Exclusive: Full text of the Mecca defence pact signed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
The agreement commits the three countries to mutual defence, military assistance, intelligence sharing and defence industry cooperation, barring withdrawal for the first 10 years
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar and Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud leave after a committee meeting of the Mecca defence pact in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 5 October 2026 (Turkish Foreign Ministry/handout via Reuters)
According to a report published on Sunday, two Syrian officials told AP that the Syrian government had already taken the decision to join the Makkah agreement but had not publicly disclosed the move.
However, a regional official said discussions on Syria’s potential inclusion in the defence arrangement were still ongoing.
“If Syria joins the Mecca Agreement, there will be a war between Israel and Turkey”
November 6th, 2026 16:07
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Photo: Reuters, EPA
If Syria joins the Mecca Agreement, Israel’s war with Turkey will begin. This assumption was made on the Israeli TV channel Channel 12.
The main logic of the statement is as follows: if Syria joins the “Mecca Defense Alliance”, which includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, then Israeli strikes on Syria can be projected through the mechanism of collective defense on Turkey and even be considered as a declaration of war on Turkey.▼ читать продолжение новости ▼
Earlier, on October 31, 2026, the deputy head of the Syrian Foreign Ministry said that Syria was considering joining the Mecca Alliance.
US intelligence believes Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had relationship with Chinese spy: What we know
Story by Livemint
• 1d
US suspects Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had relationship with alleged Chinese spy
US intelligence officials believe Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang had a romantic relationship with a Chinese businesswoman suspected of working for Beijing’s main intelligence agency, according to a report by the Financial Times.
9th Nov 2026:
That is an area of concern to US officials who believe he has been involved with the alleged spy, Alice Huang, who is linked to a Singapore-based data center company, according to the New York Times.
Despite their shared surname, the pair are not related.
Who Is Alice Huang? Her Background And Megaspeed Career Alice Huang is a Chinese business executive who previously served as a managing director of Megaspeed International, a Singapore-based company that operates AI computing infrastructure.
Huang worked in China’s financial sector before becoming associated with the AI and semiconductor industries.
Her reported career includes positions at major Chinese banks and Shanghai-based Hexi Capital, an investment firm involved in semiconductor and artificial intelligence businesses.
An earlier professional biography also described Huang as a former television journalist in China. However, her reported employment in broadcasting has not been independently verified.
Huang later became associated with Megaspeed, a company that purchases advanced computing equipment and provides AI processing capacity through data centers.
Corporate records listed Huang as Megaspeed’s managing director during its first eight months of operation under the relevant business structure.
She also described herself publicly as the company’s chief executive. However, subsequent corporate filings no longer listed her as managing director.
By October 2026, Huang was no longer associated with Megaspeed, according to Jensen Huang’s public comments.
Her professional relationship with Nvidia developed through Megaspeed’s role as a customer of the US semiconductor manufacturer. Read more at: https://poptvculture.com/who-is-alice-huang/
Jensen Huang is a unique talent:
Huang’s early years
After emigrating from Taiwan at the age of five, Jen-Hsun Huang and his family spent four years in Thailand before a political crisis in the country forced his parents to send him and his older brother to live with their uncle in the United States.
Shortly after arriving, his uncle mistakenly enrolled the Huang brothers in a rural Kentucky institution that he believed was a prestigious American boarding school. It turned out to be a strict disciplinary and reform environment for troubled children, where young Jen-Hsun, who now went by Jensen, was assigned to clean bathrooms and scrub toilets.
He spent two years there, before his parents arrived and removed him. But he credits that time to instilling in him a strong work ethic.
“I was the only kid cleaning bathrooms, that was a lot of bathrooms,” he recalled in a 2022 interview on Stratechery. “I think that we learned hard work, but it never occurred to us that it was hard work, we just thought that’s what kids do.”
The family settled in Portland, Oregon, where Huang graduated high school at just 16. With a keen interest in computers, he enrolled at Oregon State University and graduated in 1984 with a degree in electrical engineering. While studying there, he met his future wife, Lori Mills, with whom he now has two children.
His first job out of college was at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), where he worked as a microprocessor designer for the semiconductor manufacturer. After a few years in the industry, he enrolled at Stanford University in California, where he earned a master’s degree in electrical engineering at the age of 29. Now in the heart of Silicon Valley, Huang and two fellow engineers had an idea that they believed could capitalise on the growing video games market. In a Denny’s restaurant in April 1993, Nvidia was born.
