No Baltic tribe or tribal group seems to have had a history so dynamic, rich in incident and tragic as the Old Prussians.
They died out during conflicts between two medieval European cultures – Christian and pagan – and were physically destroyed or assimilated.
The Latvian and Lithuanian people have the Old Prussians to thank more than anyone else for their existence.
Under the cover of their heroic resistance against the crusaders, which lasted for almost the whole of the 13th century, the foundations of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were laid, which, in turn, became an obstacle to the mass inflow of crusaders and German colonists into the territory of Latvia.
The Old Prussians belonged to the Western Baltic group of tribes, which also included the Curonians, Samogitians, Skalvians, Galindians and Yotvingians. Around 3000 years before the birth of Christ, the Old Prussians broke away from the first Indo-European peoples and entered the land where they would live right up until their eventual disappearance.
Today the area where the Old Prussians lived is divided between Russia (the province of Kaliningrad) and Poland (the provinces of Elbląg and Olsztyn).
The 1st-century Roman historian Tacitus’s work Germania was the first text to mention the Western Balts. Tacitus called them as “Aesti”, which means “easterners”. This was also how their western neighbours, the Germans, referred to the Balts. The Aesti were described as industrious farmers and peace-loving people.
The United States is planning military strikes in Venezuela against drug cartels in the coming weeks.
Donald Trump is yet to approve the actions which are in response to President Nicolas Maduro, whom the U.S. sees as illegitimate, not doing enough to stop illegal drugs from getting out of Venezuela.
It would largely consist of drone strikes against leaders and members of gangs, as well as drug labs, NBC News reports.
They follow a recent lethal strike on a vessel allegedly affiliated with a terrorist organization ‘trafficking illicit narcotics’.
The attack killed ‘three male narcoterrorists’ took place in the US Southern Command’s area of responsibility, the president said.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland recommends that citizens refrain from traveling to Belarus and urges those already there to leave the country. The message was published on the website of the Polish government.
The ministry explained its call by the growing tensions in the region, the ongoing war and “repeated arbitrary arrests” of Polish citizens in Belarus.
“ In the event of a sharp deterioration in the security situation, border closures or other unforeseen circumstances, evacuation may be much more difficult or even impossible,” Poland emphasized.
Poles who remain in Belarus are urged to leave the country immediately using available commercial and private means.
Trump has been setting this table for the entire year. He’s pursued a very clear agenda that has confounded his critics because so few of them are as smart or wise as they think they are.
He’s put the neocons into their corner, rattle in hand, stripping them of much of their political capital, even while, at times, looking like he played their game.
The best way to invalidate your opponent’s leverage is to expose who they really are….
That’s Trump’s superpower. It always has been. Now Europe has no choice but to fight a war they cannot win with weapons they can’t afford with soldiers who don’t have any desire to fight for heir leaders.
This is a recipe for the most epic failure in modern history.
And all he has to do is sit back and shake his head.
A REAL DISGRACE took place at the United Nations yesterday — Not one, not two, but three very sinister events! First, the escalator going up to the Main Speaking Floor came to a screeching halt. It stopped on a dime. It’s amazing that Melania and I didn’t fall forward onto the sharp edges of these steel steps, face first. It was only that we were each holding the handrail tightly or, it would have been a disaster. This was absolutely sabotage, as noted by a day’s earlier “post” in The London Times that said UN workers “joked about turning off an escalator.” The people that did it should be arrested! Then, as I stood before a Television crowd of millions of people all over the World, and important Leaders in the Hall, my teleprompter didn’t work. It was stone cold dark. I immediately thought to myself, “Wow, first the escalator event, and now a bad teleprompter. What kind of a place is this?” I then proceeded to make a Speech without a teleprompter, which kicked in about 15 minutes later. The good news is the Speech has gotten fantastic reviews. Maybe they appreciated the fact that very few people could have done what I did. And third, after making the Speech, I was told that the sound was completely off in the Auditorium where the Speech was made, that World Leaders, unless they used the interpreters’ earpieces, couldn’t hear a thing. The first person I saw at the conclusion of the Speech was Melania, who was sitting right up front. I said, “How did I do?” And she said, “I couldn’t hear a word you said.” This wasn’t a coincidence, this was triple sabotage at the UN. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I’m sending a copy of this letter to the Secretary General, and I demand an immediate investigation. No wonder the United Nations hasn’t been able to do the job that they were put in existence to do. All security tapes at the escalator should be saved, especially the emergency stop button. The Secret Service is involved. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
‘The UN is creating the number one problem of our time. The crisis of uncontrolled migration. Your countries are being ruined. The United Nations is funding an assault on Western countries and their borders.’ — Trump [at 23:48]
I do not have a sophisticated understanding of Huckabee’s theology but have read it is called Dispensational Christianity, which was crystalized by the dubious Scofield Reference Bible in USA.
Whatever the case, Huckabee’s obeisance does not seem appropriate to me, especially while Israel’s savage assault on Gaza is ongoing and he is representing USA.
I know it is too much to ask of any mainstream prominent American, but it would be good if at least a few of them openly recognized that both USA and Israel had to have had foreknowledge of the 10/07 attack and that Israel clearly delayed reacting to it and was responsible for the majority of Israelis killed that day. This profoundly undermines the ersatz ‘moral basis’ of the slaughter and starvation of so many Gazan women, children and civilians.
I am fine with religion and government mixing on abstract and some practical levels, but Huckabee is taking this much too far into dangerous intellectual and theological territory. ABN
Doha used the strike as a permission structure to pivot away from the hosting model.
It wasn’t a “soft-power failure”.
It was a structural pivot.
Qatar treated “hosting Hamas” as a proxy-asset whose position turned negative.
