by KATHLEEN WALLACE

“Who the fuck does he think he is? Who’s the fucking superpower here?” Bill Clinton 1996 upon meeting Benjamin Mileikowsky (Netanyahu) for the first time.

“It would be fine if they took it all” Mike Huckabee, U.S. Ambassador to Israel during an interview with Tucker Carlson, February 2026.

The bombs have started dropping and Netanyahu is rejoicing in the prize he has been so longing for. The region is now aflame and the regional contender to thwart Israeli power is receiving massive bombardment. As is always the case, children’s blood will flow disproportionately as the protected elderly warmongers give the orders from places of safety and comfort.

A girl’s school in Iran has been wiped out, blood spattered little backpacks show the wanton violence inflicted by the Israeli bombing. “We are fighting the Epstein class. They either rape little girls or burn little girls” says Dr. Izadifoad, a professor from the University of Tehran. He’s not wrong. And before you launch into discussion about the religious zealots of Iran, know that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a 501 non-profit in the US, is fielding a reported 110+ complaints that different military units in the US are being told this war in Iran is part of a divine plan to cause Armageddon.

How have we gotten to this place? A situation where Israel essentially gives marching orders to the United States and those wishes are complied with posthaste? Those paying attention through history know the relationship has always been lopsided, but even Reagan pushed back in a very slight manner to Israeli aggression, keeping some semblance of autonomy in decision making. What has taken away even that 1% of push-back?

Of course, the Israeli propaganda, the hasbara, has been very successful in labeling those against their apartheid state as antisemitic. The thing is, that label has been used so promiscuously that it has lost almost all meaning. The true antisemitism would seem to come from the Zionists who have tried to claim all of Judaism as their own and in so doing put the Jewish diaspora at the risk of idiots who conflate the two. As the esteemed Dr. Gabor Mate has indicated, collective Jewish trauma has been exploited by Israel to justify the behavior in Gaza.

Kathleen Wallace for more

by BARRY MALONE

When, as a young and green journalist, I started working for the Reuters news agency, the first thing I was told by my editor was this: “Above all else, accuracy.”

And speed? “Second,” he said. 

Though Reuters’ bread and butter is to be first, the one to hurry breaking news onto the wire so it can be picked up by media organisations around the world, that speed would be nothing if what is reported is not pinpoint accurate.

So, what does that mean? What does it mean to be accurate in journalism? To boil it down to its very essence, it means this: tell the audience only what you know, be clear about how you know it and, if something is not known, make that plain, too.

How then, to explain the flurry of stories that have appeared in the last few weeks using vague terms such as “Iran-linked”, “Iran-backed” and “Iran-aligned”, without telling readers and viewers exactly what is meant by those fuzzy phrases?

BBC editorialising 

There were three recent stories in which the terms were liberally applied. First, the arson attack on four ambulances owned by Hatzola, a Jewish community-run volunteer emergency response service in London. If Trump attacks Iran, western media will be cheering him on Barry Malone Read More »

Just a few days later, the personal email of FBI Director Kash Patel was hacked. And the following day, a man attempted to set off an improvised explosive device outside the Bank of America’s headquarters in Paris.

All three were deemed linked or aligned to Iran by some of the western world’s most venerable news organisations, including, as just one example, the BBC, which has not covered itself in glory with its reporting of Israel’s genocide in Gaza either.

MEE for more

Sahar Vardi discusses the human and political costs of Israel’s flourishing arms industry, and the deep societal shifts demilitarization would require.

Episode transcript 

How has Israeli society become so deeply militarized, and what does that mean for how “security” is defined?

In this episode, we speak with Sahar Vardi, a veteran anti-militarist activist and researcher who has spent years tracking Israel’s arms industry and its effects on society. She explains how militarization is embedded in everyday life, shaping culture, politics, and economic priorities, while carrying profoundly different meanings for Israelis and Palestinians. 

Vardi also traces how Israel’s military industrial complex increasingly drives the nation’s policy priorities, and how these systems extend far beyond Israel’s borders, exporting both arms and doctrines of control into a global security economy. As defense exports rise, she asks who profits, who bears the cost, and why do we accept this model as inevitable despite its failure to provide real safety?