The rise of Nvidia
Along with Nvidia’s two other co-founders, Chris Malachowsky and Curtis Priem, Huang set about building specialised chips that could dramatically improve computer graphics. The company’s first major product was the NV1, a graphics card that launched in September 1995. Although technologically ambitious, it was ultimately unsuccessful due to its design approach being incompatible with the direction of the wider PC market.
The first commercial success came in 1997 with the RIVA 128, but it was not until 1999 that Nvidia made a big breakthrough with the GeForce 256, which it marketed as the world’s first GPU (graphics processing unit). The technology became a fundamental component of modern computers and helped usher in a new generation of video games.
It was in the early 2000s that Huang decided to pivot away from just a computer graphics company and decided to develop GPUs for general-purpose computing. The processor could be used for a huge variety of workloads, from weather modelling to medical research, but it was artificial intelligence that would turn Nvidia into a trillion-dollar company.
A decade before the arrival of ChatGPT, which kicked off the recent AI frenzy, Nvidia’s chips were being used by researchers to train neural networks and make breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. The increasingly powerful chips were at the forefront of pioneering developments in robotics, self-driving cars and data centres, making Nvidia perfectly placed for the next stage of the AI revolution.
Huang had not necessarily predicted the emergence of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, but the technology Nvidia had built made their development economically and technically possible.
Nvidia and the AI boom
Less than a year after the launch of ChatGPT, Nvidia’s market value crossed the $1 trillion mark. By 2025, it became the first publicly traded company to reach a market capitalisation of $4 trillion.
,Its rise has seen Huang’s personal fortune rise above $150 billion, ranking him in the top 10 of the world’s wealthiest people, while also placing him at the centre of geopolitics.
Before her marriage, Hegseth worked as a producer on short films and in television, first at WPIX and later at Fox News.[2][1] She spent much of her career producing Fox & Friends, the morning program her future husband Pete Hegseth began co-hosting in 2017.[3] When their relationship became public, she moved over to produce Watters’ World instead. Hegseth remained at Fox until 2024, eventually becoming a vice president at the network’s streaming service, Fox Nation.[4][5]
Hegseth’s visibility around her husband began before his confirmation, when she regularly accompanied him to meetings with senators on Capitol Hill. Senate staffers indicated that her presence altered the dynamic of conversations, particularly those touching on the sexual assault allegation against Hegseth, since some senators had hoped to question him on the matter privately.[7]
In March 2025, Hegseth was a guest of congressman Pete Stauber at the 2025 Donald Trump speech to a joint session of Congress.[8] Since her husband assumed his role as secretary of defense, Hegseth has served in an unofficial capacity as a frequent confidante and advisor. CNN reported in April 2025 that Hegseth had applied for a security clearance, though it remained unconfirmed whether one was ever granted. A spokesperson from the Pentagon has described her as an accomplished leader and a trusted adviser to her husband.[7][9]
Hegseth has joined at least one official bilateral meeting at the Pentagon, sitting in on a March 2025 discussion between Hegseth and the United Kingdom’s defense secretary John Healey.[10] Hegseth has played an influential role in managing her husband’s media strategy and has taken part in building out the Pentagon’s public affairs operation.[7]
Hegseth’s Wife Was Paid by Consulting Firm Whose Clients Include Lockheed Martin
Pete Hegseth is already being eyed for impeachment by the new Democratic majority in Congress.By Sharon Zhang , TruthoutPublished
November 5, 2026
Politicofirst reported on Jennifer Hegseth’s work in 2025 for top consulting firm Watchtower Strategy, which was uncovered in Pete Hegseth’s financial disclosure form for the year. The amount that she was paid is not disclosed, and it lists “consulting” as the explanation for the income. The disclosure also reports two other consulting gigs for Jennifer Hegseth, who has previously held Lockheed shares, as Military.com pointed out.
Watchtower was launched by former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy early last year and has become a major power player in D.C. In May 2025, Politico reported that the firm was doing “general consulting” work for Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed would not confirm whether or not it still works with Watchtower, and the consulting firm declined to say whether or not Jennifer Hegseth still consults with them. A spokesperson for Watchtower said that she had provided media consulting for them. Jennifer Hegseth was a longtime Fox News producer and is the daughter of a now-deceased Lockheed Martin executive.
“It should be no surprise that a public affairs firm would want to work with one of the biggest former star producers at Fox News, the nation’s preeminent conservative news outlet,” a Watchtower spokesperson said, per Politico. “Jen has assisted us in navigating conservative TV media and we appreciate her help. She has not interfaced with any clients nor does she provide any advice to Watchtower on defense matters.”
