REVANCHISM

Lithuania takes further step towards lifting nuclear weapons ban

Copyright Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP

By Giedre Peseckyte

Published on 06/10/2026 - EURONEWS

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Lithuania’s move, alongside broader plans to expand US and NATO military infrastructure in the region, risked further escalating tensions.

Lithuania has taken a step towards removing a constitutional ban on nuclear weapons from its territory, bringing the Baltic state closer to the legal position of its neighbours as European allies debate how to strengthen NATO’s deterrence in the face of Russia.

The Lithuanian parliament, the Seimas, voted 106-18, with six abstentions, on Tuesday to advance a constitutional amendment removing a provision that bars weapons of mass destruction and foreign military bases from Lithuanian territory.

The change still requires a second vote after a constitutionally mandated three-month waiting period. At least 94 of the Seimas’ 141 members must back it on both occasions. The final vote is expected on January 12.

“This constitutional amendment would enable Lithuania’s armed forces to participate fully in the planning and exercises of all of NATO’s deterrence measures,” said Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, leader of the Liberal Movement parliamentary group.

Currently, Article 137 of the Lithuanian Constitution stipulates that weapons of mass destruction and military bases of foreign states may not be located in Lithuania, which borders Belarus and Russia’s Kaliningrad exclave. This means that under current laws, allied aircraft or ships carrying nuclear weapons could not enter Lithuanian territory for deterrence purposes.

Added urgency in Lithuania's case

Supporters of the amendment argue that the constitutional provision has become a legal obstacle to Lithuania’s full participation in NATO’s nuclear deterrence arrangements and leaves the country at a disadvantage compared with other NATO allies.

“Our neighbouring countries, such as Latvia, Estonia and Poland, have no such restrictions either,” Remigijus Motuzas, chairman of the Seimas Foreign Affairs Committee, said during a parliamentary session in September. “We cannot be less protected than other NATO countries. We must send a signal that Lithuania is a full part of NATO’s nuclear deterrence.”

NATO describes nuclear deterrence as part of its collective defence, alongside conventional and missile-defence capabilities. The Alliance also says its nuclear policy remains consistent with its commitments to arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation.

For Lithuania, the issue has taken on added urgency. “NATO deterrence, including nuclear deterrence, is part of collective defence,” Motuzas said, adding that Russia has rapidly modernised its nuclear arsenal in recent years and deployed nuclear weapons close to Lithuania — in Kaliningrad and Belarus.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that Lithuania’s move, alongside broader plans to expand US and NATO military infrastructure in the region, risked further escalating tensions, Reuters reported.

The warnings come as Russia has stepped up its nuclear rhetoric towards NATO. Moscow recently threatened nuclear retaliation in the event of what it described as attempts to isolate its Kaliningrad exclave, which borders Lithuania and Poland.

Finland has already made the move

Lithuania is not acting in isolation.

Finland, which joined NATO in 2023 after decades of military non-alignment, removed its own statutory prohibition on nuclear weapons earlier this year, citing the need to ensure that Finnish law did not restrict the country’s ability to fulfil its obligations as a NATO ally.

In June, the Finnish parliament approved amendments to the Nuclear Energy Act repealing the country’s ban on nuclear explosives. The legislation entered into force on July 1.

“This historic reform strengthens the security of Finland and of NATO as a whole,” Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen said on X.

Helsinki has stressed, however, that the change does not mean Finland intends to acquire or host nuclear weapons, and that NATO has no plans to station them there.

Finland has since joined a French-led initiative aimed at strengthening European security through closer cooperation on nuclear deterrence. French President Emmanuel Macron has proposed what Paris calls “forward deterrence” — closer cooperation with European allies around France’s independent nuclear capabilities.

The United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Denmark, and Norway have already signed up to France's initiative.

‘This Scheme Is a Poison Pill’: Trump Blasted Over Federal School Voucher Program

“Instead of strengthening public education,” said one union leader, “Trump is diverting $500 billion in taxpayer cash into private hands, with everyone else left fighting for scraps in a real-life Hunger Games.”


Students read in the library of Harriet Tubman Elementary School in Washington, DC after an event to celebrate the completion of a $91 million modernization project on September 28, 2026.
(Photo by Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)

Jessica Corbett
Oct 02, 2026
C0MMON DREAMS

The US Department of the Treasury this week released proposed regulations for the first federal “school choice” program, as proponents call it, drawing a fresh wave of condemnation from critics who have expressed concerns since President Donald Trump signed last year’s Republican budget package.

“The Trump administration’s proposed rules confirm what we expected, that their federal private school voucher program is designed to direct public resources to private schools and organizations and will provide little benefit to the 90% of children who attend public schools,” said Demetria McCain, director of policy at the Legal Defense Fund, in a Friday statement.

“Instead of using federal resources to serve all children, this administration has dismantled the Department of Education, weakened long-standing civil rights protections, and worked to build a two-tiered system of education that benefits a select few,” McCain continued. “Our children deserve better.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act established the Education Freedom Tax Credit, which is set to begin next year. According to the Treasury Department, under the proposed rules, eligible taxpayers could claim an annual credit of up to $1,700—or $3,400 for married couples filing jointly—for contributions to scholarship granting organizations (SGOs).

The program is widely seen as a scheme to funnel tax dollars toward private school tuition, but the department noted that the rules would also allow scholarships to support “academic tutoring, special needs services, books, supplies, computers and other equipment, and other qualifying expenses connected with a student’s enrollment or attendance.”

That “aspect of the program has put Democratic governors in a bind,” The Washington Post reported Thursday. There is no cost to states that participate, but “governors must approve all SGOs that meet the rules. States that want to opt into the program for the benefit of public school students will have to allow private school vouchers as well, and vice versa.”