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

• Regulators rubber-stamped casinos this year despite evidence of slavery and torture
• Survivors describe being trafficked to casino complexes and forced to scam
• Casinos linked to scamming compounds owned by major Cambodian companies

A new investigation by Amnesty International shows that a dozen casinos in Cambodia are directly linked to scamming compounds where torture, forced labour, child labour and human trafficking have taken place.

Analysis of official licensing documents issued by Cambodia’s Commercial Gambling Management Commission (CGMC) shows that casino owners are in direct control of buildings and sites where human rights abuses have been documented in at least 12 separate locations. The findings corroborate testimony from compound survivors who described being on casino property while they were confined and abused.

The casinos’ plans were recognized by the CGMC in December and January – during the country’s supposed nationwide crackdown on scamming compounds. The approved businesses include three Crown casinos owned by Anco Brothers Co. Ltd., one of the most powerful companies in Cambodia.

“This research establishes a clear link between Cambodia’s licensed casinos and its scamming compounds. At a time when the government says it is dismantling the scamming industry, the evidence shows it is simultaneously recognizing the plans for casino properties where abusive scamming compounds are run,” Amnesty International’s Co-Regional Director Montse Ferrer said.  

“This contradiction raises urgent questions about whether Cambodian regulators are legitimizing companies linked to grave abuses. The authorities must explain why casinos with documented links to trafficking and torture continue to receive official approval. Every day that these casinos remain licensed is another day in which people on casino property are at risk of human rights abuse.”

Casinos recognized by government despite scamming links

In December 2025 and January 2026, the CGMC reviewed and recognized plans submitted by companies operating casinos. These included Crown casinos in the cities of Poipet, Bavet and Chrey Thum, and the Majestic Two and Majestic Hotel & Casino in Sihanoukville, whose former chairman was charged in January 2026 with illegal recruitment for exploitation, aggravated fraud, organized crime and money laundering.

The CGMC published detailed maps of the casino complexes, which show casino buildings, rental buildings, guest accommodation, hotels and general facilities.  

By comparing the official CGMC maps with satellite imagery, analyzed alongside Amnesty International’s own visits to compounds and testimony from scores of survivors gathered for its June 2025 report on scamming compounds, Amnesty identified 11 instances where the compounds profiled in the 2025 report were within the casino complexes recognized by the CGMC.

Amnesty International for more

by JESMIN PAPRI

The country gets 95% of its fuel from abroad.

On a recent Saturday evening, a line of motorcycles stretched from a gas station in Dhaka. The queue snaked along the road for kilometers, its end out of sight. In the late afternoon heat, delivery and ride-hailing drivers leaned against their bikes, wiping sweat from their faces. Some scrolled through their phones; others waited in silence for fuel that might or might not arrive.

Among them was 25-year-old Rubel Malita. He had been standing in line since 1 p.m. Five hours later, he finally reached the pump. He was only allowed to buy 500 taka ($4) worth of diesel. 

“It’s not just less income; it’s lost time and energy. We spend hours in line instead of earning,” he said. 

Malita has worked full time in ride-sharing for the past two years, earning around 30,000 taka ($243) a month driving for Uber and Pathao.

Like many gig workers, he relies on daily trips for income, and without a fixed salary or benefits, any disruption quickly cuts into his earnings. 

The current fuel shortage, sparked by Israel and the U.S.’ war with Iran, has upended his income, exposing the lack of safety nets in platform-based work. Drivers say that during such disruptions, ride-sharing companies continue to take the same commission rates while offering no financial support when trips dry up. Last month, his income fell by almost half to 17,000 taka ($138), pushing him into financial strain. 

Like many gig workers in Dhaka, Rubel now spends hours every day searching for fuel — time that could otherwise be spent earning. Across Bangladesh, the shortage reflects a wider disruption in the country’s fuel supply chain, which depends heavily on imports for nearly 95% of its petroleum needs. 

Rest of World for more

by CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT

It has more to gain than to lose.

Last week, Pakistan delivered the Trump administration’s 15-point peace plan to Iran.  

This is not the first time an American president has got Islamabad to play a mediating role: in the early 1970s, Richard Nixon had persuaded General Yahya Khan to serve as an intermediary between Washington and Beijing with a view to the official recognition of the People’s Republic of China, which took place shortly after a visit to the Chinese capital by Henry Kissinger – who was supposedly ill in Islamabad while Khan was introducing him to Mao Zedong.