McCarthy launching public affairs firm with political allies
Former chairman Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) has launched a public affairs company with some political allies after departure from Congress.
Watch tower strategies are a “full -service public relations company” specializing in strategies, advocacy, and strategic communication. The group said in the release Tuesday.
McCarsie join Former White House Communication Assistant Cliffsims. Arthur Schwartz is the ally of Vence President Vans. Gop Allies Jeff Miller, Dan Conston, Brian O. Walsh.
“The launch of the Watch Tower Strategy will come to an extremely promising moment for Japan,” McCarthy said in a statement. “Navigating at this moment is both, and it can be both opportunities and challenges.”
“The Watch Tower team is trusted, tested, and built for success,” he continued.
McCarthy left Congress in late 2023 after being expelled from a far -right conservative lecture. He was in conflict with his conservatives on his party, and he has been working in the media since he left the house.
The group said he would be the chairman of the company.
CEO, a group, said in a release that they provided a “sound counsel” and was engaged in some of the biggest battles in Washington.
The group has argued that their companies can provide CEOs and executives with their own experience in future policies and reform discussions.
“The leadership of the tower strategy is knowing how to accomplish things after decades at the highest level of politics and the government.” “The company is built to support the client to navigate Washington’s toughest tough tasks. The highest managers have formed policy results, managed the crisis of high stakes, and complicated decisions. Regardless of whether to guide. “
Where is the evidence? If none can be found, charges cannot be pressed.
Top prosecutor Jason Reding Quiñones, tapped for Russiagate conspiracy probe, quits DOJ
Story by Josh Christenson
• 1d
New York Post
Top prosecutor Jason Reding Quiñones, tapped for Russiagate ‘conspiracy’ probe, quits DOJ
on 4 areas, and they include the Trump family’s lucrative
WASHINGTON — Two top federal prosecutors resigned Friday, marking a broader shake-up at the Department of Justice in the wake of Republicans’ drubbing in the 2026 midterm elections.
Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith testifies before the House Judiciary Committee at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
POLITICS
Judge blocks release of special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump classified documents case
BY Associated Press Washington, D.C.
UPDATED 3:50 PM ET Feb. 23, 2026
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday permanently barred the release of a report by special counsel Jack Smith on his investigation into President Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents, a prosecution that was once seen as the most perilous of the four criminal cases the Republican faced.
What You Need To Know
A federal judge has permanently barred the release of a report by special counsel Jack Smith on his investigation into President Donald Trump’s hoarding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, granted a request from the Republican president to keep under wraps the report detailing Smith’s findings in the probe that resulted in criminal charges in 2023 Cannon dismissed the case in 2024 after concluding that Smith was unlawfully appointed She said the release of the report would present a “manifest injustice” to Trump and his two co-defendants
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was nominated to the bench by Trump, granted a request from the president to keep under wraps the report on an investigation alleging that Trump stored sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House following his first term and that he obstructed government efforts to get them back.
Smith and his team produced a two-volume report on the classified documents investigation and a separate probe into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. Both investigations produced indictments that were abandoned by Smith’s team after Trump’s November 2024 election win in light of longstanding Justice Department legal opinions that say sitting presidents cannot face federal prosecution.
Attorney General Pam Bondi had already determined that the report was “an internal deliberative communication that is privileged and confidential and should not be released” outside the Justice Department, according to court papers. The Trump administration has characterized Smith’s investigation as politically motivated and said in recent court papers that the report belongs in the “dustbin of history.”
Cannon’s order blocking the release also applies to Bondi’s successors at the Justice Department. Cannon, who in 2024 dismissed the case after concluding that Smith was unlawfully appointed after multiple other favorable rulings for Trump, said the release of the report would present a “manifest injustice” to the president and his two co-defendants.
“Special Counsel Smith, acting without lawful authority, obtained an indictment in this action and initiated proceedings that resulted in a final order of dismissal of all charges,” she wrote. “As a result, the former defendants in this case, like any other defendant in this situation, still enjoy the presumption of innocence held sacrosanct in our constitutional order.”
A First Amendment group and a watchdog organization have been pressing for the report’s release.
Chioma Chukwu, executive director of American Oversight, said it “will continue using every tool available to force this information into the open and to defend the public’s right to the truth through the release of this report.”
Scott Wilkens, senior counsel at The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University — another group pushing for the report’s public release — said “there is no legitimate basis for its continued suppression.”
“Judge Cannon’s decision to permanently block the release of this extraordinarily significant report is impossible to square with the First Amendment and the common law,” Wilkens said in an emailed statement.
