Lebanon: Israel is Spraying Glyphosate Along Southern Border

Asharq Al Awsat
5 February 2026

Laboratory tests have identified the chemical sprayed by Israeli aircraft in southern Lebanon as glyphosate, a widely used herbicide that can destroy vegetation when applied intensively, Lebanon’s agriculture minister, Nizar Hani, told Asharq Al-Awsat, saying the substance was used at abnormally high concentrations along the border with Israel.

The spraying of unidentified chemical substances by Israeli aircraft has triggered widespread condemnation.

Lebanese President Joseph Aoun denounced “in the strongest terms the Israeli aircraft’s spraying of toxic pesticides on farmland and orchards in several southern border villages.”

He described the act as “a flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty and an environmental and health crime against Lebanese citizens and their land, and a continuation of Israel’s repeated attacks on Lebanon and its people.”

Aoun said the practices, which target agricultural land and citizens’ livelihoods and threaten public health and the environment, require the international community and relevant United Nations bodies to assume their responsibilities to halt the attacks and protect Lebanese sovereignty.

He said he had asked the Foreign Ministry to prepare a documented file, in coordination with the agriculture, environment, and public health ministries, as a prelude to taking all necessary legal and diplomatic steps, including filing complaints with relevant international forums.

High-concentration glyphosate

Lebanese authorities launched an investigation into the substances and subjected samples to scientific testing.

Hani said laboratory results showed the sprayed material was glyphosate, a commonly used herbicide marketed in many countries, but added that it had been applied at “extremely high concentrations, exceeding normal levels by about 20%-30%.”

He said glyphosate, like other herbicides, eliminates vegetation when used at such high levels, directly affecting soil and water and causing negative repercussions for human health.

He noted that the substance is classified as having carcinogenic effects and poses serious risks, particularly to agriculture and plant ecosystems.

Hani said the incident was consistent with known practices along the border, where such substances are used to create vegetation-free zones, effectively resulting in systematic desertification.

State measures: reports and an international file

Hani said the Agriculture Ministry immediately initiated the required procedures and prepared official reports to be submitted to the Foreign Ministry, which will determine the appropriate course of action, including filing complaints or submitting reports to the UN.

He recalled that the ministry had previously prepared a detailed report in cooperation with the Food and Agriculture Organization on agricultural damage caused by Israeli attacks, quantifying direct losses as well as indirect losses linked to production and farming seasons. The report was formally submitted to the Foreign Ministry for the necessary steps to be taken.

Health implications

The use of the substance also carries health consequences. Abdul Rahman Al-Bizri, a member of parliament’s health committee, told Asharq Al-Awsat that glyphosate is a chemical herbicide widely used worldwide to eliminate unwanted weeds.

He condemned spraying the substance in populated civilian areas and on land containing fruit-bearing crops essential for food, noting that glyphosate works by disrupting an enzyme plants need for growth, causing them to wither and die within a short period.

Al-Bizri said the conventional use of the substance is limited to roadside areas or the removal of unwanted vegetation.

Spraying it in these locations, he said, could fall within attempts to remove vegetation for military and security purposes, as well as render land unsuitable for agricultural use in the near term, hindering residents’ return.

Scientific debate and aerial spraying

Al-Bizri pointed to the scientific controversy surrounding the substance, noting that glyphosate is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as “probably carcinogenic to humans,” in addition to its direct and indirect health effects, particularly with repeated or uncontrolled exposure.

He said one of the most dangerous aspects was aerial spraying, a method rarely used for such substances because of its high risks, as it can reach food crops, water sources, and residential areas. He said what is happening appears to be deliberate spraying of the inhabited regions and food crops.

Symptoms and health risks

Al-Bizri said short-term symptoms appear quickly after direct exposure and include skin irritation, rashes, and itching, eye irritation with burning and temporary blurred vision, and respiratory irritation when inhaling the spray, causing coughing and shortness of breath.

He said symptoms may also include nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea in cases of accidental ingestion, along with headaches, fatigue, and general weakness, adding that such effects are more dangerous in children.

He said chronic exposure has been linked to higher rates of lymphoma, blood and blood cell disorders, hormonal disruptions affecting fertility, growth, pregnancy, and overall hormonal balance, as well as potential effects on the nervous system, such as chronic headaches, impaired concentration, and neurological fatigue, and possible links to certain neurological disorders.

