'Ghost town': Lebanon city deserted amid Israeli airstrikes

Israel has issued a new displacement order for southern Lebanon, instructing residents within 25 miles of the border between the two countries to head north. The order covers major Lebanese cities and dozens of villages. Israel’s military is considering an escalated campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah after the pro-Iran group launched its most intense attacks yet on Wednesday night. Guardian journalist William Christou reports from Nabatieh, a city in south Lebanon hit by Israeli strikes

 

Why have the Chagos Islands become so important to US President Trump?

US President Donald Trump has criticised Britain and its prime minister Keir Starmer over the handling of the Chagos Islands. He criticised Starmer during a press conference where he spoke about how America’s allies have responded to the US-Israel war in Iran. The president has said the UK should "not give away Diego Garcia", a key military base for the United States. The Chagos Islands - officially known as the British Indian Ocean Territory - are located in the Indian Ocean about 5,799 miles (9,332km) south-east of the UK, and about 1,250 miles north-east of Mauritius. Also known as the Chagos Archipelago, there are around 60 individual islands. The islands were separated from Mauritius in 1965, when Mauritius was still a British colony.

Donald Trump couldn't locate The Chagos Islands even if they were marked by big red stick pin.

Atlantic rift? Has Britain’s relationship with the US just changed forever?

As tensions flare between Washington and London, observers say the ground beneath the “special relationship” is shifting. Quentin Peel helps us unpack whether this moment marks a lasting change in US-UK relations.

 

Trump-Netanyahu’s ‘war in search of a strategy’

 

An illegal war, two leaders in cahoots and media outlets struggling to meet the moment.

One week into the United States and Israel’s war on Iran, and the messaging coming from the White House is consistently chaotic and contradictory. From regime change and nuclear threat to preemptive attack – the Trump administration is struggling to juggle its narrative. And while the mainstream media is working overtime to legitimise the Trump-Netanyahu war at home, Americans remain unconvinced.

Deep Progressive Techno #11

 

How the Iran war is underpinned by ‘end times’ religious fervour in Washington and Tehran

 

An overlapping belief in end times, or the second coming, underpins much of the motivation in the corridors of power in Washington and in the bunkers where the ayatollahs hide today, writes world affairs editor Sam Kiley

America has no plan. Donald Trump has admitted that the people Washington had in mind to run Iran are now dead – and other candidates may soon die. So it may appear that the US-Israeli war machine will achieve no victory because there is no definition of what that may look like.

One would expect Iran's government to be based on religious doctrine as the Supreme Leader is member of the religious elite. While religious fervor has always existed in America the first amendment has prevented the creation of a Christian theocratic government. Today, a  number of Trump's cabinet members are religious nationalists, if not Christian supremacists. Pete Hegseth the Secretary of Defense has a number of Christian nationalist tattoos. Pete Hegseth and the other Christian nationalist share a worldview that is anathema to the constitution and the bill of rights.  As the only time the word religion appears is in the first amendment which clearly states that there should always be a separation of church and state. Additionally the name of no organized religion appears in either document.  

In 2018, Pete Hegseth, then a Fox News commentator, gave a speech at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in which he said that Israel’s foundation in 1948 had been “a miracle”, as had the 1967 six-day war victory – and the 2017 decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem.

He also said he foresaw another miracle – the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple on the site of what is now the Haram al Sharif in Jerusalem – a sacred site in Islam.

This, in the tradition of Christian end-times belief, is an essential part of the return of Christ.      

Reports: Iraqi Kurds launch ground offensive into Iran

 

After days of intense attacks, the United States taking out another Iranian naval target sounds like nothing particularly new. But, when it's an Iranian warship sitting in international waters 4,000 kilometres from home, and that's the first time since war two that a US sub has torpedoed an enemy vessel... it's a story worth covering.