A lawyer for Trump, Kendra Wharton, praised Cannon’s ruling, saying in a statement that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed and that his report “should never see the light of day.”
Cannon wrote that though it is true that special counsels have historically released reports at the conclusion of their work, they have done so either after electing not to bring charges in a particular case or “after adjudications of guilt by plea or trial.” Though Cannon suggested that an adjudication of guilt typically precedes the release of a special counsel report, there have been instances in which defendants charged by a special counsel have been acquitted at trial and the allegations against them have nonetheless been subsequently rehashed in a publicly released report.
The classified documents case was once considered the most serious of the four criminal cases against him. It accused Trump of repeatedly enlisting aides and lawyers to help him hide records demanded by investigators and cavalierly showing off a Pentagon “plan of attack” and classified map.
The first volume of Smith’s report on Trump’s 2020 election interference case was released last year shortly before Trump returned to the White House. Smith has defended his decision to bring those charges, saying he believes they would have resulted in a conviction had voters not elected Trump in 2024.
Cannon last year granted a defense request to at least temporarily halt the release of the report dealing with the classified documents case. That edict meant that Smith could not discuss the substance of that investigation when he testified last month before the House Judiciary Committee.
Orbits are getting dangerously crowded and collision risks increase rapidly. To have a future in space at all, we must stop adding space debris while we start cleaning up what’s already there.
ESA’s ambitious Zero Debris approach aims to stop creating new debris by 2030, with stringent standards and policies for its future missions that help stimulate technology development.
Clean space technologies go beyond debris prevention. The Ecostars missions demonstrate ecodesign technologies in space to prevent negative impacts on the Earth environment.
The end-goal of sustainable spaceflight is creating a true Circular Economy in space. Satellites should no longer be single-use, discarded after running low on fuel, a failure or outdated equipment. In-orbit services are the way forward.
First-of-its-kind national mission to clear up space junk orbiting earth which threatens key services from GPS to weather forecasts – keeping Brits safe and boosting growth.
Government backs new spacecraft with more than £60m to remove two defunct satellites from orbit by 2032.
Builds on UK strengths in the repair, refuelling and removal of satellites – predicted to grow into billion dollar industry.
Britain is taking on space junk with a world-first mission that will use giant robotic claws to grab dead satellites threatening the GPS, weather forecasts and communications we rely on every day.
Hazardous old satellites and their remnants threaten the thousands of active satellites which underpin national security and everyday services. Hundreds of thousands of tracked debris objects – travelling at speeds exceeding 17,000 miles an hour – are large enough to damage vital space infrastructure, with swift action now needed to tackle the problem.
The UK’s Active Debris Removal mission (UK ADR) is a world-first – being launched to remove two satellites and releasing them lower into our atmosphere where they will naturally burn up. The mission marks the first time a spacecraft has disposed of more than one satellite in this way.
The refuellable spacecraft will be designed with future-use in mind, so that it can help make a difference and sweep space for years to come.
The spacecraft will launch in 2029 from Saxavord Spaceport in Scotland, which recently received £30m Government funding to ensure the UK’s sovereign launch capability.
A competition will also begin today to name the UK ADR spacecraft, welcoming submissions from the public.
Space Minister Liz Lloyd said:
Space junk and debris pose an immense and growing challenge but with our homegrown expertise, the UK is determined to lead the global effort to clean up space.
By backing this world first mission, we will protect the satellites that underpin modern life from keeping us connected with loved ones and delivering accurate weather forecasts to keeping our country safe.
This is our Space Strategy in action: giving British firms the support and clear direction they need to turn bold ideas into cutting-edge innovation, strengthen our world-class satellite sector and drive economic growth across the country.
UK ADR is part of the nascent In-orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing (ISAM) sector, predicted to grow into a billion-dollar industry within the next decade. Currently, satellites are single use. When they run out of fuel or suffer a fault, they are discarded. Developing the technology to repair, refuel and protect our orbital assets – and take advantage of the unique conditions in space to make useful products – is now a priority for the UK under the recently published Space Strategy.
UK ADR develops key technologies which will support this, building on Britain’s strong early foothold in the market. Protecting the space environment is critical for the future of the UK’s flourishing space sector more broadly; worth £18.6 billion, and supporting over 55,000 skilled jobs.
The UK Space Agency (UKSA) is working with ClearSpace UK as its industry delivery partner, building domestic expertise in spacecraft servicing and robotic capture. It will strengthen British supply chains and investment from Southampton to Newcastle, and marks the first time a company has been asked to deliver a significant new national capability.