As the Post detailed:
Governors have until January 1 to opt in. Thirty mostly Republican-led states have already joined. Most of the remaining states that have not rejected the plan are led by Democrats.

The proposed regulations include income limits for eligible families, protections for scholarship funds, and details on how the funds can be used. States cannot restrict the types of schools that benefit, Treasury and Education department officials said, meaning public funds could go toward a religious school that bars LGBTQ students or a private school that doesn’t have certified teachers.

Among the Democrats facing some calls to opt out are New York Gov. Kathy Hochul—who, as Chalkbeat pointed out, “has said she plans to participate unless she finds a ‘poison pill’ in the program,” but “declined Thursday to make it official.”

New York State United Teachers president Melinda Person declared Thursday that “the regulations are loaded with poison pills. If New York opts in, the state would be prohibited from setting standards for scholarship organizations, deciding which organizations can participate, or limiting the types of schools and expenses that receive these federal tax dollars.”

“That means New York could be forced to help funnel taxpayer-subsidized dollars to private schools that have admissions policies and practices that would never be acceptable in our public schools, while being denied the authority to put stronger safeguards around the program,” Person warned. “New York puts its name on the program, but Washington writes the rules.”

“We take responsibility for participating, but surrender much of our ability to determine where the money goes and what standards recipients must meet,” she added. “This isn’t local control. It is a one-way door into a federally designed voucher program, one that could use public resources to support schools that discriminate, while stripping New York of the ability to provide the protections New Yorkers expect. Gov. Hochul should make clear now that New York will not walk through that door.”

Josh Cowen, a Michigan State University education policy professor who authored the book The Privateers: How Billionaires Created a Culture War and Sold School Vouchers, laid out the “good” and “bad” of the regulations on social media Thursday.

Leaders at the nation’s two largest teachers unions also weighed in. National Education Association president Princess Moss said that “with back-to-school in the rearview mirror, more Americans are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of school supplies, packed lunches, and gas continues to outpace salaries and paychecks.”

“Instead of helping families make ends meet, the Trump administration is once again putting its thumb on the scale for private school vouchers at the expense of the public schools that serve 90% of America’s students,” she asserted. “At a time when educators, students, and families are calling for more resources to strengthen neighborhood public schools, this administration is advancing a plan to divert taxpayer dollars to subsidize private education for a select few.”

“We will closely review the Treasury Department’s new voucher regulations and continue fighting to ensure public funds remain invested in public schools where every student—regardless of their race, ZIP code, disability, family income, or immigration status—can learn, grow, and thrive,” Moss pledged. “America’s students deserve policies that expand opportunity, not vouchers that leave most children behind.”

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten similarly charged that “this scheme is a poison pill for the 90% of American children who attend public schools. Instead of strengthening public education, President Trump is diverting $500 billion in taxpayer cash into private hands, with everyone else left fighting for scraps in a real-life Hunger Games.”

While the Congressional Budget Office estimated the program would cost the federal government $26 billion in lost revenue over the next decade, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy has found it could cost up to $51 billion per year. A January report from US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) noted that’s more than the combined federal spending on programs to support students with disabilities and those who are from low-income backgrounds.

Weingarten said that “state governors should reject it—not least of all because they will have no say or oversight over how the vouchers operate. The reality is that for every precious public dollar funneled to private schools—money that could be spent on instruction, lowering class sizes, modern buildings, or new books in the library—public school parents will be hunting for pennies on the floor.”

“This isn’t about ‘school choice’; it’s the about the school’s choice: Private schools can simply refuse to accept poor kids, those with special needs, or those with different religions. And they can refuse to submit to the basic accountability measures their backers hypocritically demand of public schools,” she stressed. “If this were really about ‘choice’ then the administration would be trying to help public schools succeed, rather than eviscerating them.”

“This is yet another cruel chapter in the Trump’s administration’s war on families after the Big, Ugly Bill slashed trillions in support for young people by gutting Medicaid, food assistance, and student loans,” she continued. “If we are serious about the promise of education, then we have an obligation to make every public school a place where parents want to send their kids, educators want to work, and kids thrive.”

The union leader argued that “instead of this voucher scheme, we should commit to creating safe and welcoming schools with a curriculum that is engaging, relevant, and rigorous. That means multiple pathways to career and college, expanding community schools, focusing on literacy and critical thinking, and protecting children against the perils of artificial intelligence while harnessing its potential. These regulations do the exact opposite.”

Trump Administration Sued Over ‘Callous Giveaway to Big Oil and Big Auto’

One environmental advocate said the Trump administration’s rollback of fuel efficiency standards “will mean wasted gas, more air pollution, and higher costs for Americans who are already struggling with high fuel prices.”


Traffic backs up on Interstate 405 during the morning commute at sunrise on January 15, 2026, in Los Angeles, California.
(Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Oct 02, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A coalition of environmental groups filed a lawsuit Friday seeking to block the Trump administration’s rollback of fuel efficiency standards, which they called a “giveaway” to the oil and auto industries.

Earlier this week, the US Department of Transportation finalized a rule weakening Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, which require automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicles each year.

The Biden administration required annual fuel-efficiency improvements aimed at bringing the average for new vehicles to 50.4 miles per gallon by 2031. Under the Trump administration’s new rule, the 2031 requirement would fall below the 35.4 mpg already achieved by the 2024 fleet, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) own analysis.

NHTSA estimated that as a result of the rule change, Americans will consume roughly 122 billion more gallons of gas by 2050 than they would have under the old standards, increasing average lifetime fuel costs by more than $1,600 per vehicle—more than the roughly $1,300 the administration has claimed they’ll save on average in upfront vehicle costs.

It is also projected to add about 1 billion additional metric tons of CO2 emissions by 2050 compared with retaining the previous standards—equivalent to more than six months’ worth of emissions from the entire US transportation sector.

