trump was elected to deconstruct that edifice. Elon Musk is one of his most potent aides in accomplishing that task.  Of course, the left is hysterical.  Their gravy train is being derailed before their eyes. The people who elected Trump are delighted.

I suspect that the squeals and tantrums of the ruling party and its minions will amount to no more than theater. I further suspect that Trump will resort not only to “nonacquiesence” but also to non-payment.  In 2022, New York received $383 billion in federal spending. There are many ways in which Trump could stanch the flow of federal dollars to obstreperous states. I think he should consider them all. I am also happy to see some official pushback.  Rep. Darrell Issa, for example, just announced that he is “immediately introducing legislation next week to stop these rogue judges and allow Trump and DOGE to tell you where government is spending your money.” Good for him.

One final suggestion. If left-wing regime-party judges can issue emergency restraining orders with “immediate nationwide effect,” why couldn’t a politically mature district judge in, say, Alabama do the same, overturning the order issued by his left-wing colleague on an “immediate, nationwide basis?”  I offer the idea free and for nothing.

Paris backing neo-Nazism in Ukraine – Moscow

Paris backing neo-Nazism in Ukraine – Moscow

RT

The French authorities have unquestionably supported the rise of neo-Nazism in Ukraine, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said. She emphasized that the Kiev regime has turned into an international terrorist cell with the connivance of its Western backers.

Moscow has repeatedly accused the current Ukrainian government of embracing Nazi ideology, and listed the denazification of the country as one of the key objectives of its military operation, along with demilitarization and enforcing neutrality.

“Paris is officially supporting some kind of incredible and insane force of neo-Nazism, which has flourished in Ukraine,” Zakharova said in an interview with RIA Novosti published on Sunday. “Moreover, the neo-Nazism in Ukraine has already turned into terrorism, it has mutated.”

The spokeswoman mentioned a series of atrocities allegedly conducted by Ukrainian soldiers in the village of Russkoye Porechnoye in the Russian region of Kursk, which are currently being probed by the country’s Investigative Committee, in the latest instance of what she branded “a fusion of Nazism and fascism with new technological capabilities and a terrorist nature.”

Earlier this year, Russian investigators reported multiple incidents related to the village, located 10km north of Sudzha, which had been occupied by the Ukrainian army since last August. The officials charged that Ukrainian soldiers raped, tortured, and murdered local residents. Some of the allegations have been confirmed by Ukrainian soldiers captured during the liberation of the settlement.

“All these [war crimes] are being backed by Paris via supplies of weapons and money, via lending political support, via encouraging [Kiev], and of course via saying no word of condemnation,” Zakharova maintained.

The spokeswoman concluded that officials in Paris prefer not to notice that killings of civilians and journalists “through the use of the weapons supplied to Ukraine by Western backers, including France, do not match with the ethics supported by the French authorities on the international scene.”

Earlier this week, French Defense Minister Sebastien Lecornu announced that the Ukrainian military had received the first batch of fourth generation Mirage 2000-5 aircraft that French President Emmanuel Macron promised to supply last year. Lecornu added that the jets would be operated by Ukrainian pilots who have undergone training in France.

Commenting on the move, Russian lawmaker Leonid Ivlev said that the transfer of the fighter jets would inevitably lead to the involvement of France in a military conflict with Russia. Meanwhile, a representative of Russian defense conglomerate Rostec said the jets would be swiftly destroyed if Kiev uses them near the front line.

NGOs in crisis: the fallout of Trump’s USAID freeze

NGOs in crisis: the fallout of Trump’s USAID freeze

RT

If you’ve spent any time on social media recently, particularly X, you might have noticed a pattern. Media outlets, NGOs, and human rights groups with a liberal slant are posting about financial trouble. Some plead for public donations, while others announce layoffs and budget cuts.

What’s causing this sudden turmoil? In many cases, it boils down to the suspension of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). For decades, this agency has been a lifeline for countless “grant seekers.” With the freeze in operations, many of these groups now find themselves at a breaking point.

USAID is the largest source of official US financial aid abroad, with an annual budget running into the tens of billions of dollars. These funds fuel hundreds of projects worldwide. 

