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Moscow has undertaken diplomatic efforts to secure the release of people being held captive in Gaza

Russian President Vladimir Putin has thanked the political wing of Hamas for the release of Russian-Israeli citizen Aleksandr Trufanov, during a meeting with the freed hostage in Moscow on Wednesday.

The Palestinian group freed Trufanov in February as part of a Gaza ceasefire agreement with Israel and following diplomatic efforts by Moscow. Two other hostages were also released at the time.

“Here we have to offer a word of gratitude to the leadership and to the political wing of Hamas for having met us halfway and carried out this humanitarian act,” Putin said as he welcomed Trufanov and the surviving members of his family at the Kremlin.

Trufanov was taken hostage on October 7, 2023 along with his grandmother Irena Tati, mother Elena, and fiancée Sapir Cohen. His father Vitaly Trufanov was killed in the attack. The women were released as part of the Hamas-Israel truce in November 2023. Aleksandr spent 498 days in captivity.

“The fact that you are now free is a result of Russia’s many years of stable relations with the Palestinian people, with the representatives of different organizations,” Putin said, adding that Russia will do whatever is necessary to ensure those still in captivity are freed.

A Hamas delegation visited Moscow in early February, less than two weeks before Trufanov’s release. The group, led by senior official Mousa Abu Marzouk, met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov to discuss the ongoing ceasefire in Gaza and related humanitarian issues.

This visit was part of Russia’s ongoing engagement with various parties involved in the Middle East conflict.

The October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel left approximately 1,200 people dead, with around 250 taken hostage. In the past 18 months, over 51,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed amid Israel’s military operation, according to the enclave’s health authorities.

READ MORE: Israeli Army to remain indefinitely in Gaza – defense minister

On Wednesday, Israel proposed a 45-day truce in Gaza to allow hostage releases and potentially begin indirect talks to end the war. Hamas has said it is studying the plan.

Beijing has reportedly slashed purchases of American crude by 90% amid the tariff war

China has been importing record amounts of crude oil from Canada and drastically reducing supplies from the US in light of the trade war with Washington, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

Washington and Beijing have implemented a series of reciprocal tariff hikes over the past two months in light of which the latter has slashed purchases of US oil by roughly 90%, according to the outlet. China previously indicated that it would not implement more tariff hikes against US goods but would rather employ alternative ways to retaliate.

Chinese crude imports from a port near Vancouver on Canada’s Pacific coast soared to a record 7.3 million barrels in March and may exceed the figure this month, Bloomberg reported, citing data from London-based global oil and gas cargo tracking firm Vortexa Ltd. Chinese imports of US oil, meanwhile, have fallen to 3 million barrels per month from a peak of 29 million last June, it added.

China’s direct imports of Canadian crude oil had historically been minimal, primarily due to infrastructure constraints. Chinese refineries have mainly sourced crude from the Middle East and Russia.

Roughly 1.7% of China’s total crude imports came from the US last year, according to Chinese customs data, down from 2.5% in 2023.

Nearly all of Canada’s oil is shipped to the US to be processed there or re-exported to Asia. However, the completion last May of the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, which takes crude to Canada’s Pacific coast, provided the country with an alternative route to export more volumes directly, primarily to Asia, thus reducing its reliance on the US.

READ MORE: Here’s why Trump really wants to get his hands on Greenland and Canada

“Given the trade war, it’s unlikely for China to import more US oil,” Bloomberg quoted Wenran Jiang, president of the Canada-China Energy & Environment Forum, as saying. “They are not going to bank on Russian alone or Middle Eastern alone. Anything from Canada will be welcome news.”

China accounted for roughly 5% of US crude oil exports last year, according to ship-tracking data from Kpler.

Russia remains China’s largest supplier of crude oil. Russian shipments to China reached the highest level on record in 2024. The increase in recent years is largely attributable to the discounts being offered on Russian crude. China’s imports of oil from Saudi Arabia, its second-largest supplier, declined by 9% year-on-year in 2024.