“Oil companies will profit from less efficient cars, but drivers will take a hit to their wallets and our kids will breathe dirtier air,” said David Pettit, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s (CBD) Climate Law Institute. “We’ll all pay the price for more tailpipe pollutants spewing everywhere from playgrounds to wild places. We’re asking the courts to put a stop to this callous giveaway to Big Oil and Big Auto.”

CBD was joined by the Conservation Law Foundation, Environmental Defense Fund, Public Citizen, and Sierra Club, which filed a petition on Friday to ask an appeals court to review the rule change. They argue that the rollback is illegal because federal law requires NHTSA to set fuel-economy standards at the “maximum feasible” level manufacturers can achieve.

“The Trump administration’s rollback will mean wasted gas, more air pollution, and higher costs for Americans who are already struggling with high fuel prices,” said Andy Su, senior transportation attorney at Environmental Defense Fund. “We’re going to court to oppose this dangerous U-turn away from decades of successful work to make our cars more efficient and less expensive to drive.”

Palestinian Researcher Dismantles Israel’s List of So-Called ‘Terrorist’ Journalists Slain in Gaza

Researcher Muhammad Shehada reviewed all 170 names on the IDF’s list of supposed militants posing as journalists and found it to be “the most sloppy shameless fraud possible.”


Palestinian journalists work with cameras, laptops and limited equipment from makeshift press areas as they continue reporting from Gaza City on International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Journalists, in Gaza City, Palestine, on September 26, 2026.
(Photo by Saeed M. M. T. Jaras/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Oct 04, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Seeking to discredit reports of its unprecedented killing of journalists in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces last week published a list of 170 slain Palestinians it claimed were not legitimate media workers but members of “terrorist groups.”

Palestinian political analyst Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, reviewed every single entry on the list. He called it “the most sloppy shameless fraud possible.”

Israeli officials and Western supporters have trumpeted the IDF’s list as a counter to findings by groups like International Federation of Journalists, which has described Israel’s nearly-three-year-old-war in Gaza as “the deadliest period in the history of journalism” and cataloged at least 240 journalists and media workers killed.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has found dozens of cases in which it concluded journalists were targeted deliberately because of their reporting and filed multiple complaints with the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleging war crimes against the press.

The database, which the IDF refers to as the “Press Files,” says “that claim does not tell the full story” and states that “individuals presented as innocent journalists were, in fact, militants in the military wings of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and other terrorist organizations.”

The IDF claims the list was the product of an “in-depth investigation” consisting of open-source information, documents recovered by Israeli forces in Gaza, interrogations of alleged Palestinian militants, and intelligence gathered during military operations.

But as Shehada explained in a thread posted to social media on Sunday, “In the overwhelming majority of those listed, the IDF presents ZERO credible evidence. In most of them, their pages are literally blank.”



In 59 cases, Shehada found that the IDF did not provide any evidence for its claim that a journalist was a member of Hamas or PIJ other than that the claim was “based on multiple intelligence sources.”

Shehada said this amounted to essentially saying “trust me, bro,” which is especially insufficient given the numerous instances in which the IDF has been found to have misled the public about its responsibility for certain attacks, like the killing of 5-year-old Hind Rajab in 2024.

In another 42 cases, Shehada found, the IDF provided only decontextualized “snippets” of files, which were “undated and unspecified.” Without more information, Shehada said, this is “not... evidence of anything.”

“Those snippets could be taken from random files; they could be outdated or fabricated,” Shehada said, pointing to previous cases in which purported Hamas intelligence circulated by Israeli sources was later revealed to be misleadingly presented as fabricated.



Shehada pointed to specific cases in which Israel’s allegations against specific journalists have been undermined by the underlying evidence.

Israel claimed that Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul, whom the IDF killed in July 2024, was an operative with Hamas’ elite Nukhba wing and released a supposed Hamas personnel document as proof.

But as Reporters Without Borders has previously explained, the document says al-Ghoul, born in 1997, received a military rank in 2007, when he was 10, while elsewhere saying he joined in 2014. It also identifies him as an engineer, contradicting the IDF’s description of him as a Nukhba fighter. Israeli troops also detained al-Ghoul at al-Shifa hospital months before he was killed but released him after 12 hours.

The case of Anas al-Sharif, another Al Jazeera journalist killed in 2025, is similar. As Shehada documented for +972 magazine last year, al-Sharif was seriously injured in 2017, listed in a military context in 2019, but described as “suspended” and “unassigned” by 2023—while another document nevertheless portrays him as an elite Nukhba fighter. He was also reportedly detained and released by Israeli forces during the 2024 al-Shifa raid.

In other cases, the IDF’s evidence outright debunks the military’s own claims. For instance, Israel labeled photojournalist Hassan Aslih—killed by an airstrike at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in May 2025—as a “military operative.” But the 2019 Hamas document provided as evidence for this lists him as a “photographer” involved with “media services.”


While the document, if authentic, does establish a relationship between Aslih and Hamas’ Qassam Brigades at least six years before his death, this does not make him a legitimate target under international humanitarian law, which distinguishes between those who have a “continuous combat function” and those who provide political or other indirect forms of support, like media coverage.

Shehada found at least seven cases in which the only evidence provided by the IDF was photos of slain journalists holding guns. In another 12 cases, the IDF provided undated photos of journalists allegedly taking part in Hamas or PIJ military activities.

Shehada noted that many prominent Israeli journalists also have past military service, such as Axios correspondent Barak Ravid, who was an IDF reservist until 2023. “Does that make him a ‘legitimate target’? or a non-civilian forever?” Shehada asked.