ISAM was one of the 4 priority areas identified by the Government’s recently launched National Space Strategy, which combines UK’s plans for growth, defence, and national security to reindustrialise the country over the coming years.
Dr Alice Bunn, Co-Director UK Space Agency, said:
This mission is about much more than removing debris. It is about developing the capabilities that will enable future servicing, assembly and manufacturing in orbit.
The technologies being developed through ADR will help establish the UK’s position at the forefront of a new generation of space services while supporting a sustainable future for activities in space.
Rob Atchison, Managing Director of ClearSpace UK, said:
UK ADR will be delivered here in the UK. Our team brings together engineers and specialists from across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as allies and partners, and as the programme progresses we will create more highly specialised roles in rendezvous and proximity operations, guidance, navigation and control, robotics, spacecraft systems and mission operations.
Our next step is to design, build and test a spacecraft that can get close, safely, to an object never designed to be caught, and take control of it. We will do that with partners across the UK supply chain, working towards operations in 2029.
A Starlink satellite unexpectedly broke up on March 29, 2026, while in orbit about 350 miles (560 km) above Earth. The satellite – numbered 34343 – had been in orbit for less than a year. It launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California on May 27, 2025.
LeoLabs, a company that uses global radar to track satellites and space debris in low-Earth orbit, detected what it called:
… tens of objects in the vicinity of the satellite after the event.
Some debris from the Starlink breakup should fall back to Earth over the next few weeks. But large, remaining pieces would not return for a few years yet.
SpaceX said it is investigating the cause of the so-called rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD). It also claimed:
Melania Trump meets with Russian and Ukrainian representatives at the White House
November 5, 2026, 4:45 pm
Source: Meduza
U.S. first lady Melania Trump met with representatives of Russia and Ukraine at the White House.
Ombudsman Yana Lantratova and presidential special envoy Kirill Dmitriev represented Russia at the meeting. Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets and Davyd Arakhamia, head of the Servant of the People faction in the Verkhovna Rada, represented Ukraine.
Officials announced the meeting after a humanitarian operation in Oleshky, in the Kherson region, during which Lantratova and Lubinets helped evacuate several hundred people. Both sides said Melania Trump played the key mediating role in organizing the mission.
A temporary ceasefire was declared for the duration of the humanitarian operation and held for several days, marking the first such pause since the full-scale war in Ukraine began.
Member of the State Duma of Russia who voted in favour of Federal Law No. 75577-8 “On the ratification of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the Russian Federation and the Luhansk People’s Republic” and/or Federal Law No. 75578-8 “On the ratification of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the Russian Federation and the Donetsk People’s Republic”. In so doing, the member endorsed President Putin’s decision to recognise the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic as independent states, thereby providing support for policies and/or actions which destabilise Ukraine and/or undermine or threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty or independence of Ukraine. The trust services sanctions were imposed on 21/03/2023.
Yana Lantratova, suspected in Ukraine of involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children from the occupied Kherson region, has become the Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia, according to the decision by the State Duma on May 14, 2026.
Russia is using Ukraine’s children to win its occupation – and the wider war
Published: October 5, 2026 3.27pm BST
A year or so after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the city of Murmansk in Russia’s Arctic north-west marked its annual regional day with a celebration for children. Alongside the sons and daughters of Russian soldiers stood children taken from the occupied Prymorskyi district of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.
Ukraine’s authorities have verified 20,651 cases of children deported or forcibly displaced to Russia and Belarus since 2022. Some estimates, including figures shared by Russian officials themselves, run as high as 744,000. As of September 2026, just 2,644 Ukrainian children have been returned.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, and his children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, in March 2023 for their roles in this campaign.
But the Where Are Our People? project, which I work alongside, has identified at least 47 Russian and Belarusian individuals directly involved in the deportations. These people range from regional governors to business executives. Only some of them are under western sanctions.
Born on 25 October 1984, Commissioner for Children’s Rights
in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.
Accused LastName
Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova
Accused FirstName
Maria
Charges
Allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute). The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian occupied territory at least from 24 February 2022. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Ms Lvova-Belova bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute).