Sodha explains what the Leadbeater bill will permit:

Sodha is concerned with the speed in which the assisted suicide bill is being pushed. Leadbeater did delay the next debate on the bill by three weeks. Sodha outlines some of the dangerous flaws with the bill:

Sodha asks how did the UK get here? She points out that some supporters of assisted suicide acknowledge that wrongful deaths will occur. She writes:

Sodha then points out that most of the assisted suicide supporters ignore the real concerns:

Sodha explains that assisted suicide supporters are not only ignoring concerns with the bill but they accuse opponents of the bill as "acting in bad faith". She writes:

Sodha suggests that many of the supporters of assisted suicide do so with a quasi-religious fervour.

Sodha challenges the British Labour government by stating:

Sodha completes her article by stating the fundamental point:

Previous articles about the UK assisted suicide bill:

• British MP who supported assisted suicide is opposing the assisted suicide bill (Link). 
• The UK assisted dying bill gets more dangerous by the day (Link). 
• UK assisted suicide bill is losing support and can be defeated (Link). 
• Follow the money. Members of Scottish parliament accept money from? (Link).
• Scotland's assisted suicide bill is dangerous (Link).

The country’s top court has removed the group from the terrorist list

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday lifted the Taliban’s designation as a “terrorist organization,” effectively legalizing the group’s activities in the country.

The Islamist movement, which took power in Afghanistan four years ago, had been listed as a terrorist entity since 2003, making any contact with its members a criminal offense under Russian law.

The decision follows calls from Russian officials to engage with the Taliban to help stabilize Afghanistan. The group returned to power in August 2021 following the withdrawal of US and NATO forces after their two-decade presence in the Central Asian country.

Since that time, Moscow has resumed diplomatic contacts with Taliban officials. Last year, President Vladimir Putin said it was “necessary to build relations with the current government somehow,” as they are now in control of Afghanistan.

In May 2024, the Russian Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Justice formally proposed lifting the ban. Earlier this month, the Prosecutor General’s Office submitted the motion to the Supreme Court, leading to Thursday’s ruling.

Previously, Russian law had no mechanism for removing organizations from the terrorist list. However, amendments passed in 2023 to the federal law on countering terrorism now allow the courts to suspend the designation if the group in question has ceased activities involving propaganda, justification, or support of terrorism, and no longer violates the Criminal Code.

Although the Taliban government is not officially recognized by the international community, several Central Asian countries have recently renewed ties with Kabul. Kazakhstan removed the group from its terrorist list in June 2024, followed by Kyrgyzstan in September. Turkmenistan has resumed cooperation through the TAPI gas pipeline project, and Uzbekistan signed several joint agreements with Kabul in August 2024.

Mohammad Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s envoy to Qatar and its de facto international spokesman, told RT earlier this month that Kabul welcomed Russia’s move, saying the ban had stood “in the way of cooperation” between the two countries.

Experts say Thursday’s ruling does not constitute formal recognition of the Taliban government, but will facilitate diplomatic engagement.

The president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has dismissed the bloc’s fears of Russia as irrational

The EU should stop vilifying Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, the president of Republika Srpska, Milorad Dodik, has said. The Serb leader of the autonomous region within Bosnia and Herzegovina also dismissed claims that Moscow harbors aggressive plans against EU countries.

In an interview with Switzerland’s Die Weltwoche magazine on Wednesday, Dodik said the “Russian point of view is that the war in Ukraine had been imposed [on] Russia by the Western, global elite.” He went on to cite Boris Johnson’s alleged role in the derailment of peace negotiations between Moscow and Kiev in Istanbul, Türkiye in 2022. Russian officials have since claimed that the then-UK prime minister persuaded Ukraine not to sign a deal and “just continue fighting.”

In November 2023, David Arakhamia, an MP allied with Zelensky who led the Ukrainian delegation, confirmed that this was the case. Johnson has denied the allegation.

According to Dodik, “the Russians have learned that they cannot trust the West because the West lies all the time.” He referenced the admissions by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande that the 2014-15 Minsk agreements had been a mere ploy to help Kiev build up its military capabilities.

Commenting on concerns among some EU member states that Russia may be planning an attack on the bloc’s eastern members, Dodik said, “I think that this is not a rational explanation or expectation, and that Putin has no aspirations whatsoever toward those states.”