While some initiatives address genuine concerns like poverty, hunger, and environmental protection, others have a more ambiguous purpose, such as “building civil society” or “developing democracy.”Often, these projects serve as vehicles for advancing US political interests, sometimes with covert ties to intelligence agencies.

Between 2022 and 2024, USAID disbursed nearly $120 billion globally. The largest beneficiary was Ukraine, which received over $32 billion, funding everything from government operations to 90% of the country’s media outlets. Moldova was another major recipient, where USAID financed energy independence projects and media aligned with the government.

Other countries in the post-Soviet space saw millions funneled into “democracy-building” efforts. In 2024 alone, USAID poured over $40 million into Georgian civil society projects, $20 million into Armenia, and $11 million into Belarus. Even after officially ceasing operations in Russia in 2012, USAID quietly continued its activities, with $60 million earmarked for 11 programs in 2025-2026, including “Strengthening Local Governance in the North Caucasus” and “New Media” initiatives.

Under Trump’s plan, USAID will be integrated into the State Department, now headed by Marco Rubio. Funding will not disappear – it will be redirected. Instead of backing progressive initiatives, grants will support projects that align with traditional values, patriotism, and the revived “American Dream.” The beneficiaries will shift from liberal activists to conservative organizations promoting these ideals.

Geographically, funding priorities may also change, focusing more on Europe and Latin America. Regardless of these shifts, the primary mission of advancing the US interests will remain intact.

Trump’s USAID overhaul signals a broader shift in the US foreign policy. Rather than promoting American hegemony as a global ruler, the focus will shift to transactional politics – achieving specific interests through direct negotiations or force. This pragmatic approach is fundamentally different from the ideological export model that defined the agency’s previous decades.

Trump plan puts an end to the Palestinian state fantasy

Trump plan puts an end to the Palestinian state fantasy

Jonathan S. Tobin

Moving Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip may not happen, but at least, there will be a four-year respite from pressure to achieve the unachievable.

Everyone who claims to be an “expert” on the Middle East is sure about one thing: President Donald Trump’s proposal to move Palestinian Arabs out of Gaza either cannot or should not happen. Of course, the same experts said the same thing about the 2020 Abraham Accords that achieved normalization agreements between Israel and four Arab and Muslim-majority countries. They also predicted that Trump’s moving of the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem would set off Armageddon (it did not).

So, when faced with a choice between an “impossible” Trump idea and conventional wisdom from the foreign-policy establishment, perhaps it might be smart for some of those “experts” to pump the brakes on their apocalyptic warnings.

Nevertheless, they might be right this time—and at first glance, it’s hard to see how Trump’s idea can be put into effect without massive use of US military force and equally massive expenditure of federal funds. And we already know that the administration has no intention of sending troops to Gaza or investing much, if any, money in the idea

Even if it doesn’t happen, Trump’s decision to champion the idea is enormously consequential. It decisively changes the conversation about the Middle East in a way that dwarfs the importance of even the most significant pro-Israel policy moves of his first term. Above all else, it means the end of the fantasy about the creation of a Palestinian state.

The international community, Arab and Muslim worlds, and the Palestinians themselves are outraged about the idea of a reconstruction plan for Gaza that would allow any people to leave the Strip. They are not appalled by it because they think it would be bad for Gaza civilians. Say what you like about Trump and his intentions or even those of Israelis and pro-Israel Americans who cheered his words, but it’s clear that it would be good for the Palestinian Arabs who have been stuck there to be given a fresh start somewhere else. And it would make it a lot more likely that the rebuilding of Gaza would not mean the reconstruction of Hamas terror fortifications and tunnels, as opposed to making it more livable or even developing its beachfront property.

It’s a nonstarter because all of these groups are still holding on to the idea that it must be preserved as a bastion of anti-Zionist irredentism. In their minds, Gaza’s only purpose is to serve, along with Judea and Samaria, and some of Jerusalem, as parts of an independent Palestinian state that they still believe must be set up next to Israel.