Inessa hugs her son Vitaly after the bus delivering him and more than a dozen other children back from Russian-held territory arrived in Kyiv on March 22, 2023. Photo: SERGEI CHUZAVKOV / AFP via Getty Images
US unveils sanctions on ICC in move court condemns as ‘assault on rule of law’
Image caption,The ICC said it would not be “deterred” by the sanctions
By Tom Bateman, State department correspondent, Anna Holligan, Reporting from in The Hague, and Florence Freeman
Published9 October 2026
The Trump administration has unveiled sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) in a significant acceleration of its attempt to “dismantle” what it sees as a “rogue” institution.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the measures – which include a ban on US entities making transactions with the ICC – were intended to “defend US sovereignty” and accused the court of seeking to prosecute Americans.
The ICC said the measures were an assault on the rule of law and the foundations of the international legal order.
The announcement came just hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay was awarded the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote peace and international law.
The US has already sanctioned 17 of the ICC’s judges and officials, but this move sanctions the court itself as an institution and is intended to collapse its ability to operate financially.
However, the US has provided a six month grace period before some of these latest sanctions kick in, meaning member states can keep paying for its operations – a move Washington says is to allow countries time to negotiate a “solution to address” US concerns.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the US decision “a serious blow to our collective pursuit of international criminal justice, of which the ICC is a key pillar”.
But White House spokesperson Steven Cheung called him a “Trump OG” in a post on X.
“There is no bigger advocate for the Trump agenda than Stephen, and he will help the Administration deliver on monumental victories for the rest of this historic second term,” he said.
An adviser to the president since his first term, Miller has garnered a reputation as a fierce political operator willing to push the boundaries of the law to enact Trump’s sweeping agenda.
He was a driving force behind the White House’s aggressive immigration policy, including the administration’s deadly enforcement surge into American cities that saw federal agents kill two US citizens in Minnesota early this year.
Miller has also been a driving force behind efforts at the White House to crack down on what the Trump administration has framed as left-wing political extremism. He was a chief architect behind a presidential national security memo known as NSPM-7, which laid out the groundwork to designate left-leaning groups as domestic terrorists.
Source: Huffington Post 7 Nov 2026
Some background to Katie Miller:
Katie’s career spans from her first role as press assistant to the National Republican Senatorial Committee to press secretary for the former U.S. Senator from Montana Steve Daines, according to her LinkedIn.
She was deputy press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019, affiliating herself with controversial DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who implemented Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy and family separation at the border. Katie then became communications director for the former U.S. Senator from Arizona Martha McSally.
Katie began her role as press secretary for Pence in the fall of 2019, before transitioning to communications director the following year — a position that she held until 2021, after falling out with Pence over disagreements, per an X post.
In December 2024, Katie was one of the first advisers named to Trump’s Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). In a statement to The New York Times, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt praised her role in the initiative, saying that Katie was “a critical reason DOGE was able to get off the ground.”
She held the position with DOGE until May 2025, when she left the advisory position to work full-time in the private sector for Musk — who left DOGE around the same time — CNN reported.
They met through work and mutual friends
………..
Stephen and Katie were introduced when they were both working at the White House in the spring of 2018; Stephen was Trump’s senior policy adviser and Katie was press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security.
At the time, ICE and DHS were working on a “zero tolerance” policy at the border — leading to widespread family separation — and Stephen and Katie often spoke over the phone about their work, but never met in person, per The New York Times.
One former DHS official told Vanity Fair in August 2020 that Stephen often tried to get involved in communications with DHS, and “He had this thing about calling everyone and trying to get the answer he wanted,” which is how he reportedly met Katie.
“It was very on brand, the relationship,” Stephen told Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law, on Fox News in May 2025. “We were on conference calls every day on border security.”
They later met in person through mutual friends in the spring of 2018, per The New York Times, and were engaged just over a year later in the fall of 2019.
They married in 2020 at a Trump hotel in Washington, D.C.
The Democratic perspective on this choice of Stephen Miller to Chief of Staff:
“In a way, the president did a great favor to Democrats, as now they know there is little value to extending an olive branch to the White House next January,” he said. “If Trump wants to pass things, this is a terrible choice. If he wants to engage in combat with Congress, then Stephen Miller fits the bill.”
Republican strategist Matt Klink told Newsweek the choice reveals that Trump “plans to fight.”
Melania Was Reportedly Upset Her Friends Got Deported, and Turned Trump Against Miller
The First Lady complained her friends were being caught in the administration’s deportation dragnet, leading Trump to say Stephen Miller was going “too far.”
WARSAW — The battle over who rules Poland is being fought in front of a cream-colored palace in central Warsaw — surrounded by police and protesters — that houses the country’s top constitutional court.
Liberal, pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk wants to roll back changes to the Constitutional Tribunal made by the previous nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party government, while President Karol Nawrocki is fighting — even physically — to keep the PiS-aligned judges in charge.