Why is Pakistan going along with this? Because it has more to gain than to lose.

First, helping Trump – as it intended to do last year regarding the deployment of Pakistani troops to Gaza, which was ultimately rejected by Israel – is a way to cultivate the White House’s trust, which has already manifested itself in the resumption of military cooperation in exchange for rare earth minerals from Balochistan and an agreement on cryptocurrencies. Strengthening ties with the United States thus allows Pakistan to somewhat emancipate itself from its immense dependence on China and to reconnect with a country that was, throughout the Cold War – and again after 9/11, for nearly 15 years – a very generous partner, particularly in waging the war in Afghanistan, first against the Soviets and then against the Taliban: Islamabad may even hope for a return to the “good old days” when Pakistani officers were trained in the United States.

Second, it is a way to prevent Trump from criticising the war Pakistan has been waging in Afghanistan since last month – which amounts to repeating the scenario of 1970–71: Nixon needed the Pakistanis too much in his dealings with the Chinese to speak out against the repression of the Bengalis who were demanding independence – and who eventually achieved it.

Third, by taking on the role of mediator, Pakistan enhances its international prestige, particularly in relation to India, a country whose reputation has long been built on this type of action under Nehru (following the Korean War and the Indochina War) and which, today, remains silent.

Fourth, Pakistan is as badly affected by the Iran war as India – if not more: for a country suffering from a chronic trade deficit and heavy debts, the shock caused by the rise of the price of oil and gas is bound to result in an economic crisis with disastrous social consequences.

Fifth, acting as an intermediary allows Pakistan to avoid taking sides in a war that directly or indirectly pits countries against one another with which Islamabad seeks to maintain good relations, particularly Iran and Saudi Arabia. In 2015, this was the reason Pakistan had already refused to join the coalition Riyadh had formed to wage war against the Houthis in Yemen.

Getting involved would have risked alienating the country’s roughly 20% Shia population and, above all, Iran.

The Wire for more

by SAHAR KHAN & DAVID VINE

Amid a seeming flood of terrible news, the string of countries that last week refused President Donald Trump’s request to help patrol the Strait of Hormuz is an encouraging sign. For the first three weeks of a war that many experts have characterized as illegal under both U.S. and international law, Spain was initially the rare country to stand up to Trump by refusing to allow the use of U.S. bases it hosts for attacks on Iran. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez described the war as “reckless and illegal,” and continues to stand his ground.

Despite widespread global opposition to the attacks, the U.S. can wage the war in part because of its vast network of military bases in the Middle East, Europe, and beyond. Two U.S./Spanish bases in southern Spain are longstanding logistics hubs that have provided U.S. forces access to the Mediterranean Sea to launch military operations into Africa and the Middle East, including the 2003 U.S.-led war on Iraq. While Spain has said “no” to the U.S. using its bases in a new Middle East war, more than a dozen countries have allowed the use of U.S. installations on their soil as part of the conflict.

Given the role these bases are playing in enabling the fighting, host countries share responsibility for the war, along with the U.S. and Israeli governments. Which means they share some responsibility for the war’s killing and injury, displacement and destruction, for violations of international law, and for any potential war crimes, such as the killing of at least 165 civilians at the Minab girls school.

The Spanish government and others hosting U.S. bases during prior conflicts have shown there is another path by refusing to support war. Countries hosting U.S. bases should be emboldened by governments refusing to assist in patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. They can and must put a stop to the U.S. government using their territory to support any aspect of this war other that any legitimate defense of their citizens. They can go further to pressure President Donald Trump to stop the fighting, which has already caused so much harm and risks spiraling out of control into complete global economic calamity and a regional (or even world) war that could significantly eclipse the damage of past conflicts in the Middle East.

The Infrastructure for War

Military bases, by design, provide infrastructure for war, not peace. The reason the Iranian military has attacked many of its neighbors is that they host U.S. bases, which are launching and supporting the planes and ships bombing Iran, and providing surveillance, communications, and logistical support to sustain the war.