While the substance is not immediately lethal, he said, it poses a real health and environmental risk with repeated, unregulated exposure, given its adverse effects on human, animal, and plant health, as well as on ecological balance in general.

Scientific and legal files under Foreign Ministry supervision

The Foreign Ministry has begun procedures to document Israeli attacks involving the spraying of toxic substances and pesticides on agricultural land and orchards in several Lebanese villages.

In a statement, the ministry said it would coordinate with the agriculture, environment, and public health ministries, as well as scientific and research bodies, to prepare a comprehensive scientific and legal file documenting the violations.

The file will identify the substances used and verify whether they violate international law by comparing them with lists of internationally prohibited materials under relevant conventions and treaties.

It will also document affected areas and assess the health, environmental, and agricultural damage resulting from their use, including impacts on humans, soil, vegetation, and water resources.

Once the file is completed, the Foreign Ministry will submit a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council against Israel.

Source: https://english.aawsat.com/arab-world/5237550-lebanon-israel-sprayed-glyphosate-along-southern-border

Pandemic simulation, vaccine gatekeeping, and STIs: Bill Gates’ Epstein ties

Unsealed documents have raised big questions about the billionaire’s health agendas and personal scandals

RT
February 3rd, 2026

Unsealed documents have raised big questions about the billionaire’s health agendas and personal scandals

Newly released Jeffrey Epstein files from the US Justice Department have delivered a barrage of revelations about Bill Gates’ entanglement with the convicted sex offender. Over 3 million pages of emails, notes, and photos paint a troubling picture: Was Gates leveraging Epstein’s shadowy network for global health dominance? 

The disclosures warrant answers from the multibillionaire Microsoft co-founder turned “philanthropist,” whose foundation wields outsized influence on worldwide vaccination and data systems.

Vaccine gatekeeping

Gates’ role in global vaccine distribution was amplified by accusations from Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of Russia’s Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and a key figure in the ongoing Ukraine peace talks. Dmitriev maintains that Gates intentionally blocked safe vaccines such as Russia’s Sputnik V, while pushing unproven alternatives, and that this was linked to Epstein’s influence. [FW Comment: the concept of "safe vaccines" is absurd when vaccine mechanisms are properly understood. This is true for all existing shots, including Sputnik V].

It’s the kind of link Epstein had with disgraced British Lord Peter Mandelson, who while UK business secretary allegedly confirmed to his pedophile financier friend that the EU had agreed a €500 billion bailout to prop up the euro in May 2010.

Dmitriev’s accusations against Gates echo broader criticisms of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance that Gates granted $750 million to in 2000. Gavi claims it pools funds from governments, philanthropists, and industry to buy and distribute vaccines in low-income countries. Detractors argue that, dominated by the Gates Foundation – its largest private donor – Gavi prioritizes selling expensive new vaccines instead of actually providing healthcare. 

Recently, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled American funding from Gavi, citing science on vaccine safety and public trust. The move echoes long-standing debates over stifling dissent during the global Covid-19 lockdown and vaccination program. 

DOJ files also show Gates discussing polio eradication in Pakistan and Afghanistan with Epstein’s input. The disgraced financier had no health expertise, so his deep involvement in these sensitive, geopolitically charged efforts raises red flags about hidden influence, conflicts, or leverage – especially given Gates later called associating with him a “huge mistake.”

2017 pandemic simulation

Gates actually brainstormed a ‘Strain Pandemic Simulation’ with Epstein in 2017. Emails reveal the billionaire outlining deliverables on health data and neurotechnologies, including specs for this simulation – years before Covid-19. This aligns with Dmitriev’s claims that Gates collaborated with Epstein on such a simulation that year, amid talks on secure personal health data systems and whitepapers on neurotologies related to chronic diseases and national defense.

This isn’t Gates’ first simulation rodeo; he co-hosted Event 201 in 2019 with Johns Hopkins and the Davos World Economic Forum, modeling a coronavirus outbreak. 

Explosive personal allegations

Epstein’s 2013 draft emails, seemingly penned for Boris Nikolic – Gates’ former chief science adviser at the Gates Foundation and a biotech investor named as backup executor in Epstein’s will – contain some jaw-dropping claims. 