The government insists the court must be overhauled to restore rule of law and conform with EU norms on impartiality, while Nawrocki’s supporters accuse Tusk of backing a coup.
Police deployed during stand-off over control of top Poland court
Image caption,Officers were faced down by critics of the move outside the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw
ByAdam Easton
Warsaw
Published30 October 2026
Updated 31 October 2026
Riot police have been deployed at Poland’s Constitutional Court amid an escalating stand-off between the government and the court’s top judges.
The row pits the government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk against his predecessors from the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS).
The police intervention came after Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek said he had requested stripping the court’s President Bogdan Święczkowski and Vice-President Bartłomiej Sochański of their immunity from prosecution to bring criminal charges against them.
Tusk has vowed to depoliticise the judiciary, and on Friday defended the move as PiS supporters gathered outside the court premises in Warsaw in protest.
With Donald Tusk’s coalition vulnerable, Poland could swing sharply right in 2027. But the fragmented far-right is trapped between bashing Brussels, and having a coherent enough EU policy to be taken seriously by voters.
Polish nationalists demonstrating against European Union in Warsaw on May 1, 2019. (Alamy/Szymon Mucha)
ARPACZ, Poland — Across the European Union, far-right parties such as France’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Deutschland are coalescing and building strength, as they aim to win elections and enter governments this year or next.
But the situation on the right in Poland is different. Instead of aligning around a single message to take on the political mainstream, four different right-wing parties are in an all-out turf war over the future of the Polish right.
The issue that’s dividing them the most — and could be the greatest electoral liability come 2027 — is the European Union. The furthest right parties are calling for Polexit, while right parties closer to the center are choosing to critique specific EU policies without calls to leave the bloc.
That tension has put the Polish right in a difficult position — carry an anti-EU position that shows it is not part of the mainstream and is ready to protect Polish national interests, such as refusing to comply with EU climate or migration laws, but one serious enough that other parties would still be willing to form a coalition with them.
“You start having this kind of a very awkward choice in Poland between a mainstream, which you kind of despise, and lunatics, which you are simply afraid of,” Spasimir Domaradzki, a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, said. “Parties will be searching to find this balance between frustration with the government and pretending to be a bit more reasonable.”
Horrific mass shooting in Krakow after gunman kills six
Story by Sam Brookes
7 Oct 2026
A gunman killed six people and wounded 15 more when he opened fire in a busy market square in Krakow, Poland, on Saturday afternoon, authorities said.
The attack unfolded in the Main Square, a major tourist destination in the centre of the city, according to Krakow police.
The gunman, a Polish citizen, aimed at random people as he drove into the square, police said.
Four women and two men were killed, while police officers were among those wounded.
Source: The Independent
Gunman ‘influenced by far-right ideology’, interior minister says
Poland’s interior minister has been giving some more detail about the gunman.
Marcin Kierwinski said “everything points to the fact that the gunman was influenced by far-right ideology”.
The matter will be subject to an investigation, he said.
“Police officers are on-site, as are agents from the Internal Security Agency, both here at the scene and at the individual’s family home,” he added.
Source: Sky News
Looking back to 1999:
he introductory chapter in Anne Applebaum’s book Twilight of Democracy describes a new year’s party Applebaum and her husband organised in 1999. It took place in their house in the Polish countryside and gathered many of the country’s leading liberals and conservatives. The spirits were high, the future was bright — a highway towards freedom and open markets.
Two decades later, that dream has shrivelled like a dried apple. Poland is ruled by the right-wing nationalists of the Law and Justice Party and liberals of the Applebaum brand are their anathema. Half of the friends at the 1999 party no longer talk to her or her husband. The book is a melancholic ode to a lost world and an attempt to understand what happened to it.
Twilight of Democracy is well written and interesting in the parts that deal with friendships lost. Yet it is surprising that one of the world’s most renowned intellectuals can get away with an analysis so weak when it comes to explaining the rise of populism and authoritarianism.
It’s important to acknowledge when you’ve been wrong, and I’ve probably never been so wrong as I was in an op-ed published on April 13, 2010. At the time, I was stunned by a terrible tragedy: the crash of a plane that had carried the Polish president, Lech Kaczynski. He had been flying to the Russian city of Smolensk to visit the memorial at Katyn, where Stalin murdered 20,000 Polish officers in 1940. Several dozen senior military figures and politicians were also on the plane, many of them friends of mine and colleagues of my husband, who was then the Polish foreign minister. Among them was his deputy, Andrzej Kremer, a wonderful man and brilliant diplomat.