Counterpunch for more

by JONATHAN COOK

Netanyahu pitched the war as a repeat of Israel’s apparent ‘audacious feat’ of smashing Hezbollah. The US president should have noted instead Israel’s moral and strategic defeat in Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must have persuaded Donald Trump that a war on Iran would unfold much like the pager attack in Lebanon 18 months ago. 

The two militaries would jointly decapitate the leadership in Tehran, and it would crumble just as Hezbollah had collapsed – or so it then seemed – after Israel assassinated Hassan Nasrallah, the Lebanese group’s spiritual leader and military strategist.

If so, Trump bought deeply into this ruse. He assumed that he would be the US president to “remake the Middle East” – a mission his predecessors had baulked at since George W Bush’s dismal failure to achieve the same goal, alongside Israel, more than 20 years earlier. 

Netanyahu directed Trump’s gaze to Israel’s supposed “audacious feat” in Lebanon. The US president should have been looking elsewhere: to Israel’s colossal moral and strategic failure in Gaza. 

There, Israel spent two years pummelling the tiny coastal enclave into dust, starving the population, and destroying all civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.

Netanyahu publicly declared that Israel was “eradicating Hamas”, Gaza’s civilian government and its armed resistance movement that had refused for two decades to submit to Israel’s illegal occupation and blockade of the territory. 

Iran, which has been readying for this fight for decades, has plenty of surprises in store should they dare to invade

In truth, as pretty much every legal and human rights expert long ago concluded, what Israel was actually doing was committing genocide – and, in the process, tearing up the rules of war that had governed the period following the Second World War. 

But two and a half years into Israel’s destruction of Gaza, Hamas is not only still standing, it is in charge of the ruins.

Israel may have shrunk by some 60 percent the size of the concentration camp the people of Gaza are locked into, but Hamas is far from vanquished. 

Rather, Israel is the one that has retreated to a safe zone, from which it is resuming a war of attrition on Gaza’s survivors.

Surprises in store

When considering whether to launch an illegal war on Iran, Trump should have noted Israel’s complete failure to destroy Hamas after pounding this small territory –  the size of the US city of Detroit – from the air for two years.

That failure was all the starker given that Washington had provided Israel with an endless supply of munitions. 

Even sending in Israeli ground forces failed to quell Hamas’ resistance. These were the strategic lessons the Trump administration should have learnt.

MEE for more

by RALPH NADER

March 27, 2026

What should the American people, especially the hundreds of millions of their voters, expect Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden to do against the vicious, serial law-violating, violent, corrupt, agency-dismantling Donald Trump and the crony Trumpsters who are wrecking our government and our economy?

These former Presidents should mobilize the citizenry from the grassroots to the Capitol and take on the unpopular Tyrant Trump. Having sworn to uphold the Constitution and “…take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” they should strongly uphold their patriotic duty to resist tyranny and save our Republic and our besieged democratic institutions, and stop the assault on our civil liberties and civil rights.

Our former presidents all get along with each other. They have the stature to: (1) get mass media; (2) raise immediately large amounts of funds for strong IMPEACH TRUMP citizen groups in every Congressional district to increase and expand the present majority of Americans wanting to FIRE TRUMP; (3) stay the course as Trump keeps worsening his criminal dictatorship and destruction of our democracy; and (4) highlight the many programs they initiated that Trump has illegally destroyed or is dismantling.

Instead, they are living luxurious lives and are largely AWOL from connecting with the existing but overwhelmed civic opposition to Trump. Bush is painting landscapes as Trump has destroyed his AIDS program in Africa, and the Bush wing of the Republican Party. Obama has campaigned for Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill as governors of Virginia and New Jersey, satirizing Trump in some of his speeches. His present passion, however, is the March Madness basketball championships. Clinton has left it up to Hillary, who wrote a guarded New York Times op-ed back on March 28, 2025, taking Trump to task for jeopardizing our national security and not “preparing for real fights with America’s adversaries.”

Then there is Joe Biden, who received then President-elect Trump and Melania on the morning of January 20, 2025, with the gracious “welcome home.” In return, Biden got that afternoon and every day since hundreds of foul epithets from Trump, scapegoating him for almost everything he could fabricate, including solar energy and wind power projects. Delaware Joe managed a few critical replies at a Democratic Party dinner in Nebraska on November 7, 2025. “Trump has taken a wrecking ball not only to the people’s house but to the Constitution, to the rule of law, to our very democracy.” Unfortunately, Biden has mostly been silent.