Palestinian hospital staff inspect the destruction inside Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, following an Israeli strike early on May 13, 2025 in which Palestinian journalist Hassan Aslih was killed along with several others. (Photo by Eyad Baba/AFP)


The distinction between past military affiliation and active combatant status has been a repeated source of dispute for press freedom groups that have attempted to tally the number of journalists killed.

Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) completed a sweeping review of 229 deaths after Hamas and PIJ published obituaries identifying some people listed as journalists as members of armed groups.

CPJ ultimately removed 22 people from its list, including some it found had participated in combat—but retained others despite militant obituaries, gun photos, or past organizational ties when the evidence did not establish active combatant status.

The “Press Files” database contains 49 cases in which the main piece of evidence is one of these obituaries. Among them are people who CPJ examined and concluded were not active combatants, such as photojournalist Amr Abu Odeh—a 26-year-old freelance photographer for the Anadolu Agency and Reuters—whom the IDF database labels a Hamas “squad commander.”

CPJ examined photos of Odeh wearing a military uniform, which came from a 2021 military training course with Gaza’s Ministry of the Interior. The group noted that “No armed factions in Gaza have claimed Abu Odeh as being affiliated with them, and the IDF has not alleged he was involved in combat.”

“In multiple cases, despite obituaries by Hamas/PIJ, the Committee to Protect Journalists investigated thoroughly and concluded those journalists were NOT engaged in any militant activity during the genocide,” Shehada wrote. “They may have in the past. That doesn’t make them combatants forever.”

He added that the flimsiness of the IDF’s evidence was more striking given the sophistication of the intelligence unit it uses to “dig up dirt” on journalists to provide post hoc justification for their killings, which has been referred to internally as the “Legitimization Cell,” which was revealed in a +972 investigation.

“If that’s all they can provide as ”evidence“ (e.g. blank pages, random snippets, outdated docs) despite having formidable resources,” Shehada wrote, “then it’s a vindication of Gaza’s journalists!”

MSF Says Israel Is ‘Asphyxiating’ Gaza, With Palestinians Pushed Into ‘Smaller and Smaller Area’

“The yellow line cannot be treated simply as a line on a map. It has become a mechanism of encirclement and ethnic cleansing.”


A child peers through a hole in a damaged concrete wall in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza Strip, near the yellow line, on September 22, 2026.
(Photo by Faiz Qreqa/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

Julia Conley
Oct 05, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

A year after a so-called “ceasefire” deal established the Israel Defense Forces’ “yellow line” in Gaza, separating the IDF-controlled eastern part of Gaza from about 47% of the strip that was originally set aside for Palestinians, the Israeli military has crept westward, block by block—effectively “asphyxiating” Gaza’s population of 2.1 million people, as one aid group said Monday.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known by its English name, Doctors Without Borders, said that the US-backed IDF now occupies about 65% of the Gaza Strip, “squeezing people into a smaller and smaller area” and leaving Palestinians uncertain about where the yellow line begins and ends as they are forced to repeatedly move.

As World ‘Pretends There’s a Ceasefire,’ Israeli Minister Doubles Down on Gaza Expulsion Plan

“People risk being shot by Israeli forces when they approach it, and MSF teams continue to treat people with gunshot wounds sustained nearby,” said the organization.

MSF released its statement on the shifting yellow line and the organization’s struggles to provide medical aid for Palestinians days after the Danish Refugee Council reported on refugee camps near the boundary, where 80% of Palestinians interviewed by the DRC said they’ve faced water shortage and people reported rat and rodent infestations, continued food scarcity despite a ceasefire deal that required a ramp-up of humanitarian aid, and rapid spread of illnesses.

DRC accused Israel of “a policy of protracted displacement,” which was supported by MSF’s reporting Monday.

“The October 2025 ceasefire in Gaza was supposed to end civilians’ suffering,” said DRC. “Nearly a year on, it exists largely in name only. Displacement in Gaza has not ended; it has changed shape.”

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) also warned last month about the IDF’s gradual push westward through demolitions and the movement of military forces, noting that residents have continued living in neighborhoods adjacent to the yellow line, such as Al-Tuffah and Al Zaytoun in Gaza City, “because they have nowhere else to go.”

“Where do we go? This is a question we’ve been asking ourselves for three years,” Safaa Mushtaha of Al-Tuffah told OCHA. “We accepted living near the yellow line, but it’s become unbearable.”

Ibtisam Malika, who also lives near the line, added that “every two to three months, we are forced to move and leave our belongings behind.”

MSF described how families are being “pushed into overcrowded and unlivable conditions” and how the group’s ability to deliver clean water has been impeded when there are attacks near the yellow line.

“The yellow line cannot be treated simply as a line on a map,” says Amande Bazerolle, head of emergency response for MSF in Gaza. “It has become a mechanism of encirclement and ethnic cleansing, while cutting communities off from the infrastructure, healthcare, water, and other essentials they need to survive.”



The medical aid group treated more than 1,500 cases of chickenpox in June and July, and has treated more that 11,000 cases of skin disorders including scabies this year.

One official said a majority of Palestinians in Gaza have less than six liters of water per day for drinking, bathing, and other domestic uses, and Israeli restrictions on the delivery of many items—ones that authorities claim are “dual-use” and could be used by Hamas for military purposes—have left families and medical providers without essentials.

“We are treating gastroenteritis, acute respiratory infections, a lot of skin conditions, hepatitis, bacterial skin infections, scabies, and lice,” said Dr. Murad Asaliyya, medical activities manager for MSF in Gaza. “At the same time, we are facing severe shortages in terms of medical supplies. Even the cream we need to treat scabies has been restricted by the Israeli authorities.”

Other crucial items that have been restricted by Israel include engine oil and spare parts, “crippling the infrastructure needed to keep hospitals, ambulances and water systems running,” said MSF.