In the sweep of emotion that followed the crash, comparing the event to Katyn, I wrote this sentence: “This time around, nobody suspects a conspiracy.” As an excuse, I offer the fact that the tragedy initially seemed to bring people together. Politicians of all parties, from right to left, had been on the plane. Widely attended funerals were held across the country. Even Vladimir Putin, then the Russian prime minister, seemed moved. He arranged for the broadcast of “Katyn” — an emotional and very anti-Soviet Polish film — on Russian state television as a kind of memorial. Nothing like it has ever been shown so widely in Russia, before or since.
But my optimism was premature. The president’s brother, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, then the unpopular leader of the parliamentary opposition, seems to have initially believed, as all the evidence has always shown, that the crash was an accident. Then he changed his mind. Perhaps he could not accept that his beloved twin had died randomly, in a pointless crash. Perhaps he was maddened by grief. Perhaps he felt guilty: He had helped plan the trip. Or perhaps, like Donald Trump, he saw that a conspiracy theory could help bring him to power.
Much as Trump used birtherism to inspire his core voters, Kaczynski, in the years that followed, used the Smolensk crash to motivate his supporters, that minority of the Polish population that remains convinced that unnamed secret forces control the country, that the “elite” is manipulated by foreigners and that everything that has happened in the country since 1989 is part of a sinister plot. And it worked. Last year, thanks to flukes of the electoral system, less than 40 percent of the vote — reflecting 18 percent of the adult population — proved sufficient for his nationalist-populist party, Law and Justice, to win a slim parliamentary majority.
Readers familiar with my recent op-eds will know that I am not shy about pointing out Russian plots when I see them. But there is just no evidence of one at Smolensk. Within hours of the crash, Polish forensic experts were on the ground. They immediately obtained the black boxes and transcribed them meticulously. The cockpit tape can be heard online, and it makes the circumstances painfully clear. The president was late; he had planned a live broadcast from Katyn. When Russian air traffic controllers wanted to divert the plane because of heavy fog, he did not agree. The chief of the air force sat in the cockpit during the final minutes of the flight and pushed the pilots to land: “Be bold, you’ll make it,” he told them. According to the official report, written by the country’s top aviation experts, the plane hit a tree, then the ground, and then broke up.
In the wake of Trump’s grudging renouncement of birtherism, the insidious, racist theory that gave rise to his political career, it’s worth pondering what happened when Law and Justice came to power. Within days of taking office, the new government removed the official report from its website. (It’s still available online.) More recently, police and prosecutors entered the homes of the aviation experts who testified in the original investigation, interrogated them and confiscated their computers
Typhoons batter East Asia as El Niño makes Pacific ‘burn with fever’
Image caption,Fishermen return to sea under a crimson sky in August after China’s Jiangsu province is hit by Super Typhoon Dolphin
ByJoel Guinto, Reporting fromSingapore, Kurumi Mori, Tokyo correspondent and Darren Bett, Lead weather presenter
Published4 November 2026
Wild weather is a way of life for people living along the coast in the Philippines, Taiwan, China and Japan. But the last few months have been extraordinary.
A wave of intense and, at times, unpredictable storms exacerbated by the El Niño weather pattern has killed dozens, shuttered major airports and wiped out crops and infrastructure across a swathe of East Asia.
In October, nearly all of Taiwan shut down as a monster storm big enough to engulf the island of 23 million roared towards its north-eastern coast. Equivalent to a category five hurricane, Typhoon Champi’s 295km/h (193mph) winds had the power to flatten homes and whip up destructive waves.
Thankfully it did not make landfall in Taiwan, skirting past the island while dousing it in rain. But it had far-reaching impacts: hundreds of flights were cancelled in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan. In the Philippines’ Batanes archipelago, seaside highways shut as huge waves crashed onto the shore, and in southern Japan’s Okinawa islands, power was cut to 15,000 homes.
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate phenomenon in which warm waters pooling in the eastern Pacific and altered wind patterns drive extreme weather events around the world.
It happens around every two to seven years, lasting for around a year. This year’s El Niño, which the UK Met Office has forecast to be the “strongest in living memory”, is likely to last until February or March.
In June, Japan watched two storms – Typhoon Mekkhala and Severe Tropical Storm Higos – race towards its eastern coast simultaneously, forcing one million people to evacuate. In July, Tropical Storm Narra grazed China’s southern coast along Guangxi, submerging villages and displacing tens of thousands.
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