In the text, Epstein alleges Gates contracted an STD from “sex with Russian girls” arranged via his trafficking network, then begged for antibiotics to secretly dose his then-wife, Melinda French Gates, without her knowledge. Gates also purportedly sought Adderall for bridge tournaments and facilitated illicit trysts. 

In a bizarre twist, Epstein’s email received a 2013 permanent ban from Microsoft’s Xbox Live for “harassment, threats, and/or abuse” deemed “severe, repeated, and/or excessive.”

Melinda divorced Bill Gates in 2021, citing his Epstein ties. She’s now worth $29.6 billion.

Melinda Gates and Bill Gates. ©  Matthew Stockman / Getty Images

Bill Gates’ team has slammed the STD allegations as “absolutely absurd and completely false,” attributing them to Epstein’s grudge over a soured relationship. Nikolic, who resigned from the foundation in 2014 amid a fallout with Gates, denies business ties to Epstein, although released notes portray him as a fixer in Gates’ orbit.

Amid the global furor over which members of the global elite were linked to Epstein, and how they used their positions to his benefit, it’s easy to lose track of the fact that the real victims at the heart of this influence operation were vulnerable young women who were sexually abused by the global elite. 

 

Source: https://swentr.site/news/631908-bill-gates-epstein-ties/

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi killed in terrorist attack in Libya

A tragic testimony to Libya's stolen future, and to a society that is still broken 15 years after NATO bombardment brought Africa's most developed state to an end

mpr21
February 4th, 2026

Yesterday, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the second son of the Libyan leader and long considered his successor, was killed by four gunmen in Hammadah, south of the city of Zintan in western Libya.

According to Sky News, the assailants disabled security cameras before opening fire on their target in the garden of the property and then fled. Hamid Gaddafi, the victim's cousin, told Libya Al Ahrar TV that Saif al-Islam "was martyred."

Moussa Ibrahim, Gaddafi's former spokesman, denounced the assassination as a "treacherous" act, stating that he had spoken with Saif al-Islam two days before his death. "He wanted a united and sovereign Libya, safe for all its inhabitants. They have murdered hope and the future, and sown hatred and resentment," he wrote.

The Libyan prosecutor's office has launched an investigation to identify those responsible for the assassination. Brigade 444, a militia affiliated with the Ministry of Defense of the Government of National Accord based in Tripoli, categorically denied any involvement in the terrorist attack.

A life marked by imperialist aggression against Libya

In 2011, Muammar Gaddafi was killed near Sirte, his hometown. After more than four decades at the helm of Libya, the Libyan leader was captured by French NATO troops while in hiding. After being rescued from a drainage tunnel where he had taken refuge following the bombing of his convoy by NATO, the African leader was killed by French troops. His body, displayed for several days in Misrata, was finally buried in a secret location in the Libyan desert.

More than fourteen years after this tragic end, history seems to be repeating itself in the figure of his son, Saif al-Islam, born in 1972 in Tripoli. For a long time, Saif al-Islam was considered his father's successor. Educated in Europe, where he earned a degree in architecture and later a doctorate in Austria, he became a key figure in Libya.

During the 2011 uprising, he supported the fight against the coup plotters, and, following the dictates of the imperialists, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him for crimes against humanity related to the NATO-sponsored uprising.

Captured in November 2011 in the south of the country while trying to reach Niger, Saif al-Islam was held for several years in Zintan by local militias. Sentenced to death in absentia in 2015 by a Tripoli court, he was finally released in 2017 thanks to an amnesty granted by the government of eastern Libya.

Since his release, Saif al-Islam has lived discreetly, traveling under protection in the Zintan region. In 2021, he announced his candidacy for the presidential elections, initially scheduled for December of that year. This move garnered significant attention, as his supporters presented him as the only candidate capable of reuniting a country divided and embroiled in more than a decade of civil war.

The elections, repeatedly postponed due to political divisions, were never held. Saif al-Islam's candidacy remained a central element in debates about the country's political future.

The assassination of Saif al-Islam comes as Libya remains a devastated country, more than fourteen years after the brutal overthrow of Gaddafi. Two governments are vying for control of the country: the UN-recognized Government of National Accord, based in Tripoli and led by Abdelhamid Dbeibah, and a Benghazi-based administration backed by Khalifa Haftar and his sons, who have extended their military presence across the south.