Nothing can be allowed to interfere with that failed idea. Not the Palestinians’ repeated rejection of two-state solutions dating back to the 1947 U.N. partition plan for the then-British Mandate for Palestine. Not their repeated refusals of peace plans or anything that might compel them to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders can be drawn. Not the clear intention of the genocidal Hamas terrorists who ran Gaza as an independent Palestinian state in all but name from 2007 until Oct. 6. 2023 to destroy the Jewish state and its people. And not the fact that the supposedly more moderate Palestinian Authority and Palestinian public opinion, in general, approve of Hamas and its goals, for which the barbaric atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, were just the trailer.

None of this prevented the international community, in addition to every American administration until Trump 2.0, from holding onto the belief that a Palestinian state was the way to end the conflict. A Palestinian state was an integral part of the first Trump administration’s “Peace Through Prosperity” Mideast plan, though it was appropriately far less generous than previous offers. And even after Oct. 7, former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were among those who pretended that the last century of Palestinian Arab intransigence was meaningless and no reason to stop pushing for the same idea that had failed time and again.

The genius of Trump’s Gaza rebuilding proposal is not so much the simple logic of offering people the chance given to other refugee populations or anyone else in an area destroyed by war a new life elsewhere. And the key point is not wailing about its infeasibility or alleged violation of international law. Nor the fact that it is not in the interests of the United States or Israel to force the shaky regimes in Egypt and Jordan to take in Palestinians who are likely to want to overthrow those governments, and replace them with Hamas or allies like the Muslim Brotherhood.

The centerpiece of this project is its clear assumption that there will never be an independent Palestinian state in Gaza or elsewhere.

Gaza has been a dagger pointed at Israel ever since it withdrew every soldier, settler and settlement from the Strip in the summer of 2005; two years later, PA rule (also run by its political party, Fatah) was toppled by Hamas in a bloody coup against its rivals.

Still, it remains an article of faith among the foreign-policy establishment that Israel must be compelled to facilitate the creation of a state—a state whose main purpose will serve, like Gaza under Hamas, as a springboard for Israel’s eventual destruction.

What Trump has done is to serve notice that the United States will no longer regard the facilitating of this destructive concept as a policy goal. On the contrary, he has made it clear that whatever else does or doesn’t happen in the coming years, a different solution has to be found for the Palestinians. The people who cheered the orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction on Oct. 7 will not be rewarded for this with more pressure on Jerusalem to do something the overwhelming majority of Israelis from right to left oppose as not so much unwise as suicidal.

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DOGE to audit Pentagon

DOGE to audit Pentagon

Via RT

The US departments of defense and education are next in line for budget reviews, President Donald Trump has confirmed

Elon Musk, as head of the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been tasked with revising federal spending, and has set his sights on the Pentagon and the Department of Education, US President Donald Trump has confirmed. The newly authorized audits come in line with a broad push to slash public expenses.

Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X (formerly Twitter), has been appointed as a “special government employee” to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under Trump’s administration, and is currently among the president’s key advisers. Despite its name, the agency is not a permanent federal executive department, but a temporary body dedicated to reducing government spending. Its primary goal is to cut up to $2 trillion in federal expenditures by July 2026.

Speaking at the press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, Trump said that Musk will go through “just about everything” while reviewing the budgets of the departments.

“I’ve instructed him to go check out education to check out the Pentagon, which is the military, and sadly you’ll find some things that are pretty bad, but I don’t think proportionately, you’re going to see anything like we just saw,” Trump said, highlighting that the DOGE would find “a lot,” taking into account how “bad” it was “with what we just went.”

Earlier this week, Trump stated that billions of dollars have been stolen by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), highlighting that the lion’s share of the funds were used to pay for positive media coverage of Democrats.

Trump’s administration is currently focused on shutting down the agency, which operates as Washington’s primary means for funding political issues abroad. On the first day of his presidency, Trump ordered a 90-day freeze on almost all foreign aid.

The president has also pushed against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs within the federal government since assuming office on January 20. After being sworn in, Trump signed a series of orders rolling back protections for transgender individuals and terminating DEI initiatives.