Asked for his recommendations to Brussels on dealing with Russia, he argued that “they should, first of all, stop demonizing Putin and demonizing Russia, and trying to invent a narrative that would back that up.”

According to Dodik, the Russian president appears to want to engage with US President Donald Trump, while having no wish to “talk with Europe.”

He suggested that in his talks with Moscow, Trump “should take into consideration and respect the Russian requirements, the Russian requests,” and aim for a “comprehensive agreement,” as opposed to one narrowly focusing only on Ukraine.

Speaking to Serbian media this week, Dodik defied top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas’ warning to EU candidate nations, demanding that they not “take part in the May 9 [WWII Victory Day] events in Moscow.”

“I want to be there and I will go,” the Bosnian Serb leader said, adding that he does not fear any potential repercussions from Brussels.

The White House is reportedly concerned with China’s AI success and is looking to slow its progress in the industry

US officials are taking steps to crack down on China’s DeepSeek AI and its support from chip-making giant Nvidia, the New York Times has reported, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

DeepSeek’s January release shook the foundations of the artificial intelligence industry and rattled the US stock market, heating up the AI race between China and the US. Unlike its main rival – OpenAI’s ChatGPT – DeepSeek’s open-source deep reasoning model was made freely available, quickly making it the most downloaded app on Apple’s and Google’s stores. The model’s development also reportedly cost a fraction of what US companies have been spending on such technologies.

On Wednesday, the NYT reported that US President Donald Trump and his administration have been weighing penalties that would block DeepSeek from buying American technologies and are debating banning US users from accessing the Chinese AI.

Earlier this week, Nvidia announced that the US government had blocked the sale of some of its AI chips to China without a license and would demand such licenses for future sales.

US congressional leaders have been looking to further crack down on Nvidia’s chip deliveries to China and on Wednesday opened an investigation into the company’s sale of chips across Asia.

The main focus of the probe is said to be to determine if Nvidia knowingly provided DeepSeek with critical technology to develop AI, which would be a violation of American rules established under former US President Joe Biden.

A spokesman for Nvidia, John Rizzo, has since stated that the company has followed the US government’s directions on what products it can sell and where it can sell them “to the letter,” and that it is committed to protecting and enhancing US national security.

Following DeepSeek’s launch, several countries, including the US, South Korea, Italy, and Australia, have imposed bans and restrictions on the chatbot, citing national security and data privacy concerns. 

In February, US lawmakers proposed legislation that would ban the app from being installed on any government-owned devices after cybersecurity experts claimed that the program contained hidden code capable of transmitting sensitive user data to China. Washington has previously accused Beijing of using its apps to attempt to access sensitive data in other countries.

China has dismissed the accusation as politically motivated “ideological discrimination,” asserting that the government does not require enterprises or individuals to collect or store data illegally.

Both leaders have called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pledged support for Syria following last year’s coup

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani in Moscow on Thursday to discuss regional security issues in the Middle East, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation in Syria.

The visit marked Al Thani’s first official trip to Russia since 2018.

Both leaders expressed concern over the ongoing civilian suffering in Gaza. Al Thani said Israel had failed to uphold the internationally brokered ceasefire deal agreed with Palestinian authorities in January, in which Qatar played a key mediating role.

“As you know, we reached an agreement months ago, but unfortunately, Israel did not abide by this agreement,” Al Thani stated, adding that Doha continues its efforts to broker a lasting ceasefire in the region.

Putin and Al Thani both reiterated their support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Civilians continue to die in Palestine, which is an absolute tragedy,” Putin said. “We believe – and our positions here are the same – that a long-term settlement can be achieved only and exclusively on the basis of the United Nations decision on the creation of the Palestinian state.”

The leaders also discussed the situation in Syria following the ouster of longtime President Bashar Assad by a broad coalition of armed groups led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) late last year. Assad, a close ally to Moscow, was replaced by HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

“We would like to do everything to ensure that Syria remains a sovereign, independent and geographically integrated state,” Putin said. He added that Moscow was ready to work with Doha to address the humanitarian crisis and stabilize Syria, citing ongoing challenges in politics, security and the economy.

