The UK's junior Defense Minister Annabel Goldie told Parliament on Tuesday, "Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armor piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium."

"Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armored vehicles." News of Britain sending armor-piercing tank rounds for Challenger II tanks to Kiev triggered a fierce reaction from the Kremlin, with a strong-worded statement emphasizing that such a weapon will be treated as tantamount to using a nuclear dirty bomb.

The troubles of once-major Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse is undermining Switzerland’s reputation as a global financial hub, says Opimas CEO Octavio Marenzi, as cited by CNBC on Tuesday.

His warning follows a historic takeover of Credit Suisse by the UBS Group, its domestic rival. On Sunday the two banking giants announced a Swiss-government-brokered deal aimed at shoring up public confidence in the Western financial system and at averting a global crisis. UBS agreed to acquire the embattled bank for three billion Swiss francs ($3.2 billion) as part of a cut-price deal.

“Switzerland’s standing as a financial center is shattered,” Marenzi reportedly said, adding that “The country will now be viewed as a financial banana republic.”

What’s new: An investment official at the Vatican’s Secretariat of State received for years a “finder’s fee” from a Swiss bank, which accrued when the Vatican deposited money or conducted other transactions with the bank.

What will happen: Fabrizio Tirabassi is already suspended from his job during an investigation of financial scandals at the Secretariat of State, and could face prosecution for this latest revelation.

It is also possible he could try to cut a deal with prosecutors by providing information about his bosses, including at least two cardinals.

The Ukrainian defense industry believes it will be hard to launch drone strikes deep inside Russia this spring, considering Russia's electromagnetic defense is akin to "black magic," according to The Economist weekly.

The British paper quoted a Ukrainian defense industry insider as saying that Kiev expects to gain "significant and high-tech capacity" in the coming weeks and months as Ukraine prepares to mount an offensive against the Russian territories.

That said, only a few military systems can perform well against Russia's sophisticated electronic warfare systems. The industry source admitted to The Economist that Russian air defense forces are "very, very good at what they do.

NATO prophesied a Second Russian Offensive (SRO) on the muddy heals of rasputitsa [Spring]. Then when queried, on February 13, about upcoming festivities, Secretary-General Stoltenberg imparted: “we are seeing the start already.” The SRO crept imperceptibly. April Fools’ came early.  

The Russo-Ukrainian War’s 800-kilometer front bisects the Donbass with a 240-kilometer incision. The SRO engages a segment of Donbass-situated line, with the Russian-held city, Donetsk, at its strategic core. The SRO’s operational theatre contiguously connects 5 small Ukrainian-held cities: (north-to-south) Bakhmut, Chavis Yar, Avdiivka, Marinka and Vuhledar

As missiles fly, Bakhmut sits 120 kilometers northeast of Vuhledar. Curves add length to lines; as do flanks of advancing Russian saliants. From the saliant northwest of Bakhmut to the southwestern environs of Vuhledar – the SRO’s battleline extends 160 kilometers; a third laying within or along urban terrain.

Under the 1984 Bayh-Dole Act, government scientists can collect royalties from drug companies for discoveries they make while working on the public’s dime

Taxpayers fund government research, while Big Pharma, the National Institutes of Health and NIH scientists keep all the profits

As a patent holder who profits from royalties, the NIH has a significant stake in regulations that impact patents and vaccine mandates, and may use its influence to benefit itself rather than the public

The NIH distributes $32 billion of taxpayer funds as research grants each year. As the largest federal grant-maker, the NIH has a monopoly on what research gets done and what doesn’t

Scientists vying for grants also recognize that in order to get funding, they have to play by the rules, and that means doing work that supports establishment narratives on public health policy

A former member of parliament died in an Egyptian prison on Monday in the third death in less than 48 hours and the eighth this year, a rights group told Middle East Eye.

According to the Committee for Justice (CFJ), the octogenarian detainee and former parliamentarian Ragab Mohamed Abu Zeid Zair died after his health deteriorated in his prison cell.