For a decade, the asset had positive utility. The US got a reliable conduit, Israel tolerated Qatari cashflow management into Gaza, and Doha monetised access into mediator prestige.
That setup existed because the US originally wanted a reachable Hamas channel in a US-aligned host (Al Udeid as the ultimate security umbrella).
So until now, that channel still priced in that utility.
But now it’s over.
Qatar’s “mediator” brand only worked while those conditions held.
There’s a reason why these conditions no longer remain useful. And i’ve explained this before.
Proxies are time-sensitive assets.
They remain useful during stalemated negotiations. Once they obstruct normalization or capital flows, sponsors reroute;
budgets thin, access tightens, and the proxy gets integrated, contained, or abandoned.
There’s PLENTY of signals we’re at the end of this curve.
Maintaining mediator role is just a toxic position now.
Stop looking at the past to determine what the future should be. That’s not how statesmen think. They evolve all the time.
What Qatar needs to do now, is exit the hosting role, and keep the convening brand. It should facilitate talks without residency.
There’s several reasons why it needs to accelerate this pivot.
The Hamas/Israel deadlock has became a liability.
The mediation channel has stalled.
When a channel stops producing swaps/ceasefire increments, it stops buying Qatar influence and starts costing it.
The West clings to its delusion of supremacy like a fading empire hoarding tarnished trophies.
It’s the same old playbook for them.
They spin a narrative, call it truth, and expect the world to bow.
They do this with everything. From marketing product sales, to politics.
To grasp the Middle East’s geopolitics, you have to understand this Western narrative framework.
“Terrorism” is always the villain, and the West, the gallant hero, swoops in to save the day.
There’s no reality where the resistance topples Israel and “wins” the Middle East.
That’s not how the script works.
The West demands its victory lap, claiming it tamed the savages and gifted the region peace.
The reality however, is that their grand experiment failed to become a hegemony so they need to wrap this up, and demote Israel to just another player integrated into the region’s control.
That’s the reality. That’s the outcome.
The Gulf states get this. They ditch the ego and pride and see the board for what it is. And they couldn’t care less what the region thinks of them.
Outcomes over optics.
Many on here don’t understand this. Frankly, they should not be involving themselves with geopolitics.
Just pay attention over your timeline. Anyone saying the Gulf states are an embarrassment or a humiliation over this Doha strike,
are the ones being played by the Western narrative. They care about the narrative of optics over the reality outcomes.
They care about shit like honor, integrity, glory when the stakes are far more substantial.
These people are like naive children.
They don’t just fall short when it comes to geopolitics. They often conduct themselves poorly in other domains within their life.
I see it in corporate very often.
Very easy to manipulate.
They become part of the means for people who shape outcomes.
Decentralization will be the new strategy for Hamas.
The Doha strike proved that no single location is safe, accelerating Hamas’s move toward a dispersed leadership model.
From what I am gathering from the region, the group has already established a political office in Baghdad and maintains a significant presence in Istanbul.
This swift readjustment just proves once again, just how coordinated all this is.
This shift to a multi-node network across several friendly nations is a logical evolution to maintain survival and slow integration. Intelligence collection will be forced to pivot from monitoring a single headquarters to mapping this distributed and more elusive network.
This will naturally mitigate the risk while significantly raising the cost of Israel attempting further strikes in the absence of undeniable proof that Hamas is still strong and active.
To understand and make sense of all this, you need to walk the western narrative framework.
As I said,
the Israeli strike in Doha marks the end of the “safe haven” era for Hamas’s political bureau.
From here, I think Hamas will survive as an organization, its role in regional diplomacy will contract sharply,
with Arab states and TPS [Transnational Private Sector] actors seizing the initiative to reshape Palestinian governance.
Poland’s Prime Minister today warned ‘we are closer to war than any time since World War Two’ after his country was forced to shoot down Russian drones that violated its airspace.
Polish media is now reporting that Donald Tusk has requested the triggering of NATO’s Article 4, where member countries can bring an issue to the attention of the North Atlantic Council. Poland’s security council will also meet to discuss an ‘appropriate response’.
More than eight million Poles were ordered to hide in their homes as the drones flew overhead, with debris from one shot-down device crashing into a house. The full force of NATO’s fighter planes was unleashed to shoot down the drones.
After the organisation’s patriot defence systems detected the drones with their radars, Polish F-16 fighter jets, Dutch F-35, Italian surveillance aircraft, and NATO’s MRTT mid-air refuelling aircraft all came together to counter the drones.
The downing of Russia’s unmanned aerial vehicles marked the first-ever direct engagement between Moscow and NATO. It has long insisted it wants no confrontation with Putin. Kyiv has accused Russia of deliberately invading Poland’s airspace with 24 UAVs to test the West’s defences.
Multiple Russian drones leaving Ukraine airspace into Poland’s
On Wednesday, Tusk held an extraordinary meeting with top officials after Russia’s actions. Senior army officials are present at the gathering.
He said a number of drones that posed direct threats to Russia were shot down in a joint effort with NATO allies, and warned that Poland is ready to react. The prime minister added that he was in communication with allies.
Tusk also spoke in parliament and said some of the drones flew in from neighbouring Belarus, a staunch ally of Russia. He also confirmed that three or four of the nineteen drones were shot down.
UPDATE: The reasons for this are decidedly ambiguous. Could be to provoke NATO, to test Poland’s defenses, to prepare for negotiations or just to flex. How we interpret it is a psychosemiotic challenge. I doubt Putin wants war and also I doubt he would back down from war if provoked. It is very possible Poland or NATO has provoked Russia in some way we do not know about. Navrotsky said yesterday: ‘I’m not going to give my consent to send the Polish military to Ukraine’. I wonder if his views on that will change now. Another possibility is Zelensky sent doctored drones from Ukraine to provoke Poland against Russia. ABN
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