READ MORE: Gulf benefactor may settle some of Syria’s foreign debt – Reuters

Al Thani said he recently met with Syria’s new leader, who conveyed an interest in maintaining strong relations with Russia.

“We discussed with [al-Sharaa] the historical ties between Syria and Russia, which were and are of a strategic nature. He is determined to continue cooperation [with Russia], to secure ties based on mutual respect and the interests of the two peoples,” Al Thani said. Syria is “going through a very difficult period” and needs international support to preserve its territorial integrity and sovereignty, he added.

Both leaders also praised the state of Russia-Qatar relations and reaffirmed their commitment to expanding cooperation in trade, investment, and regional diplomacy.

Above: 17th century Paris. Source. Four centuries ago, on April 17, 1625, history witnessed a landmark event: the founding of the Congregation of the Mission of Saint Vincent de Paul († 1660), commonly known as the Lazarists, named after their motherhouse, Saint-Lazare in Paris. This anniversary provides an invaluable opportunity to reflect on the enduring legacy of this extraordinary…

Source

“If it is known that authorities have power to coerce, few people will wait for actual coercion,” economist Friedrich Hayek wrote in the 1956 foreword to his 1944 classic, The Road to Serfdom. Hayek’s insight could be the Rosetta Stone for understanding the Trump administration’s censorship zealotry.

On March 25, six masked federal agents seized a Turkish graduate student on the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. Rumeysa Ozturk—who was wearing a hijab—was a Fulbright scholar working on a doctorate at Tufts University. Ozturk was snatched up because she co-authored a student newspaper op-ed a year earlier that criticized Israel, as I discussed here on March 31 (“First They Came for the Op-Ed Writers”).

Secretary of State Marco Rubio denounced Ozturk as a “lunatic” and implied she was guilty of participating “in movements that vandalize universities, harass students, take over buildings, and cause chaos.” Ozturk was shuffled between detention facilities before being taken to Louisiana. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to deport her without any judicial proceedings.

Ozturk’s student visa was secretly revoked several days before she was taken into custody. Did the Trump administration want a high-profile incident in order to deter any other students from writing op-eds or from protesting Middle East policies?

On Sunday night, the Washington Post detonated the Trump case against Ozturk by publishing extracts from a confidential State Department memo. Prior to Ozturk being seized outside of Boston, senior DHS official Andre Watson sent a memo to the State Department stating that, “OZTURK engaged in anti-Israel activism… Specifically, [Ozturk] co-authored an op-ed article” that “called for Tufts to ‘disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.’” But the State Department found that no federal agency had turned up any evidence that Ozturk “engaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization.” Despite Rubio’s vilification of Ozturk, the feds didn’t have squat on her.

DHS wanted Ozturk expelled from the US under a provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act that entitles the Secretary of State to deport any foreigner if there are reasonable grounds to believe their presence has “adverse policy consequence for the United States.” But there was no such evidence for Ozturk, so the Trump administration instead used a legal authority under which the Secretary of State can deport anyone on his own decree—no evidence required.

Because of her op-ed criticizing Israel, Ozturk vanished into the federal detention system, moved from state to state so the Trump administration could avoid a habeas petition in federal court challenging her detention. She was forced to wear leg shackles and a chain around her waist. She has asthma and had several attacks so far in lockup. At the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile, she sleeps with 23 other people in a cell meant for 14. “None of us are able to sleep through the night. They come into the cell often and walk around triggering the fluorescent lights. They shout in the cell to wake up those who work in the kitchen around 3:30 am each day,” she said. Ozturk stated that a federal officer told her: “We are not monsters. We do what the government tells us.” So, of course, federal officials are blameless for any rights that they violate.

Ozturk is one of the most high-profile seizures that Trump’s DHS has made of students who criticized Israeli policies in Gaza. Hundreds of student visas have been revoked and the Trump administration has floated proposals to prohibit all foreign students from attending American universities that fail to fully suppress criticism or protests against Israeli policies.