MSF emphasized that the area near the yellow line is hardly the only part of Gaza where Palestinians face continued Israeli attacks. In June and July, the group’s medical teams treated more than 1,200 cases of “violent trauma” across the strip, “including blast injuries, burns, gunshot wounds, and injuries resulting from physical assault.”

Since Israel began relentlessly attacking Gaza in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack, the military offensive has killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, including more than 20,000 children, with experts warning that the true death toll is likely far higher. About 80% of all structures across Gaza have been damaged, said MSF.

The group released its findings as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich boasted in an interview about the IDF’s encroachment on the territory that had been ostensibly set aside for Palestinians last year, saying the moving of the yellow line and the destruction of Gaza and its infrastructure “encourages migration” and that “a world will not be built there.”

“Destruction, displacement, and deprivation have become normalized—practices Israel is carrying out with impunity,” said Bazerolle. “Governments must act now to ensure Israel stops the destruction and killing, prevents ethnic cleansing, and stops denying Palestinians the means of survival.”

Explosive CIA leak raises fears of imminent and ‘total collapse’ of major US ally; Israel

Alexander Willis
October 5, 2026 

 RAW STORY


Israeli reservist Lt. Col. Dotan Razili stands at Israel's border with Lebanon, Sept. 17, 2024. (Alexander Willis / Raw Story)

CIA experts warned in a classified report that Israel could be headed toward “civil war” or “total collapse,” Drop Site News reported Monday after being briefed on the assessment by two U.S. sources.

“The writers of this are Israel experts,” one of the U.S. sources told Drop Site News, speaking on the condition of anonymity for the outlet’s report, which was co-published Monday alongside the news outlet Capital & Empire. “This isn’t a fantastical what if — with the upcoming election and the fissures in Israel we should take seriously their conclusion that Israel is one spark away from real internal conflict.”

Titled “Fracture From Within,” the report was compiled in August by Red Cell, an analytical unit within the agency created after the Sept. 11 attacks to “challenge conventional wisdom in the intelligence community” by producing “alternative analysis,” as described by Foreign Policy.

Drop Site News had the content of the report described to it by the two U.S. sources, with the assessment pointing to several “volatile” pressures that appeared to be "converging" ahead of Israel’s Oct. 27 elections, the outlet reported.

Among those pressures straining Israeli society cited in the report are economic struggles, record-high military spending, and mass psychological trauma and “mental illness.” The “deepest fractures in Israeli politics” cited in the report, Drop Site News noted, involved the nation’s growing ultra-Orthodox population, whose men have historically received broad exemptions to Israel’s mandatory military service “while continuing to receive state benefits.”


“Their collective refusal to serve is not rooted in opposition to Israel’s wars, as ultra-Orthodox leaders argue that military service threatens religious life and their obligation to Torah study,” Drop Site News’ report reads. “But after years in which reservists have been repeatedly called away from their jobs and families, the exemption has become a potent source of resentment in Israeli society.”

America's 'Dead Sea' Was Once a Vast Freshwater Lake 10 Times Its Size

David Nield
Sun, October 4, 2026

Key takeaways

A new study published in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology reveals that the Great Salt Lake in Utah has experienced significant changes in size and salinity over the past 240,000 years.

We can often understand more about the future by looking into the past – and in the case of a new study published in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology, almost 240,000 years into the history of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

In some areas, the lake is up to 10 times saltier than seawater (it has been called 'America's Dead Sea') and it's the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere.

The Great Salt Lake currently covers an area of around 4,144 square kilometers (1,600 square miles), but as the new study shows, it has been much larger – and much less salty – in the past.

Researchers from the US analyzed a 120-meter (394-foot) sediment core taken from the lake bed, dating its layers by the radioactive decay of the minerals it carried.

They also measured tiny chemical signals left by microbes to estimate salinity: as the concentration of salt in the water changes, so do the abundance and type of organisms living in it.

Maps showing the comparative size of Lake Bonneville, the drilling location (the yellow star), and other sites in the wider region. (So et al., Paleoceanogr. Paleoclimatol., 2026)

Two periods were identified when the water was much fresher, matching times when it covered a much wider area.

Past research has identified these bigger bodies of water as Lake Bonneville (from about 30,000 to 16,000 years ago) and Little Valley (from about 140,000 to 135,000 years ago).

The researchers say the size difference as the lake swelled and shrank is comparable to the difference between a puddle and a pond.

"If you scaled this up to the size of the present Great Salt Lake, that's probably what it looked like," says Earth scientist Rachel So, from the University of Southern California (USC).

"For most of the past 240,000 years, the lake stayed about the same size but briefly grew 10 times larger on two separate occasions."

Flat, step-like ledges cut into the mountains around the Great Salt Lake show where Lake Bonneville and Little Valley used to be, and suggest they were both around 300 meters deep.

Researcher Rachel So, working with part of the sediment core. (Rachel So)

This study adds a corresponding measure of saltiness. It seems the earlier Little Valley may have stayed somewhat brackish (still slightly salty), according to the sediment record, while Lake Bonneville was a genuine freshwater lake.

The researchers also call attention to the speed at which salinity rose again as the lake shrank. We're still talking about thousands of years, but it's abrupt in geological terms.

"The fact that the core spans two and a half glacial cycles allows us to see two fresh-to-salty transitions," says Earth scientist Sarah Feakins, from USC.

"It allows us to compare the two fresh lake events for their duration and freshness, to see how fragile and fleeting these moments are."

The researchers suggest extra incoming river water may help explain why Lake Bonneville lasted longer and stayed fresher than Little Valley.

They also draw parallels between the warming conditions that shrank these lakes at the end of different ice ages, and the climate change we're currently experiencing.

"Today we're warming the climate at an unprecedented rate," says Feakins.

