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The Nord Stream pipelines have long slipped from headlines, apart from the occasional whodunnit narratives, and they have remained damaged and offline. The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipeline bombings occurred on September 26, 2022 – but their future fate is still up in the air and being wrangled over, including by Washington.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has alleged that Washington now it wants to buy the part of the pipelines owned by European companies, in order to assert influence and control over European energy.

“Take a look at how the Americans are planning to restore Nord Stream. I am talking about two gas pipelines, and they were blown up,” he told RT in an interview this week.

“The Americans under Biden said that these gas pipelines would not work, but now they accuse the Ukrainians of blowing up these two pipelines,” he continued, before noting: “Actually, four pipelines. Three out of four were blown up. The Americans want to buy out the part that was owned by European companies.”

He further explained that the US “wants to strike the deal at a price that is 10 times lower than the initial European investments” – according to Russian state media.

He explained that this would be about US control, and the ability to dictate the price of gas – instead of what would have been a prior mutual agreement between Russia and Germany, before the pipelines were sabotaged.

“They [the US] openly stated that they wanted to halt gas transit via pipelines from Russia to Europe through Ukraine in order to control these flows as well,” he alleged.

Last year ZeroHedge asked Trump directly about who was behind the Nord Stream sabotage op. “If you can believe it they said Russia blew it up,” Trump initially responded at the time.

“Well probably if I asked certain people they would be able to tell you without having to waste a lot of money on an investigation,” the president said. “But I think a lot of people know who blew it up, but I was the one who blew it up originally because I wouldn’t let it be built, and then when Biden got in he allowed it to be built.”

President strongly suggested that based on classified intelligence he knows exactly who was behind the September 26, 2022 covert operation which ended in the Baltic Sea explosions and major leaks which took the vital Russia to Germany natural gas pipelines permanently offline. Of course, with no investigation whatsoever (a serious European inquiry didn’t even begin till the following year), Western mainstream press coalesced around the dubious “Russia bombed their own pipeline!” narrative.

The Kremlin has hinted that the US could potentially take over and revive the damaged Nord Stream gas pipelines to supply Russian gas to Western Europe.

Asked whether Moscow would consider cooperation if American investors acquired EU stakes in the infrastructure, Kremlin… pic.twitter.com/YTawPt6iKg

— Brian McDonald (@BrianMcDonaldIE) May 13, 2026

In early 2023, famed journalist and Pulitzer price winner Seymour Hersh published a bombshell report which concluded that the United States blew up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline as part of a covert operation under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise. Hersh’s report has been subject to a lot of pushback since then, but he’s not backed off this initial reporting and investigation.

For anyone who doubts that “Multiculturalism” is the preeminent political religion of the new age, the rhetoric of the majority of the European ruling class consistently proves the case. 

French President Emmanuel Macron was the co-host (with Kenyan President William Ruto) at the Africa Forward Summit this week in Kenya, where he repeated multicultural rhetoric in favor of mass immigration from Africa into Europe.  His comments seemed to be a message to the many anti-immigration movements now gaining momentum across the EU; asserting that without Africa, the French have no future.

It was France’s first major Africa summit in an English-speaking country, signaling a deliberate pivot away from French speaking African nations with an eye towards broader, “equal-footing” partnerships.  Macron argued that the French youth need to be made to understand that France is now part of Africa due to mass immigration.

NOW – France’s Macron: “I want the youth of France to understand that our fate is tied with the African continent’s fate, that we will succeed with Africa.” pic.twitter.com/MuNunRUIEj

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) May 12, 2026

“I have no regrets. I have immense ambition for this continent that I love, which is a treasure for the world, the youngest and most dynamic continent on the planet. I want our young people in France to understand that their future is bound up in this continent. Africa will succeed, and we will succeed alongside it.”