Source: https://mpr21.info/asesinan-al-hijo-de-gadafi-en-una-atentado-terrorista-en-libia/

Jeffrey Epstein’s corrupt overclass: How do you purge a ruling elite?

 

Mary Harrington
3 Feb 2026

Poor Starmer. Finding himself accused of looking the other way during one grooming gang scandal might be attributed to misfortune. But two? That seems, at the very least, like carelessness. As the furore deepens around new revelations on the favours traded between Labour peer Peter Mandelson, and paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein, opposition MPs are calling for a Cabinet Office investigation. What did Starmer know, when he picked Mandelson as US Ambassador?

But the Epstein horror show has more in common with Britain’s rape gang scandal than just Starmer’s apparent wish to avoid grasping any awkward nettles. Both involved the grooming and trafficking of vulnerable girls. Both convened a close-knit network of depraved insiders, some bonded by sexual degeneracy and linked through a host of further personal and economic ties. Both have a way of bubbling to the surface at intervals, triggering horror and disgust, then disappearing off the front pages again.

Both scandals also implicate the entire political regime in which they occurred. By rights, both Rotherham and Epstein ought to be extinction-level events for these respective (in fact, interlocking) regimes. But somehow, public life staggers on. After all, how would we go about purging an entire national ruling class, let alone a transnational billionaire one with a combined net worth greater than many nation states?

It’s a bit like that joke about a rickety house, only standing because the termites in the woodwork are holding hands. If you booted everyone touched by this corruption from public life, would there even be anyone left? The list of luminaries connected to Epstein reads like a Who’s Who of the overclass. Epstein claimed Bill Gates caught an STD from Russian girls, and tried surreptitiously to slip his then-wife Melinda antibiotics. Prince Andrew pulled strings at RAF bases for Epstein’s private jet, and pumped him for investment in a warzone where British soldiers were still being killed. Bill Clinton; Woody Allen; Mick Jagger; Kevin Spacey. Bankers, plutocrats, lawyers, politicians, stars of music and film. Those exposed insist that — in Clinton’s famous words about being handed a joint at college — they didn’t inhale. They were just at the parties, and somehow didn’t register all the little girls being served up like Ferrero Rocher.

In the public reaction, it’s generally been the sexual depravity that has elicited the most visceral disgust. This is understandable, especially when this comes with a backbeat of still-darker rumours, that shade from sex trafficking into Gothic horror. Buried amid the files, for example, is one in which a man alleges he was raped by “George Bush 1” and that he witnessed babies dismembered and faeces eaten. Another alleges that Donald Trump witnessed the killing of her newborn baby, whom she birthed aged just 13. Then there’s the video footage of a hysterical Mexican model in Monterrey in 2009, screaming in the street after attending an “elite” party about how “they ate a person”, only to vanish off the face of the Earth that very night. No one knows much about the context, or if it’s even related to Epstein, but especially in the light of the latest revelations it’s doing the conspiracy rounds again.

The Epstein files contain many documents that are unverified, and could be hearsay or libel. High-profile abuse cases sometimes attract fantasists. It is eminently possible that many of the more baroque papers in these millions of documents may be untrue. But conspiracy theories can both be factually false, sometimes with grossly exaggerated or fantastical details, while still speaking poetically to something that is true. It can both be pure fantasy that anyone was literally killing babies on yachts — and also accurate that real children had their lives destroyed by Epstein. Horror and disgust is the right response.

But what is harder to parse, and yet is arguably more consequential, is the social picture that emerges from these files. Epstein’s emails convey the sense of a world that operates on terms completely alien to those by which normal people live. This is, I think, the real source of the swirling conspiracy theories about occult cabals and the like: the correct intuition that something doesn’t have to be “occult” in the sense of pentagrams, to be occult in the sense of being hidden.

Epstein was a node in a world that is precisely occult in this sense, available only to those with table-stakes high enough to participate. He emerges as a consummate flatterer, adept at brokering links between cultural and financial capital. One novelist reported, after attending a dinner arranged by Epstein for Les Wexner, his first billionaire client, that “Les seemed like this rumpled, sweaty schlub. He was so ill at ease. And there was Jeffrey facilitating the conversation.” Later, as Epstein’s power increased, he’s revealed as bartering favours, introductions, and insider access in every direction, majordomo for an intricate interpersonal economy of perks and privileges.