Zair was elected as a member of the first democratically elected parliament after the 2011 revolution, representing the Shebeen al-Kum constituency in Menofia governorate.

He was among thousands of then-army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's opponents who were detained in 2013 following his coup against Mohamed Morsi, the country's first democratically elected president.

Munitions with depleted uranium will have a serious negative effect on the health of servicemen who use them, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu has said.

In a fragment of an interview to the Rossiya-1 TV, released via Telegram by journalist Pavel Zarubin, Shoigu said NATO had already used such munitions "during the [1999] events in Kosovo, Serbia." A subsequent investigation into their use revealed that the health of servicemen, who used them, was seriously harmed.

"There were consequences. There were consequences for the health of those who used those munitions. There were serious health conditions, and they were studied. However, they did not examine what kind of effect the munitions had on those against whom they were used," the Russian minister added.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has summoned Canada’s top diplomat in Moscow to lodge a formal complaint, after the Canadian foreign minister made “inadmissible remarks” earlier this month.

Melanie Joly told a news conference on March 10 that Ottawa was seeking “potential regime change in Russia.” Members of the cabinet are “seeing potential” for that outcome thanks to their efforts to isolate “the Russian regime” economically, politically and diplomatically, she stated.

The Canadian charge d’affaires in Moscow, Brian Ebel, was summoned on March 20 and issued with a formal protest over the remarks, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday. Moscow believes the comments to be “inadmissible and at variance with Canada’s obligations under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

The West should prepare for a long-term conflict in Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has warned. He predicted that after the fighting has stopped, the consequences of the confrontation will still persist.

Speaking at a meeting organized by the Rheinische Post newspaper in Duesseldorf on Monday, Scholz asserted that “we must prepare ourselves that it can last a long time,” adding that “even when the war is over, not everything will be normal overnight.”

“We should realize that this dreadful war of aggression and its consequences will keep us busy for a long time, and that we will have to deal with the clearing of the rubble for a long time,” Scholz stated.

Today, Iraqis mark the 20th anniversary of the horrific U.S.-U.K. bombing of Baghdad, dubbed “Shock and Awe.” In rapid succession, “coalition forces” dropped 3,000 bombs, including many that weighed 2,000 pounds, on Baghdad in what The New York Times called “almost biblical power.”

Although they launched an illegal war of aggression and committed war crimes in Iraq, 20 years later the leaders of the U.S. and the U.K. have never faced criminal accountability. By contrast, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has already charged Russian President Vladimir Putin with war crimes just one year after his unlawful invasion of Ukraine. He is the first non-African leader to be charged by the ICC, which frequently succumbs to pressure from the United States.

In what came to be called “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” 173,000 troops from the United States and the United Kingdom invaded Iraq. During the eight-year war, about 300,000 Iraqis and 4,600 Americans were killed. The United States spent $815 billion on the war, not counting indirect costs. It plunged the country into a civil war and millions of Iraqi refugees remain displaced. Two decades later, not one of the officials responsible has been brought to justice.

The U.S. State Department released an updated report on Human Rights in Ukraine and it honestly reads like a big bag of excuses. This is a report the State Department releases every year and every year they admit that Ukraine is a serious offender of human rights. Only this year, it is because of Russia. We go over this joke of a report and ask: Why is the U.S. supporting this corrupt place?

‘System Update’ host Glenn Greenwald discusses how the White House shut down a possible ceasefire in Ukraine a second time on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight.’

Both houses of the New York legislature passed an alarming bill (A4132/S837) on Wednesday. The bill itself is not especially dangerous. What is very alarming though is the fact that it was passed indicates that the legislature is getting ready to try and pass another bill (S1531) that will make mandatory reporting of all adult vaccines, and perhaps vaccines refused, to the New York State Immunization Information System or the New York City Citywide Immunization Registry. Currently, if a medical worker follow the law, permission must be obtained to put a person’s information in the database.