“…There are some 17 million French people who were part of the African Diaspora. So we are part of this continent. It is a great chance for us as French. There are millions of French people who are French Malian or French Algerian or French Senegalese. So we have this great chance to be able to succeed alongside the African continent…”

France has been overwhelmed by third world immigration in the past decade.  Around 11% of the population is foreign born.  They represent around 20% of all welfare recipients in the country and have a poverty rate of 32%.  They also make up nearly 20% of all homicide suspects, 15% of all sexual assault suspects and 40% of all property crime.  

Surprisingly, Macron admitted during the summit that a large percentage of revenues to African nations actually come from remittances.  Immigrants travel to Europe, siphon money from the economy and send the cash back to their families in Africa.  It is a little known fact that remittances from the immigrant invasion into western nations are absolutely integral to the economies of the third world.  Without this cash transfer many of these economies would collapse.  

The third world has been feeding on the west for generations, not just through remittances, but a steady flow of foreign aid.  Macron, however, presents this dynamic as if it’s a good thing.  

“First, we need to be realistic about the main source of financial flows towards African countries: remittances from the African diaspora. They come from all those who have emigrated, who are working hard in many countries to send money back to their families. These flows exceed the aid provided by governments.” 

The notion that mass immigration is necessary for western countries to remain economically viable is consistently debunked.  Third world populations take far more than they contribute, and they do not add any significant relief for the labor pool (unemployment rates continue to climb in Europe because of the influx of foreign nationals).  Europe is also experiencing growth deceleration and economic stagnation. 

Migrants bring nothing to the table, yet, European leaders continue to gaslight their respective populations with tales of multicultural Utopia.  Any day now, this magical future will arrive…  

Authored by Andrew Korybko,

General Sir Gwyn Jenkins, head of the British Royal Navy, announced that his counterparts from the 10-nation Joint Expeditionary Taskforce comprised of the UK, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Netherlands agreed to create “a family of allied fleets”. Officially known as the “Northern Navies Initiative” (NNI), it’s explicitly aimed at containing Russia in the Arctic and Baltic. This represents the evolution of the UK’s Arctic-Baltic policy that was elaborated on last summer here.

Estonia, at the far end of the Baltic Sea in proximity to St. Petersburg, was identified as the eastern lynchpin of this strategy with Greenland now becoming its western one. The inclusion of (for now still Denmark’s) Greenland, Iceland, and of course the UK hypothetically enables this “family of allied fleets” to monitor the so-called GIUK gap, which is Russia’s Arctic gateway to the Atlantic. Denmark also controls the Baltic Straits so the NNI can indeed potentially blockade Russia to an extent.

As was explained here last month, however, any blockade would be an act of war that could prompt Russia to consider resorting to kinetic action in self-defense if its warnings go unheeded. Nevertheless, just like the US has (reportedly imperfectly) blockaded Iran, so too is it preparing to blockade China at the Strait of Malacca one day through its new military partnership with Indonesia and might thus also approve of the UK-led NNI preparing to blockade Russia in the GIUK gap and Baltic Straits one day too.

It’s impossible to predict what exactly might happen, let alone the precise sequence of events that could unfold, but three more points of insight can be shared about the NNI for observers’ benefit. The first is that Poland is still conspicuously absent from the Joint Expeditionary Taskforce, the basis upon which the NNI is being assembled, despite it being formed in late 2014. That might be due to Poland then beginning its most recent period of conservative-nationalist rule after the liberal-globalists lost power.

The conservative-nationalists prioritize the US as Poland’s top partner while the liberal-globalists prioritize Germany. Since late 2023, former dual British citizen Radek Sikorski returned to his post as Polish Foreign Minister, yet Poland still didn’t join the taskforce even though critics consider him to be the UK’s agent of influence. That might be due to Poland’s neglected navy, but new joint drills with Sweden and technical cooperation with the UK raise the chances of its future membership.

The second point of insight is that “The Russian Navy Deterred Estonia From Boarding Its ‘Shadow Fleet’” by now escorting such vessels in the Gulf of Finland, the policy of which could hypothetically be scaled to include more ships through the Baltic and Arctic as well for deterring the NNI. And finally, Russia’s Black Sea ports, the North-South Transport Corridor through Iran, a potential complementary corridor through Afghanistan-Pakistan, and Vladivostok serve as alternative routes to the sea.