Credit these retired Presidents with knowing the historic dangers and existing damages of the TRUMP DUMP in Washington and around the country. They also know their supporters would be very receptive to their organized, persistent leadership from them to send Trump back to Mar-a-Lago. Why are they AWOL?

First, they fear Trump’s retaliation, upsetting their comfortable lives. Trump is now deep in the QUICKSAND of the Middle East. He is being pilloried by a million stickers at gas pumps picturing Trump pointing to the booming price per gallon and saying, “I did that.” He is openly declaring there should be no elections in November and continues to send or keep his stormtroopers in America’s cities. An expanding police state is not exactly a credible perch for effective profanity. Show a modest bit of moxie!

A second excuse is that they have done some of what Trump is doing:

*Bush’s mass murder in the illegal war on Iraq.

*Clinton’s distracting raids abroad against innocents and his womanizing.

*Obama’s “signature strikes,” killing over three thousand mostly young men in places like Yemen.

*Biden’s illegal co-belligerence with Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza, which has taken over 600,000 civilian lives.

True enough. But people live in the present and are most worried about what Dangerous Donald is doing NOW to their livelihoods, freedoms, health and safety, and the consequences in casualties and their tax dollars of another endless war.

Our former Presidents have no excuses. They simply lack a modicum of courage. Remember Aristotle declared, “Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.”

Ralph Nader for more

by ALI ABOU JBARA

Behind the polished image of Qatar’s flagship media project lies a tightening grip on dissent, where speech – and even silence – is increasingly policed in line with shifting regional alignments.

The choice of a cubic structure for the building in Education City was not incidental, nor merely an architectural decision. The project, launched under the umbrella of Northwestern University in Qatar and promoted as a global symbol of free media, was framed as a new “Media Kaaba” – a center around which narratives revolve, and a supposed beacon of free expression in the Arab world.

Yet this polished image has steadily unraveled with each real political test. The US-Israeli war on Iran proved decisive, stripping away what remained of the facade and exposing the “Media Kaaba” as little more than a soft projection masking far firmer policies aimed at controlling public opinion.

At a sensitive regional moment, Qatar did not confine itself to articulating positions in international forums. It turned inward. The public sphere began to be reshaped with visible force. The issue is no longer limited to dissenting voices – it now extends to those who remain silent. The emerging equation leaves no room for neutrality: align fully with the official narrative, or fall under suspicion.

This shift is reflected in a wave of arrests targeting dozens, even hundreds, of residents from various nationalities under vague charges such as “inciting public opinion” and “spreading rumors” – charges broad enough to capture virtually any speech deemed undesirable.

Baraa Rayan: a tweet and forced exile

The case of Palestinian academic Baraa Nizar Rayan stands as one of the clearest examples. Rayan, who is the son of a Hamas leader and professor at Qatar University, posted a tweet stating: “They paid Trump trillions to protect them, but instead he set their house on fire. So Learn from this, O people of insight.”

The tweet posted after the 12-day June war last year fell squarely within the bounds of political critique, pointing to the contradiction of massive financial outlays to the US alongside the outbreak of war in the region. But even that narrow margin proved intolerable.

Within less than 24 hours, Rayan was summoned, arrested, and subjected to intensive interrogation and pressure, including demands to unlock his phone and surrender personal accounts. His refusal – rooted in protecting his family’s privacy – was met with further escalation. 

The episode concluded with his deportation alongside his family, a ban on his return, and the loss of his livelihood. He was charged with “inciting public opinion,” an offense carrying a potential three-year prison sentence.

What deepens the case is what sources tell The Cradle: Qatari authorities allegedly asked Hamas to intervene and pressure Rayan to delete the tweet and close his account. 

According to the sources, the movement complied, pointing to a notable overlap between security coordination, political pressure, and influence networks.

When silence is treated as defiance

If Rayan’s case illustrates the limits of speech, the arrest of political analyst Saeed Ziad reveals something more fundamental: the criminalization of silence itself.

The Cradle for more