Everyone is now trying to make the revelations a scandal for their enemies in particular. But it’s clear that at the level on which Epstein operated, political “sides” are not real. To take one illustrative example, the Financial Times reports that Epstein pulled strings in 2019 to obtain an exclusive golf-club membership for Brad Karp, chair of the prestigious Wall Street law firm Paul, Weiss — and that he did so with the help of Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon. Yet the same report also shows that Epstein set out to arrange meetings with himself, Karp, and Kathy Ruemmler, now at Goldman Sachs and former general counsel under Barack Obama.

Money, though, was real, in Epstein’s network; money and influence. In Mandelson’s case, for instance, emails between him and Epstein show him putting pressure on the British government to water down proposed curbs on bankers’ bonuses, in the wake of the financial crash. Geopolitics is real, but can be transcended if you know how: Sergey Belyakov, a Russian FSB officer, wanted Epstein’s advice on evading sanctions. Clout is real too: for Wexner, Epstein provided glittery guests. Karp wanted an exclusive golf-club membership. Elon Musk wanted “the wildest party”. Richard Branson wanted the “harem”. Sarah Ferguson wanted a lifestyle she couldn’t afford. The mind recoils from what Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor wanted.

For everyone, their heart’s desire; the thing they will do almost anything to get. Identifying and trading in such desires seems to have been Epstein’s superpower. But surely this miasma of upscale corruption didn’t touch everyone, or did not taint everyone to the same degree? The insurance mogul Robert Meister, who introduced Epstein to his first billionaire client, told Vanity Fair that the last straw in his mounting dislike of the financier came when Epstein turned up at his house with a bevy of young models, apparently for his sexual entertainment. Meister was, he said, not tempted: he told Epstein to leave and never come back. Angel Ureña, a spokesman for Bill Clinton, recently claimed that this was also the case with Clinton, and that he cut ties in 2005, before Epstein’s 2008 conviction on a charge of procuring a minor for prostitution.

Who knows. Mandy Rice-Davies, another teenage girl molested long ago by a powerful man, famously said when told that Lord Astor denied it: “Well he would, wouldn’t he?” Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor also would, wouldn’t he, claiming to have cut ties with Epstein long before he actually did. Trump likewise claims the latest document drop “absolves” him, though his enemies retort that millions of files remain under wraps. Mandelson claimed he’d cut ties with Epstein some years back, only for the latest document drop to show that far from doing so, he was asking Epstein for advice on property buying and may well have leaked confidential government documents to him, even after Epstein’s conviction.

Now, whether it’s the influence-peddling or the snapshot in his scanties, the game seems to be up. Now, the once apparently unassailable “Prince of Darkness”, already fired as Keir Starmer’s man in Washington due to Epstein ties, has resigned from the Labour Party and declared that he won’t be returning to the House of Lords. Starmer, ever on the communications front foot, responded to this statement by indicating he does not think Mandelson should sit in the House of Lords.

So that’s all fine then. Except it isn’t. There is no suggestion that Mandelson was implicated in sexual abuse. But the girls were never the main action anyway. For what’s also clear is that Mandelson was just one actor in a sprawling, incestuous web, that will outlive Epstein, and in which I suspect the household-name celebrities and public figures currently making headlines (and headaches for the Prime Minister) often counted for less in power-broking terms than those less high-profile but seriously influential in politics, finance, or law. For some in this group, raping trafficked children may have been a fun diversion. But the real frisson — and Epstein’s real work — lay in the subtler and more varied trade, in things that money can’t buy.

The nihilistic overclass of transnational kleptocrats and their hangers-on Epstein catered to in this occult marketplace operated, and still operates, at a level where political principle simply does not feature, let alone the moral or spiritual kind. There’s only whatever you want, and whatever strings you are willing or able to pull for someone else, in exchange for it. This was the real feast; those poor violated girls were just the amuse-bouche.