Even though this last point means that any US-backed and UK-led NNI blockade of Russia in the Arctic and Baltic would be manageable, the latter conditional on the continued free passage of ships between St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, Russia is unlikely to accept its imposition and would likely push back.

Accordingly, the risk of a hot NATO-Russian war breaking out at sea as opposed to NATO’s Eastern Flank in Central & Eastern Europe is growing, which adds another dangerous dynamic to the New Cold War.

Via Middle East Eye

Robert Kagan, one of the United States’ most prominent neoconservative voices and a long-time pro-Israel hawk, has warned that Washington is heading towards “total defeat” in its war on Iran – a setback he says “can neither be repaired nor ignored”.

Writing in The Atlantic, Kagan said the damage inflicted by the conflict cannot be reversed. “There will be no return to the status quo ante, no ultimate American triumph that will undo or overcome the harm done,” he concluded bleakly.

Kagan, who co-founded the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century in 1997, helped shape a political current that pushed the US to project military power globally.

That doctrine culminated in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and deeply influenced the George W. Bush administration.

He remained closely tied to that policy ecosystem, including through his wife, Victoria Nuland, who served as an advisor to the arch neoconservative Vice President Dick Cheney. For years, Kagan championed US interventionism – making his stark warning about the current war all the more striking.

In his analysis, Kagan argued that control over the Strait of Hormuz has fundamentally shifted the balance of power.

“With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world,” Kagan noted.

He added that the war has not only strengthened rivals such as China and Russia but has also eroded Washington’s global standing.

“Far from demonstrating American prowess, as supporters of the war have repeatedly claimed, the conflict has revealed an America that is unreliable and incapable of finishing what it started. That is going to set off a chain reaction around the world as friends and foes adjust to America’s failure,” he said.

‘Disastrous for Israel’

Kagan warned that US President Donald Trump now has limited options to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting Washington may have exhausted its leverage.

He compared the scale of the current crisis to some of the most damaging moments in US military history, including the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and the Vietnam War. Unlike those conflicts, he argued, the United States may not be able to recover from the consequences this time.

“Defeat for the United States, therefore, is not only possible but likely,” he stressed.

Kagan said Iran’s ability to counter US pressure leaves Washington with few viable paths forward without triggering severe damage to Gulf economies and the wider global system. “If this isn’t checkmate, it’s close,“ he added.

He also stressed that Tehran is unlikely to relinquish its grip over the Strait of Hormuz, which he described as a powerful strategic lever.

“Iran cannot afford to let the strait go, no matter how good a deal it thought it could get. For one thing, how reliable is any deal with Trump?”

Below: a genuinely incredible scene…

The Iran war is so bad that PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan now describes Israel as a strategic liability leading the US into a quagmire

“It’s kind of like saying South Vietnam was a great ally in the fight against North Vietnam.”

Bill Kristol nods alongpic.twitter.com/qMfdmmEPMh

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 16, 2026

In a separate interview with PBS, Kagan extended his warning to Israel, arguing that the war could backfire on one of Washington’s closest allies.

“This war has the potential of ending in a very disastrous way for Israel precisely because the leverage in the region and the influence in the region is going to shift away from the United States and Israel and toward Iran and its supporters.”

Authored by Steven Edginton via American Intelligence,

While many warn that artificial intelligence itself will displace American workers, far less attention is paid to the fact that the very companies building AI are already replacing American employees with cheaper foreign labor. In many cases, though, the immediate threat to American workers is not the technology itself, but the hiring practices of the firms developing it.

In 2025, 406,348 H-1B visas were given to foreign workers in the United States, according to the latest U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. For hundreds of thousands of Americans, that figure is a nightmare.

The H-1B visa program, created in the 1990s as a temporary work visa supposedly for highly-skilled migrants, has flooded America with millions of cheap foreign workers.