It would be the height of folly for Americans to presume they face no peril from entitling the feds to seize boundless power to punish students’ speech. Ozturk’s name was provided to the Trump administration by Betar—an organization that the Washington Post characterized as a “militant Zionist group.” US citizens are at risk as well. A spokesman for Betar declared: “We provided hundreds of names to the Trump administration of visa holders and naturalized Middle Easterners and foreigners” who have criticized Israeli policies. The Anti-Defamation League condemned Betar as an extremist organization in February.

Any precedent for blanket censorship will propagate like a covid virus. Many conservatives and libertarians may shrug off Ozturk’s degradation because they have no interest in criticizing the policies of foreign governments. But the Ozturk case hinges on collective guilt—on assuming that anyone who advocates a position is culpable for any crimes committed by any other advocate with the same view.

This was the tacit doctrine that the Biden administration used to legally scourge peaceful January 6 protestors who merely “paraded without a permit” through or near the US Capitol that day. Because a minority of January 6 protestors became violent, the FBI presumed that “trespassing plus thought crimes equal terrorism,” justifying harsh sentences for anyone at the scene (except for the undercover federal agents and informants).

What legal perils will pro-freedom protestors face in the coming years if the Ozturk rule is canonized, entitling federal officials to crush any disfavored opinion? Big-spending Democrats may consecrate Modern Monetary Theory and demonize anyone who criticizes the Federal Reserve. I took this “Kill the Central Bank” photo of Ron Paul supporters at a 2008 Capitol Hill event for his presidential campaign. If the same protestors had peacefully carried the same banner within a half mile of the Capitol on January 6, they likely would have been nailed on a bevy of federal charges. Many politicians have made stark their hatred of libertarians and freedom advocates. A federally-funded Fusion Center tagged Ron Paul supporters as potential terrorist suspects, and another federally-funded center sounded the alarm on anyone “reverent of individual liberty.”

As long as anyone is sitting in shackles in a federal detention center simply for writing an op-ed, freedom of speech is not safe for anyone in the United States. Will Ozturk’s persecution finally wake up people too confident that “it can never happen here”?

Reprinted with permission from Mises.org.

A Cambridge-led team has found Earth-like gasses in the atmosphere of a planet 124 light-years away

UK researchers have claimed to have found a possible sign of life on a faraway planet. Scientists from the University of Cambridge have announced the detection of a gas that on Earth is only made by living organisms.

The discovery, which was made using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, could be the strongest hint yet of life beyond Earth.

The team studied K2-18 b, a planet about 124 light-years away in the Leo constellation. It is known as a “hycean” planet, meaning it may have a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and liquid water oceans. Such conditions make it a promising candidate for life.

The telescope detected dimethyl sulfide and dimethyl disulfide in the planet’s air. On Earth, both gases are made only by living organisms, mainly marine microbes such as phytoplankton. Levels of these compounds on the planet K2-18 b were found to be thousands of times higher than those on Earth.

Dr. Nikku Madhusudhan, a Cambridge University astrophysicist and lead author of the study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on Thursday, said the implications could be profound.

The findings “provide new independent evidence for the possibility of a biosphere on K2-18 b,” the study claimed. “What we are finding at this point are hints of possible biological activity outside the solar system,” he told a press conference. “Frankly, I think this is the closest we have come to seeing a feature that we can attribute to life,” he added.

Madhusudhan explained that detecting chemical fingerprints of gases that on Earth are created only through biological processes could point to a potentially inhabited alien world. “This is a revolutionary moment,” he added.

However, the team warned that the detected gases could also be the result of unknown natural processes. Additional telescope observations are needed to determine if living organisms truly are the source.

“That God, which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off divine event
To which the whole creation moves.”
— Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

When American colonists were oppressed by British monarchs, the word most frequently uttered in pamphlets, editorials and sermons was not “safety” or “taxes”; it was “freedom.” Yet, two intolerable acts of Parliament so assaulted personal freedom that they broke the bonds with the mother country.

The first was the Stamp Act of 1765, which required colonists to have government stamps on all documents in every household. It was enforced by British agents who used general warrants, issued by a secret court in London, to rummage through colonists’ possessions, ostensibly looking for stamps.

