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Dec 6, 2025 - World

A United Nations delegation visting Lebanon said Saturday they came to Beirut to explore options for territory along the border with Israel after a U.N. peacekeeping force's term ends at the end of next year.

Dec 6, 2025 - World

This blog is now closed, you can read more of our European news coverage hereOvernight Russian missile and drone strikes left parts of Ukraine without power on Saturday morning, Ukraine’s energy ministry said.The Russian defense ministry confirmed that Russian forces attacked energy facilities that supported the Ukrainian military and port infrastructure used by Ukrainian forces, saying that the strike was in response to what it called Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets.The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant temporarily lost all off-site power overnight, the International Atomic Energy Agency said on Saturday, marking the 11th time the facility temporarily lost power during the war.Ukraine peace plan talks continue between Trump advisers and Ukrainian officials, with the parties involved saying on Friday that they will meet for a third day of talks.EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas responded to the US National Security Strategy, a policy paper released by the Trump administration on Friday that made explicit Washington’s support for Europe’s nationalist far-right parties. “US is still our biggest ally,” Kallas said Saturday.Keir Starmer is scheduled to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Downing Street on Monday, the Press Association reports. Continue reading...

Dec 6, 2025 - World

Husam Zomlot says protest by activists waving Israeli flags and union jacks was ‘flagrant breach of diplomatic law’The Palestinian ambassador to the UK has called for “comprehensive protection” after his embassy was targeted by masked men waving Israeli flags and union jacks.Husam Zomlot made the call after the group posed at the entrance to the embassy, in Hammersmith, west London, last Saturday. The building was defaced with stickers such as “I love the IDF [Israel Defense Forces]”, according to images captured by security cameras. Continue reading...

Dec 6, 2025 - World

The South American country facing a huge US military buildup has almost a fifth of known global reservesVisual guide to US military presence in the CaribbeanVenezuela’s dictator, Nicolás Maduro, says the real motive behind the massive US military buildup in the Caribbean is oil: his country has the largest proven reserves in the world.The US state department denies this, insisting that the airstrikes on boats that have killed more than 80 people and the vast military deployment off South America are part of a campaign against drug trafficking. Continue reading...

Dec 6, 2025 - World

The latest South Park episode nailed it: When “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth gets wind of a small Colorado town’s annual holiday race, he declares it an “Antifa uprising” and calls out the troops to crush it. While armed forces assemble their AK-47s, Hegseth struts around filming himself for well-coiffed social media content, unaware that his obsession with “lethality” looks unhinged.South Park’s point, previewed during Hegseth’s shameful speech at Quantico, and his sophomoric tome championing war without rules, is that Donald Trump has reduced the US military to an absurdist prop so grotesque it raises questions of insanity.After a series of US strikes in the ocean killed 87 people suspected of trafficking drugs, strikes properly assessed as murder regardless of whether people died in the first, second, or whichever strike, Congress is finally alarmed as calls for Hegseth's impeachment grow.Strikes cannot be justifiedTwo days after the Washington Post first reported that Hegseth issued a command to “Kill them all” in a September attack on the high seas, which led to a second strike that killed survivors, Hegseth posted a juvenile cartoon making light of his own crime. Hegseth’s post depicted a chubby turtle standing on helicopter skids, laughing as he fires a bazooka close-range at boats below.Aside from depicting the slaughter of humans as a children’s war game, Hegseth’s post also perpetuates a lie: Neither drugs, nor rifles, nor weapons of any kind have appeared in any of the snuff videos Hegseth and Trump keep posting to brag about the killings. To date, the administration has offered no intelligence or evidence whatsoever, other than Trump’s personal opinion, to support the claim that the destroyed boats were carrying drugs, arms, or illicit cargo. Even if they were, military law requires interdiction, seizure and process, not unilateral, on-the-spot executions.Hegseth also claims the strikes are in compliance with the laws of armed conflict, and “approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command.” Except there weren’t any top lawyers left “up and down the chain of command” after Hegseth fired the top Judge Advocates General (JAGs) for the Army, Navy, and Air Force in February.JAGs come back to haunt The JAGS didn’t slink away quietly. After Hegseth fired them, they formed a watchdog. Former JAGs Working Group. now warning that Hegseth’s orders on the high seas “constitute war crimes, murder, or both.” They also echoed six Democratic lawmakers reminding servicemembers of their duty to disobey patently illegal orders, adding, “anyone who issues or follows such orders can and should be prosecuted for war crimes, murder, or both.”After Hegseth and Trump appeared to throw commanding officer Adm. Frank Bradley under the bus, blaming Bradley, not Hegseth, for the second strike that killed the survivors, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt read a statement that Bradley’s conduct was “well within his authority and the law directing the engagement.” Except, of course, it wasn’t. The administration seems to be arguing that the strikes are lawful, despite not knowing the identities of anyone onboard, because Trump has “determined” that the US is in a formal armed conflict with drug cartels. But Congress has not declared any such war, and one-sided orders to execute suspects do not constitute an ‘armed conflict’ under any military code. The State Department’s designation of drug cartels as “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” does not provide legal authority to execute them because the “imminent threat” rule limits lethal force to immediate threats to life. Trump/Hegseth’s assumption that these small boats: 1. are carrying drugs; 2. are destined for the US; 3. will make it that far; 4. without sufficient fuel; 5. will eventually cause deaths; 6. of some Americans; 7. who choose to use the drugs, does not support an “imminent threat” analysis under any law, for reasons that should be obvious from the string-along assumptions listed.Guilt (and execution) by associationAfter the first boat strike on Sept. 2, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the military could have interdicted the vessel, which is how the Coast Guard normally responds to drug vessels, but chose instead to kill everyone on board because Trump wanted to “send a message.” Hegseth continues to parrot Trump’s “message,” posting recently, “Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” and, “We have only just begun to kill narco-terrorists.”It matters little which strike ended the lives. Trump’s legally suspect campaign of executing people based on a suspicion that they are smuggling drugs didn’t start with Hegseth’s order to “Kill them all,” it started with Trump’s assumption that the presidency makes him judge, jury and executioner. Legal authorities rejecting Trump’s assumption include the DOD’s Law of War Manual; the Hague Regulations; the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act; the Uniform Code of Military Justice prohibiting extrajudicial killings; the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and state and federal statutes prohibiting murder. People disinclined to read the law but inclined to think the government can execute people suspected of committing crimes should consider: If a police officer thinks I am going to beat my wife when I get home, can he shoot me in the face before I get there?Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th A defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.