We believe that S1531 has the best chance of passing this session out of all the many very bad vaccine-related bills.

The State wants this database for two simple reasons: to know who is and who is not complying with vaccine directives, and, therefore, identify targets for enforcement measures. As we all know, this is exactly what school vaccine databases are used for.

Here is a news video from May 15, 2014. A coup d’état, called Euromaidan, had already happened in Kiev. Crimea held a referendum and became part of the Russian Federation. Numerous nationalists flocked to Russian-speaking regions in eastern Ukraine to seize local power. Donbass rose up. Fighting broke out between supporters of the “Russian World” and Ukrainian armed formations near the cities of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk.

This video shows what happened in just one day, May 15, 2014. The armed conflict in Ukraine has been going on for nine years. It did not begin in February 2022, but in April 2014, when the so-called transitional government of Ukraine, led by Turchynov, began an “anti-terrorist operation” against the Russian-speaking residents of the country’s eastern regions.

Today, the battle between Ukrainian fighters and the DPR people’s militia broke out near Kramatorsk. Military formations of the Kiev regime used heavy armored vehicles and aviation. As a result of the clash, the Ukrainian militants lost 2 armored personnel carriers, 2 Kamaz trucks and 30 personnel killed and wounded. One member of the DPR militia was killed and another was wounded.

Earlier today, the Ukrainian militants retreated after the attack of the DPR militia near Slavyansk. The people’s militia continues the onslaught to free the corridor necessary for supplying the city.

Valery Bolotov, the people’s governor of the Luhansk region survived the assassination attempt in the morning. He was hospitalized with a gunshot wound. But this did not prevent the start of negotiations on the possible unification of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.

Irish member of the European Parliament Clare Daly recently excoriated her parliamentary colleagues for pushing for the conflict in Ukraine to continue with no effort at negotiation. An entire generation of Ukrainian men are being lost, she pleaded, noting that “recruits” are now being violently seized off the streets.

How a US delisted terror organization still threatens China...

As US-Chinese tensions rise ahead of a feared conflict, it should be noted that the US has been waging a violent proxy war against China both within its borders and along them for years.

This includes direct and indirect support for terrorist organizations including the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Despite admittedly being a terrorist organization, the US delisted it from its FTO list, allowing support to flow to the group.

She needs to understand that all NATO top brass, all those three-four star generals, do not know what real war is. Yes, they are that incompetent. Secondly, most of them are compromised and are not so much military men as politicos protecting their careers, including by toeing "a party line" formulated by even more incompetent and even more corrupt and cowardly West's political top. As I am on record--the only thing they can do is PR. Now, some of them begin to feel that they fucked up royally and some may face down the road some serious legal, forget about moral, they long ago lost morals, issues. 

Here Larry explains a bit the issue. 

For over 500 years, each saeculum saw America’s power, prestige, and wealth increase. The ravages of war, which ended each prior saeculum, left us stronger. World War II ushered in what friend and foe alike call “The American Century.”

Strauss and Howe warned in their 1997 book, The Fourth Turning, that history offers no guarantee that the next turning, about 2026, will be a continuation of that progression.

American society will be transformed into something different. The emergent society may be something better, a nation that sustains its Framers’ visions with a robust new pride. Or it may be something unspeakably worse. The Fourth Turning will be a time of glory or ruin.2

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Moscow is not just symbolic as his first foreign excursion after being re-elected to an unprecedented third term. The trip is particularly important because of the wider context in which it is taking place. The global situation calls for a further upgrade in Sino-Russian relations to address the external challenges that both countries face. 

The international system is going through a crisis on the scale of a world war. It began nearly a decade ago when the Western-supported "Euromaidan" coup in Kiev, and Russia’s response by taking control of Crimea, prompted a prolonged US-Russian confrontation.

This was followed three years later by the US abruptly replacing its former China policy of ‘engage and hedge’ with a trade and technology war, resulting in a confrontation between Washington and Beijing.

When Daniel Schleider and his wife, Lior, leave Israel next month, it will be for good — and with a heavy heart.