General warrants — like those issued by the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in Washington, D.C. — authorized government agents to search wherever they wished and seize whatever they found.

The second intolerable act was the Revenue Act of 1767, the proceeds from which the king used to pay the salaries of colonial officials and the king’s clergy, thereby securing their loyalty.

The Stamp Act assaulted the right to be left alone, and the Revenue Act forced colonists to pay for a religious establishment. These two British laws caused many colonists to realize they needed to secede from Britain and form a new country, in which the government would protect freedom, not assault it. Ten years later, they did so and won the American Revolutionary War.

Today, the loss of freedom comes in many forms.

Sometimes it is direct, as when the government arrests people it hates or fears without a warrant and incarcerates them in a foreign prison without due process.

Sometimes it is subtle, as when the president unilaterally imposes a sales tax on imported goods and, as a result, instability erodes the value of our investments.

Sometimes it is secret, as when the government reads emails and text messages and follows the movements of cellphones, all without search warrants; or when it uses drones to kill people the government hates or fears, without a declaration of war or any due process.

Freedom is the ability of every person to make personal choices without a government permission slip — to exercise free will. Free will is the natural characteristic we share in common with God. It is His unconditional gift to us. He created us in His image and likeness. As God is perfectly free, so are we.

When the government takes away freedom — whether by executive order or legislation — it steals a gift we received from God, it violates the natural law and the Constitution, and it prevents us from seeking the truth.

Freedom is the essence of humanity. No one can achieve happiness or truth without it. Government is essentially the negation of freedom.

We know from events 2,000 years ago this week — in the Roman Empire police state of Judea — that freedom is also the essential means to unite with the truth. To Catholics, the incarnation and the perfect manifestation of truth is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

To believe that Jesus is God and man is to take Easter seriously.

Taking Easter seriously also means that on the first Holy Thursday, Jesus attended a traditional Jewish Passover Seder. Catholics believe that at this Last Supper, Jesus performed two miracles so that we could stay united to Him. He transformed ordinary bread and wine into His own body, blood, soul and divinity, and He empowered His disciples and their recognized successors to do the same.

That Jewish Seder was the first Catholic Mass.

The next day — the first Good Friday — the Roman government crucified Jesus because it feared that by claiming to be the Son of God, He might foment a political revolution. He did foment a revolution, but it was in the hearts and minds and souls of men and women.

Taking Easter seriously recognizes that Jesus had the freedom to reject His horrific death, but He exercised His free will to accept it so that we might know the truth. The truth is that He — and we who have faith and hope and perform good works — would rise from the dead.

On Easter, that “far-off divine event,” as Tennyson wrote, Jesus rose from the dead. By doing that, He demonstrated to us that while living, we can liberate our souls from the slavery of sin because, after death, we of faith, hope and selfless good works can rise to be with Him.

Taking Easter seriously recognizes that the Resurrection of Jesus is the linchpin of human existence “to which the whole creation moves.” With it, life is worth living, no matter its painful costs or losses. Without it, life is meaningless, no matter its fleeting joys or triumphs.

Easter has a meaning that is both incomprehensible and simple. It is incomprehensible that a human being rose from the dead. It is simple because that human being was and is God.

Taking Easter seriously means that there’s hope for the dead. If there’s hope for the dead, then there’s hope for the living.

But like the colonists who fought the oppression of the king, we the living can achieve our hopes only if we have freedom. And that requires more than faith and hope and good works. It requires a government that protects freedom, not one that assaults it.

America today is divided and fearful. The government is broke, overbearing, lawless and unworthy of belief. It threatens World War III, has produced wild inflation, destroyed happiness and refuses to obey its own laws.

But, faith in Jesus’ Resurrection — which is also hope for our own — infuses the souls of the faithful with a freedom that only God can give.

Happy Easter!

To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2025 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

Aleksandar Vucic says he is “ready for the whole sky to fall on his head” due to pressure from Brussels

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has confirmed he will travel to Russia for the Victory Day celebrations next month, despite warnings from the European Union that the move could jeopardize Belgrade’s accession hopes.