"That warming makes the atmosphere thirstier, increasing the rate of evaporative drying from the soil and lakes across the region."

Waterfowl in the South Farmington Bay region of the lake. (Rachel So)

Historical lake records across Nevada, California, and Arizona follow a similar wet-to-dry pattern, evidence that the changing conditions of the time were affecting a wide region – and further verifying the Great Salt Lake findings.

Water leaves this huge lake mainly through evaporation, making it particularly vulnerable to changes in temperature and precipitation.

We also know that the last 240,000 years have seen another significant shift that needs to be considered: the demands that humankind is putting on the planet.

"People shouldn't use the defense that 'climate change happened naturally in the past and so the lake shrank' to justify shrinking lakes today as normal or a natural phenomenon," says So.

The research has been published in Paleoceanography and Paleoclimatology.

 Congress Must Investigate War Profiteers Once Again

Hank Kennedy
Sat, October 3, 2026 
JACOBIN


Illustration by Rakhmat Jaka Perkasa

Key takeaways

President Donald Trump requested a $445 billion increase to the defense budget, bringing the total military spending to around $1.5 trillion, benefiting major war contractors like Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX (formerly Raytheon).


In April, President Donald Trump requested a $445 billion increase to the defense budget, meaning the United States will be spending around $1.5 trillion on the military. Much of the largesse will benefit the Big Five war contractors: Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and RTX (formerly Raytheon). These are the companies behind such budget-shredding boondoggles as the F-35 and the littoral combat ships.

If the promises of these weapons salesmen are to be believed, the US war with Iran should already be over. The enormousness of the Pentagon's budget, on paper, means that any conflict the United States enters should be a decidedly short and lopsided affair. Yet Iran has not crumbled against an onslaught that one analyst calculated has cost the United States $72 billion and counting. What has all this spending accomplished?

A US Patriot interceptor missile costs $4 million; a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptor runs around $13 million. America has fired plenty of both in the war with Iran. Contrast that with the Iranian attack drones these systems are meant to shoot down, which run anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 apiece. These swarms of cheap drones are able to effectively counter US aircraft carriers whose price tags run into the billions (that is, when laundry room fires don't do the job). The United States has fired off so much ordnance that talk has turned to a possible missile shortage.

All this weaponry comes at a steep price for the average American back home. In April, a report from the Institute for Policy Studies found that the average taxpayer spends approximately $4,000 per year on war and weaponry. What is all this money going toward? Who has really benefited from over a trillion dollars a year in annual military spending? In a spirit sorely lacking today, Congress tried to answer these and other questions ninety years ago when it forthrightly challenged the Pentagon and military contractors in its famous Nye Committee of 1934.

The Big, Corrupt Business of Arms Sales

In the wake of the Great Depression, a wave of anti-militarism and anti–weapons manufacturer sentiment swept the United States. Books like Iron, Blood, and Profits by muckraker George Seldes and the bestseller Merchants of Death by H. C. Engelbrecht and F. C. Hanighen exposed the workings of the international arms trade. Even Fortune, no hotbed of radicalism then or now, published its own exposé, "Arms and the Men," which was reprinted for a wider audience in Reader's Digest.

A shocked public demanded action. Dorothy Detzer of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom approached Nebraska Senator George Norris about launching a Senate investigation into the munitions industry. Norris was a natural choice given that he had strongly opposed World War I, arguing the country was "going into war upon the command of gold. We are going to run the risk of sacrificing millions of our countrymen's lives in order that other countrymen may coin their lifeblood into money." But Norris begged off, citing illness and overwork.

Instead Norris suggested North Dakota's Gerald Nye. Although a Republican, he was supported by the left-wing Nonpartisan League. Nye was a firm anti-militarist who condemned Uncle Sam for "helping to crucify" the people of Nicaragua via military interventions to shore up business interests. Nye had already served on two Senate investigations and was picked to chair the two-year inquiry.

The Special Committee on Investigation of the Munitions Industry, commonly referred to as the Nye Committee, uncovered some explosive evidence: arms manufacturers frequently bribed officials. Clarence Webster of Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation objected to the "rather harsh" term "bribery" before admitting that the greasing of palms was employed, "strictly speaking."

Curtiss-Wright played countries against one another for profit, telling one sales representative in Peru during the Colombia-Peru War to "diplomatically inform interested parties that your neighbor to the extreme north [Colombia] is still purchasing large quantities. Do not overlook such items as bombs, ammunition, machine guns equipment, etc." They were not alone.

A Colt salesman explained to the Bolivian consul that "it would be advisable for [Bolivia] to act quickly if [it] wanted to get these guns, intimating that a certain other government might get them if Bolivia did not act quickly." The Paraguayan government was the other party, then fighting Bolivia in the Chaco War.

Frank Jonas of Remington Arms proclaimed during the war: "The unsettled conditions in South America [have] been a great thing for me, as I sold a large order for bombs to Brazil and also a fair cartridge order. I also sold very large bomb orders for Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia."

Arms manufacturers complained of US diplomatic efforts that might put a damper on business. A representative of Electric Boat (today a part of General Dynamics) complained to a counterpart from Vickers (today a part of UK defense contractor BAE Systems), "It is too bad that the pernicious activities of our State Department have put the brake on armament orders." Peace, it seems, was just too unprofitable.

It even turned out that a commander in the US Navy was moonlighting as an arms salesman. James H. Strong helped peddle the wares of two munitions makers and received a tidy commission for doing so. Nye was shocked to find "governments — especially our own war and navy departments — have been actively promoting the munitions-makers, for years."