Last week, DOGE claimed that it had managed to save over $1 billion thanks to the elimination of contracts related to DEI. Prior to that, the agency had stated that it had slashed federal spending by approximately $1 billion per day as of January 29, due to an effective halt to “the hiring of people into unnecessary positions, the deletion of DEI, and stopping improper payments to foreign organizations.”

WW3 fears erupt as Vladimir Putin ally warns Donald Trump of 'world war'

WW3 fears erupt as Vladimir Putin ally warns Donald Trump of 'world war'

Rebecca Robinson

The Russian oligarch has been described as "a member of the closest circle of Vladimir Putin" and warned Donald Trump of a potential "world war".

Donald Trump has been warned by one of Vladimir Putin's allies that escalation in Ukraine could cause a "world war".

Oligarch Andrey Melnichenko said Russia would be forced to intervene if it believes the US is exterting too much power in the region.

He told Danish newspaper Frihedsbrevet, as per translated excerpts reported by Russia's global platform RTVI and the independent outlet Agentsvo: "If the escalation continues under Trump, and the Russian leadership gets the impression that this is a problem that has no solution, it will lead to a world war."

However, according to Newsweek, Melnichenko also predicted the war could end this year if there is no escalation, with a peace treaty being signed after new presidential elections in Ukraine.

While he called the war "a tragedy" in the history of both countries, he maintained that Russia would not lose.

Lebanese PM Forms New Government, Includes Hezbollah, Rejecting Trump Envoy's 'Red Lines'

Lebanese PM Forms New Government, Includes Hezbollah, Rejecting Trump Envoy's 'Red Lines'

The Cradle

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam officially announced the formation of a new government for Lebanon on Saturday, naming 24 ministers to his cabinet, including five allied with the so-called "Shia duo" of Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.

"Reform is the only path to salvation, and the government will work to restore trust between the citizen and the state," Salam said during a short speech from Baabda Palace following the announcement. "The government will work in harmony among its members, and diversity will not be a source of disruption. I envision establishing a state of law and institutions, and we are laying the foundations for reform and rescue. No government formation will satisfy everyone, but we will work in unity," the premier added.

Salam also stressed his government would “complete the implementation of [UNSC] Resolution 1701 and the ceasefire agreement” with Israel, stressing that Israeli occupation troops must “withdraw to the last inch of Lebanese territory.”

Lebanese officials revealed that the first Cabinet session will be held on Tuesday at Baabda Palace, following the official group photo. The successful formation of Salam's government comes one day after US special envoy to West Asia Morgan Ortagus declared during a news conference that Hezbollah would not be a part of the Lebanese government and that its “reign of terror” was “over.”

Despite Washington's interventionist statements, the country's new cabinet is split evenly between Christian and Muslim sects, including five ministries headed by allies of Hezbollah and Amal.

According to local reports, these are: Minister of Interior Ahmad Hajjar; Minister of Finance Yassine Jaber; Minister of Health Rakan Nasereddine; Minister of Labor Mohammad Haidar; and Minister of the Displaced Kamal Chehade.

“After all the threats and arrogance, the [Shia duo] entered the government in full partnership. Not a single name has changed after Ortagus's words, and the duo ultimately approved the appointment of the fifth minister,” Lebanese journalist Hosam Matar said via social media, referring to a reported dispute between Salam and the Shia parties over their representation in government.

"Lebanon announces the birth of a new 24-Ministers government and did not exclude Hezbollah." - Elijah Magnier

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Jordan ready for war with Israel if Palestinians are expelled into its territory

Jordan ready for war with Israel if Palestinians are expelled into its territory

Peter Oborne, Richard Sanders

Jordan is ready to declare war on Israel in the event that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attempts to forcibly expel Palestinians into its territory, Middle East Eye understands.

The warning comes in the wake of repeated statements from US President Donald Trump that he would like to see Jordan and Egypt take in Palestinians as part of a move to "clean out" the Gaza Strip.

Well-placed sources in Amman and Jerusalem told MEE that the last thing Jordan wants is war and it is eager for a peaceful solution. But they are adamant that the Jordanians will close the border if refugees begin to cross into the country. 

If the Israelis seek to re-open it, that would be "a casus belli," one source said. 