Moscow will host its annual military parade on Red Square on May 9 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany. Vucic attended the event in 2020, prior to the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

EU foreignpolicy chief Kaja Kallas said on Monday that the bloc does “not want any candidate country to take part in the May 9 events in Moscow.” EU officials have even reportedly threatened to derail Serbia’s bid to join the bloc if Vucic attends the celebrations.

“I have not changed my decision... I am ready for the whole sky to fall on my head from the pressure to go to Moscow. Eight months ago, I announced my visit to Moscow, publicly,” Vucic said on Wednesday, as cited by Serbian media.

According to the president, a unit of the Serbian Army will take part in the parade. During World War II, Serbia, which was then part of Yugoslavia, fell under Nazi occupation and was liberated by Soviet forces in 1944.

Vucic also said that “a period of enormous diplomatic activity is coming,” citing several upcoming meetings with EU officials and a possible visit to the US.

The Russian government extended multiple invitations to the May 9 events, including to the leaders of China, India and Brazil, as well as to EU member Slovakia and to Serbia, which was granted EU candidate status in 2012.

READ MORE: ‘It’s 2025, not 1939’ – Fico challenges EU’s warning against Moscow trip

Belgrade has declined to provide arms to Ukraine and has voiced opposition to the EU’s sanctions against Moscow. Vucic has emphasized the value of maintaining good relations with Russia and has called for a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict.

UK Supreme Court Rules that the Legal Definition of a Woman Is Biological

Paul Craig Roberts

The UK Supreme Court has ruled that in British Law the terms “woman” and “sex” are biological terms and do not include men who identify as “transgender.” The Court ruled that people with “transgender recognition certificates,” whatever that is, are excludable from biological single-sex spaces.

There are interesting aspects of this case that deserve comment. The case was brought by Scottish women’s rights groups against the Scottish government’s imposition of men who declare themselves to be women on biological women’s spaces. What has become of the Scottish people that they put in office a deranged, crazed government that forces biological women to accept men into their private spaces simply because the deranged man declares himself to be a woman? How did Scotland get a deranged government that in earlier times would have been hung off the nearest lamp posts, if not drawn and quartered in the public square? What has gone wrong with the Scottish people that they are unable to make intelligent and moral choices about those they empower to govern them?

We see a similar collapse of historic peoples in Ireland where the Irish people have put in power a government that forces ethnic Irish citizens who can barely put food on the table to support massive inflows of third-world immigrant invaders who are totally destroying the character and quality of Irish life. What has gone wrong with the Irish people that they put in power a government determined to destroy them?

Another interesting aspect is that the LGBT+ alliance is breaking up.  The Scottish lesbians took the side of the women’s rights groups against the alleged “transgenders.” A lesbian spokesperson said that lesbians were tired of being called “far-right bigots” for refusing to accept men into lesbian groups.

The UK Supreme Court has declared “transgender recognition certificates” to be legally meaningless. What precisely is, or was, a “transgender recognition certificate?” It was an effort to use a piece of paper to give authority and reality to a self-declared new sex that does not exist in nature, or if it does only as a freak abnormality.

What the “transgender movement” is, or was, really about is an expansion of the cultural marxist “march through the institutions.” Another normal meaning is destroyed–sex. With the destruction of male/female, chaos is introduced into hospital wards, rape crisis centers, changing rooms, sports teams.

What is extraordinary is the number of Western government officials at every level who fanatically supported the “transgender movement.”  For example, in Virginia a public school administration covered up the rape of a young girl in a school female shower/toilet area by a male allowed access because he declared himself to be a female. The corrupt school administrators were so committed to “transgenders rights” that they covered up a rape and tried to destroy the father who complained of the rape of his child.

This demonstrates how deep  the hold of evil on Western civilization has grown to be. When liberal public school administrators in America are so corrupt that they aid and abet the rape of the young girls in their schools, and cover it up, we know our society is terminably ill.

Can Trump renew such a sick and despoiled country?

Science which has long been eliminating humanity now takes a huge step forward

https://www.unz.com/jtaylor/were-all-eugenicists-now/

https://www.globalresearch.ca/gene-edited-cows-humans/5686682