The committee also investigated the sky-high profits arms manufacturers had made during World War I. DuPont, headed by one of the oldest and richest families in America, saw an increase in its profits of 1,130 percent. Eugene Grace, president of Bethlehem Steel, testified to how "unfortunate" it was that Bonus Marchers had marched on Washington to protest for their World War I bonuses. He then admitted, with no seeming sense of irony, that he had received almost $3 million in bonuses during the war. The situation, he averred, could "leave a bad taste" in veterans' mouths.

Shocking revelations aside, the Nye Committee produced little substantial legislation. Efforts to nationalize the arms manufacturers failed despite widespread public support, as did a campaign to require a national referendum before declaring war. The Neutrality Acts that did result were whittled away as the country moved back on a war footing in the lead-up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In his farewell address, Nye said he was "more proud of having" led the Senate inquiry than of anything else in his career.
Under Trump, War Is More Profitable Than Ever

Recent books like The Trillion Dollar War Machine by William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman and The Spoils of War by Andrew Cockburn have followed the trail blazed by Engelbrecht, Hanighen, and Seldes. The authors have documented the revolving door between military contractors, government, and think tanks; the corrosive effects of arms-industry and foreign lobbying; and efforts to influence the media. The merchants of death are still on their bad behavior. In January 2025, a citizens' tribunal found that American weapons contractors are themselves guilty of crimes against humanity, including genocide. Open bribery — "rather harsh" or not — has not disappeared, as Raytheon's recent legal troubles have proven.

Conflicts of interest and public officials acting as salesmen for private arms manufacturers are also still with us. Palmer Luckey of Anduril Industries is both a major Trump donor dating back to 2016 and a recipient of Pentagon liberality, with his company receiving a $250 million contract to produce missiles and drones for the military. Luckey has suggested the United States needs to "hyperscale manufacturing" for a potential showdown with China, ideally (and conveniently) with his company's Arsenal-1 weapons factory in Ohio. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has pushed for a Pentagon shake-up to better facilitate the overseas arms trade. Even the president's sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump have positioned themselves for a windfall through their investments in various companies manufacturing military drones. Ninety years later, General Smedley Butler's war racket continues to make a killing, regardless of how unpopular a war like the one in Iran might be. It's a big, well-armed club, and we aren't in it.

"Investigations serve a most healthy purpose," Nye said, the year before chairing the committee. "With economics and political influence coming into such concentrated control it is of greatest importance that legislative bodies be on closest guard against encroachment which further threatens a free government. . . . We should have not less, but more legislative investigations."

The issues raised by his investigation have only worsened in the intervening years. After the boondoggles of Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran, the time has come for a twenty-first-century Nye Committee. If we don't act, those wars — no matter how unpopular — will grind on. There's simply too much money to be made.

This article originally appeared in Jacobin, a democratic socialist magazine publishing long-form essays and analysis on politics, economics, and culture. Subscribe to the print edition for $20 a year.

The Tariffs Were a Wake-Up Call; Ottawa Hits Snooze Again

Ottawa wants Canadians to believe that a new era of strategic independence is underway, but the trade measures increasingly look performative, while the surge in military spending risks doing little to reduce Canada’s underlying dependence on the United States.


Prime Minister of Canada and Liberal Party Leader Mark Carney delivers a speech to supporters during a rally on April 23, 2025 in Surrey, Canada.
(Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images)

Umer Azad
Oct 05, 2026

Common Dreams


There is something almost admirable about the Canadian government’s ability to respond to an American provocation with precisely the right number of carefully selected adjectives. Washington imposes tariffs. Ottawa expresses deep disappointment. Washington threatens Canadian sovereignty. Ottawa says the relationship is changing. Washington escalates again. Ottawa announces that Canada is entering a new era. Then everyone goes home.

The problem is no longer simply that Canada’s foreign policy is too cautious. It increasingly appears to have no direction at all. Ottawa responds to American provocations with carefully worded statements, measured diplomatic language and assurances. But underneath the polished rhetoric there is no clear moral compass, little strategic spine and, most importantly, remarkably little follow-through. Canada continues to drift like seaweed, bending with every current while insisting that it is still steering the boat.

The recent tariffs should have been a wake-up call. They exposed the extraordinary vulnerability of a country whose economic fortunes are so deeply tied to a neighbor that increasingly treats trade as an instrument of coercion. The threats to Canadian sovereignty should have made the lesson even clearer: Economic integration is no guarantee of political goodwill, and decades of unquestioned alignment do not necessarily buy Canada respect or security. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney himself recognized the changing environment when he spoke of a world in which economic integration could be weaponized. Yet, Canada’s answer has been to dress up token diversification as strategic independence while continuing to bend to Washington on matters far beyond trade.

Cheerleading American military interventions and then dressing up Trump’s annihilation rhetoric as merely the language of war is not buying Canada any goodwill in Washington.

Tariff by tariff, Ottawa has responded with declarations of retaliation and resilience. Canada announced trade missions, new partnerships, investment initiatives, and efforts to expand access to markets beyond the United States. These are bombarded as evidence that the country is moving toward a more diversified and resilient economy.

There is some truth to that, yes. The US share of Canadian merchandise exports did fall from 75.9% in 2024 to 71.7% in 2025, and while exports to countries outside the United States rose 17.2%, that headline figure conceals the limits of the transformation. Global Affairs Canada reports that the growth in non-US exports was driven largely by an exceptional increase in gold exports, with gold exports rising by $14.1 billion in 2025. The increase was driven by a 45.2% rise in gold prices, while gold export volumes actually fell 6.3%. In other words, what Ottawa can present as evidence of diversification was substantially boosted by a gold-price windfall, not simply by Canadian businesses dramatically expanding into new international markets. And among Canadian exporters whose US sales declined, most did not significantly expand sales into non-US markets.