VIDEO:  

Source: https://unherd.com/2026/02/jeffrey-epsteins-corrupt-overclass/

Venezuela Approves Pro-Business Oil Reform as Trump Issues New Sanctions Waiver

Under the new law, the Venezuelan government can discretionally reduce taxes and royalties to ensure that projects are “internationally competitive.”  

Ricardo Vaz January 30, 2026 

Caracas, January 30, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan National Assembly has approved a sweeping reform of the country’s 2001 Hydrocarbon Law that rolls back the state’s role in the energy sector in favor of private capital.

Legislators unanimously endorsed the bill at its second discussion on Thursday, with only opposition deputy Henrique Capriles abstaining. The legislative overhaul follows years of US sanctions against the Venezuelan oil industry and a naval blockade imposed in December.

National Assembly President Jorge Rodríguez hailed the vote a “historic day” and claimed the new bill will lead oil production to “skyrocket.” 

“The reform will make the oil sector much more competitive for national and foreign corporations to extract crude,” he told reporters. “We are implementing mechanisms that have proven very successful.”

Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez signed and enacted the law after the parliamentary session, claiming that the industry will be guided by “the best international practices” and undertake a “historic leap forward.”

Former President Hugo Chávez revamped the country’s oil legislation in 2001 and introduced further reforms in 2006 and 2007 to assert the Venezuelan state’s primacy over the industry. Policies included a mandatory stakeholding majority for state oil company PDVSA in joint ventures, PDVSA control over operations and sales, and increased royalties and income tax to 30 and 50 percent, respectively. Increased oil revenues bankrolled the Venezuelan government’s expanded social programs in the 2000s.

The text approved during Thursday’s legislative session, following meetings between Venezuelan authorities and oil executives, went further than the draft preliminarily endorsed one week earlier.

The final version of the legislation establishes 30 percent as an upper bound for royalties, with the Venezuelan government given the discretionary power to determine the rate for each project. A 33 percent extraction tax in the present law was scrapped in favor of an “integrated hydrocarbon tax” to be set by the executive with a 15 percent limit.

Similarly, the Venezuelan government can reduce income taxes for companies involved in oil activities while also granting several other fiscal exemptions. The bill cites the “need to ensure international competitiveness” as a factor to be considered when decreasing royalty and tax demands for private corporations.

The reform additionally grants operational and sales control to minority partners and private contractors. PDVSA can furthermore lease out oilfields and projects in exchange for a fixed portion of extracted crude. The new legislation likewise allows disputes to be settled by outside arbitration instances.

Thursday’s legislative reform was immediately followed by a US Treasury general license allowing US corporations to re-engage with the Venezuelan oil sector.

General License 46 (GL46) authorizes US firms to purchase and market Venezuelan crude while demanding that contracts be subjected to US jurisdiction so potential disputes are referred to US courts. The license bars transactions with companies from Russia, Iran, North Korea, or Cuba. Concerning China, it only blocks dealings with Venezuelan joint ventures with Chinese involvement.

Economist Francisco Rodríguez pointed out that the sanctions waiver does not explicitly allow for production or investment and that companies would require an additional license before signing contracts with Venezuelan authorities.

GL46 also mandates that payments to blocked agents, including PDVSA, be made to the US Foreign Government Deposit Funds or another account defined by the US Treasury Department.

Following the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration has vowed to take control of the Venezuelan oil industry by administering crude transactions. Proceeds from initial sales have been deposited in US-run bank accounts in Qatar, with a portion rerouted to Caracas for forex injections run by private banks. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowed that the resources will begin to be channeled to US Treasury accounts in the near future.

In a press conference on Friday, Trump said his administration is “very happy” with the actions of Venezuelan authorities and would soon invite other countries to get involved in the Caribbean nation’s oil industry. Rubio had previously argued that Caracas “deserved credit” for the oil reform that “eradicates Chávez-era restrictions on private investments.”

Despite the White House’s calls for substantial investment, Western oil corporations have expressed reservations over major projects in the Venezuelan energy sector. Chevron, the largest US company operating in the country, stated that it is looking to fund increased production with revenues from oil sales as opposed to new capital commitments.

Since 2017, Venezuela’s oil industry has been under wide-reaching US unilateral coercive measures, including financial sanctions and an export embargo, in an effort to strangle the country’s most important revenue source. The US Treasury Department has also levied and threatened secondary sanctions against third-country companies to deter involvement in the Venezuelan petroleum sector.

