Trump’s Exploding Boats Scheme BACKFIRES - Then It Gets Worse!

Trump’s Exploding Boats Scheme BACKFIRES - Then It Gets Worse!

Right, so Donald Trump has declared himself guardian of the Strait of Hormuz. Guardian. Protector. Toll collector. Apparently the man saw one of the world’s most dangerous shipping lanes, made dangerous by him of course and thought, yes, what this needs is branding. And a fee, bearing mind Iran was told it couldn’t do that. The orange one has decided he can though. Small thing Donnie, you still don’t control the Strait, but let’s no stop him from hoisting himself by his own demented petard. A 20% fee, no less, because naturally, if there is one thing global trade has been crying out for, it is Donald Trump standing at the mouth of the Persian Gulf with a clipboard and a card reader. But there is one other, rather significant problem with this idea, aside from the idea Trump would have a scooby about how to operate a card reader, he’s more likely to chew it I fancy, and quite aside from the whole who is in control here angle. Hardly anybody is crossing the Strait. MarineTraffic tracked only two tankers completing passage during one twenty-four-hour period. Two. Trump says the strait is open, Trump says America controls it, Trump says America is protecting it, but the ships appear to have missed that memo. Then two UAE-linked tankers were struck, one sailor was killed, eight more were injured, Trump’s scheme has been called piracy and not by who you might expect, and America’s latest contribution to maritime safety involved sending exploding robot boats towards Bandar Abbas. So yes, Trump’s Hormuz protection racket has suffered two fairly substantial blows. The ships don’t trust it. And quite a lot of the world think Trump is doing his best impression of a bright orange Blackbeard.

Israel’s Warfare Is SCREWED - IDF Collapsing With No Way Out!

Right, so Israel is once again rattling the sabre at Iran. Another operation. Another historic mission. Another promise that this time, somehow, the same people who have spent years chewing through soldiers, reservists, vehicles, ammunition, money and basic supplies are going to produce a fresh war out of the cupboard like there’s another fully staffed army hiding behind the beans. There isn’t. The IDF says it is thousands of personnel short. Active reservist numbers are being cut at the same time, which defies logic. The army is still chasing billions of shekels it says it still needs. There are reports of spare-parts shortages, repair backlogs and units struggling just to get basic supplies now on the war fronts they are already on, including water. And yet here comes another Iran plan, because of course it does. Because Netanyahu’s answer to an army worn down by war is apparently more war. The man has one button and he has absolutely battered it. Now, of course this does not mean every Israeli soldier has vanished, every water container is dry and every tank has been abandoned at the roadside with the bonnet up. It means something far more politically damaging than that. The army is still there. It is still dangerous. It is still capable of inflicting enormous destruction as it carries on doing every single day in Gaza, in Lebanon, in the West Bank and so on. But it is also telling its own government that the gap between what Netanyahu wants it to do and what it can keep doing, given all of this, is getting wider. It’s not that “Israel has no army”, it’s that Israel has a government that can’t get it through their heads that the army is finite. Yet when this became too obvious to ignore, Netanyahu and Smotrich appeared together in the most tin-eared way they could.

Trump’s Reward To The UAE Over Iran Just Slammed Into A Chinese Brick Wall!

Right, so Donald Trump has rewarded the UAE for helping America’s war against Iran. Not with a medal. Not with a little certificate in a gold frame. Not even with one of those ghastly commemorative plates nobody wants but everybody pretends is tasteful. No, the UAE gets easier access to advanced AI chips now, servers, military equipment, satellites, drones, sensitive dual-use technology, a great big techy thank-you hamper. Help us with the war and we’ll chuck in the computing power. Lovely. But while Washington is busy handing over this shiny high-tech goodie bag, China has started blocking helium exports to protect its own chipmakers because the same war has already helped make the global shortage of helium worse. Helium is used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing to control heat during the incredibly precise process of etching microscopic circuits onto silicon. No helium, no easy substitute for it either, and suddenly Trump’s lovely AI reward starts looking like a brand-new kitchen with the gas supply cut off. Trump rewards the UAE with chips, while helping wreck the supply chain needed to actually make those chips.

Qatar Just Handed Netanyahu His Backside On A Plate!

Right, so Volkswagen had a problem. Its Osnabrück plant was running out of road, car production was winding down, thousands of jobs were hanging in the balance, and somebody somewhere clearly thought: well, if we can’t sell enough cars, perhaps we can start building bits for Israel’s missile systems instead. Enter Rafael. Israeli government-owned. Iron Dome manufacturer. Very keen on a German factory, German machinery and a ready-made workforce. Cars out. Launchers, transporters and power equipment in. A wonderfully neat little arrangement, provided you don’t look at it for more than six seconds. Germany gets another chunk of industry pushed towards weapons for an Israeli state owned arms manufacturer. Volkswagen gets to call it a rescue plan. Rafael gets a foothold inside one of Europe’s biggest manufacturing names. But then Qatar enters the story. Gulf state, Iran facing, not exactly on the best of terms with Israel right now all things considered. You see Qatar Holding, the state-backed investment arm, is one of Volkswagen’s largest shareholder blocs. It owns roughly 10.4% of the company’s shares, but because of Volkswagen’s voting structure, that translates into about 17% of the shareholder voting rights. Seventeen percent of the votes inside Volkswagen. So Qatar has real corporate weight. Boardroom weight. Enough influence, according to the reporting, to obstruct the Rafael arrangement and later have its intervention described as a veto. And we should also remember that Qatar, unusually among the Gulf states seemingly edging ever closer to Israel, has never formally normalised relations with it. So it appears to have looked at Volkswagen’s proposed partnership with an Israeli state-owned arms company and said: absolutely not. Actual shareholder power.

Professor’s BLISTERING Takedown Of ABC’s Iran Claim Is A Must Watch!

Right, so ABC Australia’s flagship current-affairs programme, 7.30, invited Professor Mohammad Marandi on to discuss Iran, apparently under the impression he had never done a television interview before. Because this was either a spectacular insult to his intelligence or to ours. Possibly both. The woman interviewing him was Sarah Ferguson, the long-serving host of 7.30, with a reputation for combative interviews. She has built a career on pressing difficult guests, so this was not some nervous junior presenter accidentally getting out of their depth. And yet Ferguson opened as though Marandi would simply accept every Western premise placed in front of him, nod politely, and begin answering from inside their framing. Oh dear! Now, Marandi is hardly famous for sitting there quietly while presenters load the questions against him. ABC knew exactly who they had booked. They knew he challenges wording, rejects premises and turns questions back on the people asking them, especially if they are dishonest in their framing. So when Ferguson did what establishment media figures always do, he did exactly what anybody who had watched him before should have expected. Only this time he did it and then some.