That is not exactly the economic equivalent of escaping Washington’s orbit. It is more like rearranging the deck chairs and announcing that the ship has changed direction. Canada can announce trade missions, negotiations, and investment funds. But such announcements are not diversified supply chains. They are not new markets. They are not industrial capacity. After the magnitude of America’s pressure on Canada, the question should not be whether diversification has started. It should be whether Canada has diversified enough to reduce the vulnerability that Ottawa itself says exists. It hasn’t.

The contradiction becomes even harder to ignore when we look at defense. Canada is dramatically increasing military spending while remaining deeply embedded in a security architecture dominated by the United States. Canada plans to acquire 88 F-35 fighter aircraft at an acquisition cost of approximately $27.7 billion, with the initial Canadian aircraft scheduled to be based at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona for training. This is not at all an isolated procurement decision but part of a deeply integrated military relationship. Already, NORAD links the two countries’ air defense systems, making their military architecture deeply intertwined. Canada is consistently embedding its defense posture in a security architecture overwhelmingly shaped by the United States.

So to sum up, Canada has not escaped its dependence, either economically or militarily. It has barely moved the needle. And more importantly, it does not appear intent on doing so. Ottawa wants Canadians to believe that a new era of strategic independence is underway, but the trade measures increasingly look performative, while the surge in military spending risks doing little to reduce Canada’s underlying dependence on the United States. And if the recent United Nations General Assembly is any indication, the Carney-Anand duo has not merely failed to distance itself from Washington’s military adventures. It has doubled down on its political and diplomatic alignment with them.

In his latest speech at the UN, Carney called Iran “one of the greatest threats in the current world” and described it as an “existential threat to Israel and its allies.” When asked about US President Donald Trump’s threats to annihilate or destroy Iran, he simply responded with “Well, there is a war underway, and he’s speaking the language of war.” He might as well have said, “Boys will be boys.” This time, Ottawa did not even seem interested in trying to sound politically correct. Foreign Minister Anita Anand was even more categorical. At the United Nations General Assembly, she declared: “Iran is the principal threat to peace and security in its region… Its threats to navigation rights in the Strait of Hormuz are a direct affront to international law.”

Ever since the United States and Israel launched their illegitimate war on Iran on February 28, which has already killed around 3,500 people and displaced over 3.2 million people and counting, Carney’s government continued to express support. Canada has spent months issuing statements condemning Iran, sanctioning hundreds of individuals and entities, and diplomatically isolating Tehran. Last week, Anita Anand announced sanctions against another five individuals and five entities under Canada’s Special Economic Measures (Iran) Regulations. This is where Canada’s claim to an independent foreign policy begins to look increasingly hollow. You do not need to go to Georgetown to understand what appeasement looks like. You simply need to watch Ottawa’s foreign policy unfold across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Cuba, Venezuela, and now Iran. The pattern is remarkably consistent. Every single time the United States goes about their military adventurism, Canada unflinchingly finds diplomatic language to accommodate it. And the performative language of rules-based international order just whimpers out of the vocabulary.

But this time, at the UN General Assembly, Carney and his foreign minister were effectively going above and beyond, doing the public-relations work of explaining away Trump’s language better than any McKinsey consultant could have managed. Canada does not merely follow Washington. Increasingly, it appears to anticipate what Washington wants and adjust its own language accordingly. The result is a foreign policy that is forceful toward countries Washington opposes while remarkably accommodating toward the power whose military, economic, and political leverage constrains Canada’s choices.

And this is where the absurdity of the strategy becomes difficult to ignore. Canada has been hit with tariff after tariff, threatened over its sovereignty, and repeatedly reminded that Washington is willing to weaponize the very economic relationship on which Canada depends. Yet Ottawa continues to cower before Washington while backing its military adventures and accommodating its rhetoric. Stupidity, as the old saying goes, is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different outcome. If decades of deference were supposed to buy Canada security, goodwill, or protection from American coercion, the tariffs should have demonstrated by now that the strategy has failed. Instead, Ottawa appears determined to double down.

Perhaps in a parallel universe, Canada has the courage to stand up to the United States and develop a genuinely independent foreign policy. But this is not that universe. This is Canada in which Mark Carney is prime minister and Anita Anand is foreign minister. Canada was given a wake-up call. The tariffs exposed the danger of economic dependence. The threats to Canadian sovereignty exposed the limits of political complacency. The wars and conflicts surrounding Canada’s foreign policy exposed the limits of strategic independence. Ottawa’s answer has been to diversify a little, spend billions on American-linked defense systems, issue carefully calibrated statements, and continue moving in Washington’s direction.

Perhaps expecting this government to have the conscience to call a genocide a genocide; call for a ceasefire in Iran, Gaza, or Lebanon; or demand an end to the US blockade of Cuba is wishful thinking. But repeated tariffs and threats to Canadian sovereignty should at least force Ottawa to wake up to the obvious: Cheerleading American military interventions and then dressing up Trump’s annihilation rhetoric as merely the language of war is not buying Canada any goodwill in Washington.

Nor is it reflecting the views of the Canadians this government claims to represent and hopes to win over at the next election. A clear majority of Canadians have opposed the US military action against Iran and, with every passing day, Canadians have also become increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, with polls showing substantial support for describing Israel’s actions as genocide. Perhaps, then, after tariff after tariff, Ottawa might finally realize that subservience is not a foreign-policy strategy. So if there is any silver lining to this prolonged humiliation, it may be that Carney might be finally forced to rethink Canada’s relationship with the United States and begin divesting from that dependence. Maybe it is time to stop guessing what Washington wants, stop parroting its justifications, and start listening to the Canadians this government claims to represent.


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Umer Azad
Umer Azad is a software engineer by profession and a volunteer with CODEPINK and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). He previously served as the regional social media expert for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), where he worked on digital outreach, exposing voter fraud, and documenting human rights violations.
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