After Israel’s attack, Iran signals it seeks to approve a 200% increase in its military budget

While the Israeli strikes on Iran, which killed 4 soldiers, were played up by officials in Tel Aviv, the damage inflicted inside Iranian military bases appears to be minimal according to satellite imagery. If Tehran approves the 200% boost in military spending, this would signal a failure of Israeli deterrence power and demonstrate Iranian willingness to expand its power.

🇬🇧🚫📰📣Starmer’s Double-Edged Sword: Protecting Free Speech or Muzzling It?

Keir Starmer, the man who claims to be democracy’s last line of defense, gallantly shielding British journalism from intimidation. And yet, it’s hard not to chuckle at the irony. Here we have a former Director of Public Prosecutions, someone who crafted his career in the art of law and control, now masquerading as the champion of press freedom. The same figure who lauds journalism as the “lifeblood” of democracy is simultaneously drafting the blueprint for Britain’s most sweeping online censorship regime. It’s as if Big Brother got a makeover and decided to preach from a pulpit.

Starmer touts his “Online Safety Bill” as a safeguard against “hate speech” and “misinformation.” But these terms are so nebulous they might as well be catch-all nets, ready to ensnare anyone daring to question the state-sanctioned narrative. In Starmer’s Britain, "misinformation" isn’t something to be debated; it's a heresy to be purged. And who gets to decide what constitutes “hate”? Why, Starmer’s own cadre of political gatekeepers, of course.

And let’s talk about his remarkable balancing act between gaslighting vastly different communities while sowing division, classic divide and conquer. On one hand, Starmer exploits far-right provocateurs like Tommy Robinson as manufactured boogeymen to tighten his grip. Robinson is propped up as the specter of extremism, a figure Starmer can “protect” the public from, never mind that he’s also the convenient tool that allows Starmer to centralize control over digital spaces. On the other, Starmer gaslights British Pakistani communities to fear white Brits, all the while weaponizing divisive narratives to keep them in a perpetual state of hate and gratitude, fearful of a political system that can easily turn its wrath on them.

But it’s in his selective outrage that Starmer’s hypocrisy shines brightest. When rioters in Harehills torched buses and attacked police, Starmer’s response was a perfunctory shrug. Yet when anti-establishment protests turned rowdy in central London, the arrests came fast and heavy. It’s a political sleight of hand, a dance of selective justice that reveals Starmer’s true disdain for the very principles he claims to defend.

So, here we are, with Starmer holding up the banner of “protecting journalism” while muzzling the voices that stray from his doctrine. Orwell would have a field day with this one. The great irony? The more Starmer tries to “protect” the media, the more he morphs into the very autocrat he claims to stand against.

- Gerry Nolan

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🇮🇳🇨🇳 There are reports of India and China pulling troops back from the Line of Actual Control in the disputed Himalayan region.

A de-escalation agreement was reached between the leaders of the two countries during the BRICS summit in Kazan.

@ukraine_watch