For the last few months, I have been investigating the issue of the H-1B program and its impact on Americans for a new documentary for GB News. During that process, I received a flood of messages from workers across the country describing how they were forced to train their foreign replacements, saw their jobs were sent overseas, or witnessed ethnic tribalism in hiring that shut Americans out of jobs altogether.

The largest users of the H-1B program are Big Tech companies, many of which lobby Congress aggressively against reforms that could disrupt their pipeline of foreign labor.

Tech workers in Silicon Valley, one of America’s great civilizational achievements, are now overwhelmingly foreign born. According to the 2025 Silicon Valley Inde, roughly two-thirds of Silicon Valley tech workers were born outside the United States. There are more Indian-born tech workers there than those born in California. Highly-educated tech workers from India and China outnumber those from the United States, making up 41 per cent of the workforce compared with 30 per cent.

Lawmakers should evaluate the national security implications of a strategically vital American industry becoming taken over by, and increasingly dependent on, foreigners.

But the most visceral impact of this change has been on American tech workers.

According to an analysis by Harvard economist George Borjas, H-1B workers are on average 16% cheaper to employ than their American counterparts. For each H-1B worker employers save an average of $100,000 over the six-year term of the visa. Employers then have the ability to sponsor H-1B workers for green cards, ensuring they replace American workers in perpetuity.

One Silicon Valley based employee told me she lost her job after her Indian manager forced her to hire an Indian assistant, who she was later told to train so that he could replace her. Since then, she has been struggling to find work for two years, and was forced to sell her home.

In another case, a whistleblower, who until recently worked at FedEx, said her entire team’s jobs were off-shored to India. A former Google contractor said he was told to train his replacements in the Philippines. These stories are not atypical, especially for older workers who are competing for jobs with young, cheaper foreigners.

Many have also seen ethnic tribalism in hiring. At Google one former employee said he saw Indians give other Indians confidential interview questions to help them secure jobs. Others told me similar stories, where ethnic nepotism has led to workplaces becoming hives for foreign workers who all spawned from one particular city or even village in India. One high-profile example of this can be seen in the case of Cognizant Technology Solutions, an IT consulting company founded in India. Several successful lawsuits against the company in recent years have found discrimination against non-Indian employees in hiring and promotions.

To deal with these challenges, the Trump administration has attempted to crack down on the H-1B visa. Last year a new $100,000 fee was announced which would apply to employers hiring foreign talent. While official figures on the impact on H-1B applications are not yet available, experts estimate that applications may have fallen by between 30 and 50 per cent.

However, veteran anti-immigration campaigner and lawyer Rosemary Jenks said the new fee has had little overall impact as it doesn’t apply to domestic H-1B applications. Those who convert their visas to H-1Bs, such as students, or those renewing their H-1Bs are exempt from the $100,000 charge. Jenks’ view was confirmed to me by an immigration lawyer in Silicon Valley, who said she had seen a significant increase in domestic H-1B applications.

And when it comes to foreign competition for jobs, the H-1B program isn’t the only challenge for American workers.

This week Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it has found more than 10,000 cases of potential fraud in the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program. This scheme allows foreign students to work in the United States for up to two years after graduating (who can then convert their student visas into H-1Bs, and eventually green cards). ICE officials said they had found “empty buildings and locked doors at addresses where hundreds of foreign students are allegedly employed”.

Unlike the H-1B program, which requires employers to pay the “prevailing wage” for roles, those employed under OPT can be paid any wage. The result is that American graduates are competing for entry level jobs with foreigners who are willing, and able, to work for far less. As of last year, 294,253 students are in the US on the OPT program.

Some Republicans, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, have called for the H-1B visa to be abolished entirely. But until Congress is willing to confront the political influence of the Big Tech lobby, America’s dependence on cheap foreign labor is unlikely to end. The irony is that while Americans are told to fear displacement by artificial intelligence in the future, many are already being displaced in the present by hiring practices of the very firms building it.