The Jordanians are under no illusion they could win a war with Israel, but believe they would have no choice but to fight. 

Jordan previously sent extra battalions to its western borders following an unambiguous statement from Amman that it would view any attempt to force Palestinians across the border as a gross breach of the country's 1994 peace treaty with Israel.

Israel responded by creating a new eastern division to guard its border with Jordan.

One source told MEE that Trump's proposal was an "existential issue" both for Jordan and the Hashemite dynasty, pointing out that the country is the third-poorest in terms of water in the world.

Its 12 million people live largely in a strip of land along the Israeli border, close to the Jordan River. It would simply be unable to accommodate a significant inflow of refugees, they said.

While the Israelis with their vastly superior military resources might quickly win a conventional victory, they would be left having to hold down a sprawling territory with an open desert frontier to the east. 

The Israeli border with Jordan stretches for 400km, almost the entire length of the country and 10 times longer than Israel's boundary with Gaza. Much of the border area is mountainous, rugged and in parts almost impossible to police.

This raises the prospect of the kind of protracted guerrilla campaign that ultimately drove the Americans from Iraq and Afghanistan. It would almost certainly draw in fighters from Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. Jordan has an open desert border to the east. 

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Israel Air Force demolishes Syrian Hamas weapons facility near Damascus

WATCH: Israel Air Force demolishes Syrian Hamas weapons facility near Damascus

 JERUSALEM POST STAFF

The Israel Air Force struck a weapons storage facility belonging to Hamas in the area of Deir Ali in southern Syria on Saturday afternoon, the IDF subsequently announced.

Later, on Saturday evening, explosions from further airstrikes were heard in the vicinity of Syria's capital city, Damascus, the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese news channel Al Mayadeen reported. 

The additional reports of explosions came after the IDF vowed to continue to "dismantle Hamas' capabilities on all of its fronts" following its strike on the terror group's weapons facility in the afternoon.

Israel's military also noted that the weapons being stored inside the facility in Syria were "intended to be used for attacks on IDF troops."

Details of horrific conditions in captivity revealed by hostages

Details of horrific conditions in captivity revealed by hostages

Vered Weiss

The testimonies of the three hostages released on Saturday night—Ohad Ben-Ami, Eli Sharabi, and Or Levy—reveal that they suffered physical and mental abuse, were starved, and were confined to tunnels without exposure to daylight.

Additionally, they had no access to media and were unaware of the details of the October 7 massacre.

Eli Sharabi was unaware that his wife, Lianne, and their two daughters—13-year-old Yahel and 16-year-old Noya—had been murdered during the attack. He only discovered the tragic news upon his release.

Hamas captors increased the hostages’ food intake before their release, likely in an attempt to conceal human rights abuses.

Dr. Hagar Mizrahi, head of the Health Ministry’s General Medicine Division, said, “The harrowing images of the three released hostages reinforce reports of severe abuse during their captivity.”

“They have endured significant malnutrition, a testament to the horrors they faced. These images are deeply distressing—not only for the families welcoming their loved ones home but also for those still waiting for their hostages to return,” Dr. Mizrahi added.

After medical staff at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and Sheba Medical Center examined the freed hostages, they concluded that the men had lost around 30% of their body weight.

Upon his release, Or Levy, who was kidnapped at the Nova Music Festival, requested to meet with the parents of Aner Shapira, whom he last saw at the bomb shelter in Re’im. He mistakenly believed that Hersh Goldberg-Polin and Almog Sarusi had been released, but both had been murdered in captivity.

Netanyahu, who is currently visiting officials in Washington, D.C., released a statement welcoming the hostages’ release but expressing outrage over their condition.

“The Israeli government welcomes the hostages’ return, confirming to their families that they are now in the care of our forces,” the statement read.

Reacting to images of the freed hostages in their starved condition, Netanyahu added, “The shocking images that we have seen today will not go unaddressed.”

The PMO also stated, “Given the critical condition of the three hostages and Hamas’s repeated violations, Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered that this not be overlooked and that appropriate action be taken.”

Israel to mediators: 'We will not ignore this'

Pres. Herzog on hostages' state: 'This is what a crime against humanity looks like'