Source:  https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/venezuela-approves-pro-business-oil-reform-as-trump-issues-new-sanctions-waiver/

From Herzl to Trump: Gaza, the “Peace Council” and the new administration of chaos

Laala Bechetoula
31 January 2026 

The first projectile was a word

Wars don't begin with tanks, drones, or sirens. They begin with language. Long before the first missile, words had already done their work. They had prepared the moral ground, categorized human beings, redefined categories, and shifted entire peoples from the realm of humanity to that of a problem to be managed. At that precise moment, killing ceased to appear as a transgression. It became a rational necessity.

Gaza is not the product of a sudden lapse or an accidental escalation. It is the culmination of a long process during which the Palestinian was progressively stripped of his status as a political actor, then as a moral subject, before being reduced to a security variable, a burden, a civilizational obstacle. From the colonial formulations of the late 19th century to the most blatant Trumpism, the grammar has remained the same: deny existence, dehumanize presence, sacralize force, and then solicit Western approval in the name of civilization, security, or peace. What has changed is not the logic, but its degree of exposure. 

The Colonial Grammar of Erasure

Early Zionist political discourse did not simply describe Palestine. It reinvented it through language. The land was presented as empty or under-exploited, while its indigenous population was relegated to the status of a marginal, backward, or invisible element. This operation was not accidental, because every colonial project requires a foundational linguistic gesture, one that transforms a living society into a technical problem.

Once this threshold is crossed, expulsion becomes administration, domination becomes development, and violence is morphed into planning. Violence never initially appears as cruelty. It presents itself as a program.

This is where the first phase of erasure takes place: not physical elimination, but conceptual degradation. When a people is deprived of the right to be perceived as a historical subject, it becomes available to be treated as mere matter.

1948: When Violence Becomes Procedure

The Nakba of 1948 is often recounted as the tragic consequence of war. Yet, placed within the continuum of the discourses that preceded it, it appears differently. The expulsion had already been conceived, discussed, and justified. The war did not create the outcome; it facilitated its execution.

The issue is not so much one of intentions as it is one of the enduring nature of the political imagination. A people long designated as a “demographic problem” was suddenly treated as a logistical matter. It is here that violence becomes procedure.

One of the major lessons of this trajectory is that modern atrocities do not require hatred. They require preparation. When an outcome has been sufficiently rehearsed and normalized by language, its implementation appears administrative, cold, almost banal.

Occupation as Destiny

After 1967, the occupation ceased to be presented as temporary. It crystallized into destiny. Palestinians are no longer seen as parties to a conflict open to negotiation, but as a permanent security condition requiring indefinite management. The permanent threat justifies permanent measures.

From this point on, moral time is suspended. For one people, history continues—elections, diplomacy, development. For the other, time is frozen in an endless emergency, where the law becomes flexible, rights conditional, and survival negotiable. Injustice no longer needs justification. It becomes routine. 

Dehumanizing to Govern

Over the years, the discourse crosses a further threshold. Animal, parasitic, or pathological metaphors cease to be marginal. They permeate institutional language. Their importance lies not in the insult, but in their effectiveness.

Dehumanization reduces the cost of violence, transforms the deaths of civilians into background noise, renders hospitals suspect, and makes children statistically negligible. When a system succeeds in converting victims into categories, suffering no longer disrupts the established order; it reinforces it.
Gaza, a contemporary laboratory of force

Since the early 2000s, Gaza has functioned as a laboratory. Sieges, collective punishment, and disproportionate deterrence are being experimented with there. The lexicon of the “war on terror” provides the ideal camouflage: preemption, disproportion, deterrence. 

In the years between 2023 and 2025, the process reaches its full maturity. Innocence is openly denied, famine is reclassified as pressure, displacement becomes a humanitarian necessity, and mass destruction is narrated as legitimate self-defense. Gaza ceases to be a space governed by law; it becomes a space of exception. It is not chaos, but a methodically organized disorder.

Trump: Violence Without Euphemisms

Donald Trump did not create this architecture. He simply stripped it of its euphemisms. When he speaks of taking control or possessing Gaza, he makes explicit what has long been implicit. Gaza is no longer treated as a society under occupation, but as an asset to be redistributed.