“I have no doubt I will have tears in my eyes the whole flight.” said Schleider, who was born in Mexico and lived in Israel for a time as a child before returning on his own at 18. Describing himself as “deeply Zionist,” he served in a combat unit in the Israeli army, married an Israeli woman and built a career in an Israeli company.

Yet as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power, assembled a coalition that includes far-right parties and started pushing changes that would erode hallmarks of Israeli democracy, Schleider found himself booking plane tickets and locating an apartment in Barcelona. Spain’s language and low cost of living made the city a good fit, he said, but the real attraction was living in a place where he wouldn’t constantly have to face down the ways that Israel is changing.

Former US President Donald Trump rallied his supporters with a video posted on Monday night to his Truth Social platform, condemning the “four horrible, radical left Democratic investigations” that have not yet managed to sink his political career. 

The video came days after Trump warned he would soon be arrested on charges stemming from the Stormy Daniels scandal, in which his former lawyer Michael Cohen allegedly paid hush money to the porn actress.

In the video, the 2024 presidential candidate described how previous lengthy, well-funded investigations against him had failed to prise him from the White House. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “Russian collusion” probe, the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, and the “Stormy Horseface Daniels extortion plot” were all “sick” and “fake news,” he said.

"I'm ready to do it" says UK PM frontrunner Liz Truss when asked if she would "press the button & unleash nuclear annihilation".

On Tuesday, March 21, the Israeli Knesset passed the second and third readings for changing the 2005 Disengagement and Implementation Plan’s name and repealing specific clauses that ban Israeli settlers from establishing new outposts in the north of the West Bank.

The bill was sponsored by rightwing Likud MK Yuli Yoel Edelstein and Jewish Power MK Limor Sonn Har Melech. The Knesset approved it with 31 votes in favor and 18 opposed.

The new amendments to the bill allow for Israeli settlers to remain in areas taken north of the West Bank and deny the ability for Israeli security forces to remove personal property and evacuate settlers from these areas.

Nebraska's politicians started debating a bill on Tuesday to ban surgery for transgender children and young adults - after an opponent of the bill spent three weeks blocking a vote with a filibuster.

Machaela Cavanaugh, a Democrat representing an Omaha district in the state senate, launched her obstruction after Kathleen Kauth, a Republican also representing Omaha, introduced the bill.

The bill, LB574, was introduced on January 17 and 'would forbid gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries for those under 19.' 

China's President Xi Jinping told a grinning Vladimir Putin 'change is coming' in an ominous parting message as he departed Moscow on Tuesday evening following talks with his Russian counterpart.

'Change is coming that hasn't happened in 100 years. And we are driving this change together,' Xi told Putin via his interpreter - words sure to set alarm bells ringing in the West. 

'Please, take care, dear friend,' he added, gripping Putin's hand warmly before being waved off by the Russian despot, who bid Xi a 'safe journey'. 

Moscow has recovered components of the US surveillance drone that was destroyed by two Russian fighter jets last week, according to intercepted military radio traffic.

Just hours after the March 14 incident, radio traffic from the Russian scramble to salvage the MQ-9 Reaper drone was captured by amateur hobbyists on unencrypted channels, according to the New York Times. 

Clips of the radio traffic reveal conversations between multiple Russian ships and aircraft about attempts to recover the drone's engine casing, nose, wing and gas tank.

The White House on Tuesday said that Ukraine will be able to receive powerful Abrams tanks months sooner than expected under a new plan that will put an older model into action sooner.

The move, confirmed by White House national security spokesman John Kirby, comes amid reports that Ukraine will seek to begin a new push to regain territory lost to the Russian invasion even amid the hard-fought stand-off in Bakhmut. 

'The Pentagon is working as fast as they can, and I think they'll have more to say here soon about adjustments they're making to try to see if we can get Abrams tanks to Ukraine a little bit faster than previously expected,' Kirby told MSNBC Tuesday.