The break is qualitative. Violence is no longer justified solely by security. It is reformulated in the language of property and redevelopment. War gives way to real estate. Palestinians are no longer enemies to be defeated, but populations to be displaced, absorbed, or eliminated—variables in a transactional equation.

The “Peace Council”: Administering Without Judging

The “Peace Council” project fits perfectly into this logic. Presented as a stabilization mechanism, it nevertheless detaches itself from international law, universal responsibility, and the consent of those most directly affected.

Its logic is selective: legitimacy through invitation, authority through proximity to power, peace defined as conformity. This is not a peace founded on justice, but on the management of outcomes. When power abandons the language of law, it adopts that of administration—and calls it order. The Council does not seek to address the crime. It administers its consequences.

Identity, Immunity, and the End of Accountability

When Trump agrees to be publicly designated as “the first Jewish president,” the gesture transcends mere symbolism. It signals a cultural shift: politics is no longer defended by legality or ethics, but by identity alignment.

In this climate, criticism becomes treason, and accountability becomes hostility. The destruction of Gaza is no longer debated as a crime, but absorbed into a ritual of belonging. Thus, extremist policies acquire not legal, but emotional, immunity.

Gaza and the World to Come

What Gaza reveals is not merely the collapse of safeguards, but the emergence of a new governing imagination: a violence that no longer needs to be denied, a suffering that no longer demands resolution, a peace divorced from justice.

The old international order, despite its many hypocrisies, still claimed universality. The new one is openly conditional: rights are earned, protection is selective, law becomes optional. This is not a return to barbarism, but something more disturbing: a civilized administration of cruelty.

Fall

The trajectory is now clear. First words. Then policies. Then weapons. Today, structures. Gaza is not merely destroyed; it is replaced by plans, councils, frameworks, and deals designed to stabilize the outcome rather than confront the crime. The first projectile was a word. The second, a policy. The third is an administration. If this model prevails, Gaza will not remain an exception: it will become a precedent. 

 

Source: https://reseauinternational.net/de-herzl-a-trump-gaza-le-conseil-de-la-paix-et-la-nouvelle-administration-du-chaos/ 

The United Arab Emirates denies authorisation for US to attack Iran from its territory.

mpr21
January 28, 2026    

Trump's recent announcement regarding the deployment of a US naval fleet to the Middle East has captured the attention of countries in the region. The threat, which involves deploying military forces to pressure Iran, has provoked strong reactions from neighboring countries, including the United Arab Emirates, which has decided to protect its territory, airspace, maritime areas, and land from any hostile military action.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement warning that the country will not authorize any attack against Iran from its territory (*). The announcement comes as the US fleet, which includes warships and an aircraft carrier, heads to the region, reinforcing the US military presence in the Middle East.

The official statement underscores the importance the UAE attaches to the security of its territory. Any use of its airspace for attacks against Iran would be unacceptable and contrary to its policy. This stance seeks to prevent any incident involving its territory in military operations that do not directly concern it.

The UAE's refusal to allow the use of its airspace for attacks against Iran directly limits some of the US military's logistical and strategic options. Trump's naval deployment, while powerful, will have to focus on areas where it can operate without territorial restrictions. This could influence the choice of positions and supply points for potential military operations.

The decision also underscores the vigilance of the Gulf states in managing their regional diplomacy. The UAE refuses to be used as a springboard for offensive operations against another sovereign state. This reinforces the need for the United States to consider local political constraints when planning its military actions.

The official statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirms that the defense of Emirati territory and the security of its airspace and maritime borders remain absolute priorities and sends a strong signal to the region, illustrating the determination to remain neutral in the face of the anticipated US aggression against Iran.

Saudi Arabia has adopted the same stance as the United Arab Emirates and will not facilitate a US attack against Iran, Mohammed bin Salman said yesterday in a telephone conversation with Iranian Prime Minister Masoud Pezeshkian.

 

(*) https://www.lefigaro.fr/international/les-emirats-arabes-unis-n-autoriseront-pas-d-attaques-contre-l-iran-depuis-leur-sol-20260126 

Source:  https://mpr21.info/emiratos-arabes-unidos-no-autoriza-a-trump-a-atacar-iran-desde-su-territorio/