Sunday, August 3, 2025
Arab nations are getting wise to Hamas — even as others foolishly squeeze Israel
Most media ignored last week’s most important Middle East development: Arab nations for the first time publicly slammed Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, massacre and demanded the terrorists surrender power, disarm, and release their hostages.
OK, it’s a low bar. But it’s progress, and a lot more meaningful than British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s threat to recognize a Palestinian state or the other maneuvering over Gaza’s food crisis.
The landmark demands came in a seven-page declaration Tuesday by 17 countries, plus the European Union and the entire 22-member Arab League, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Qatar.
They reflect a willingness — finally! — to publicly acknowledge that Hamas’ ouster is necessary to end the war in Gaza and thus ease the suffering of its civilians.
Hallelujah: We’ve stressed since Day 1 that the conflict can’t end with Hamas in power; the group, after all, openly vows to keep attacking the Jewish state until Israel is destroyed.
Perhaps the Gaza food shortages got the Arabs’ attention — even if most reports misled readers by tacitly (or even openly) blaming Jerusalem for them.
Bigger picture: Nations like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, egged on by President Donald Trump, are now eager to normalize relations with Israel, though they want the Gaza fighting to end first.
Sadly, other parts of Tuesday’s statement are as misguided as ever, calling for Hamas to “hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority, with international engagement and support, in line with the objective of a sovereign and independent Palestinian State.”
With Gaza then seeing “the deployment of a temporary international stabilization mission upon invitation by the Palestinian Authority and under the aegis of the United Nations.”
The Palestinian Authority? The United Nations?
Neither is fit for real responsibilities: The PA is nothing but an autocratic kleptocracy that uses international-aid funds to enrich its leaders and to pay terrorists to kill Israelis; even clueless President Joe Biden insisted it would have to be “revitalized” before it could play any role in Gaza.
UN peacekeepers, meanwhile, have never managed to keep peace anywhere in the Middle East; instead, the world body’s presence — e.g., via groups like the UN Relief and Works Agency — has only fueled violence in the region.
Even more brainless is Starmer’s threat to recognize a Palestinian state, along with France and Canada’s plans to do so next month, “unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a cease-fire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a two-state solution.”
Why no threats to Hamas if it keeps preventing food from reaching ordinary Gazans? How about insisting that it hand over its remaining Israeli hostages?
Look: Israel has already taken “substantive steps” to aid Gaza’s civilians, and has already agreed to numerous cease-fire plans.
Hamas rejects any cease-fire unless Israel agrees to let it keep power in Gaza, even as the terrorists block the peaceful distribution of food aid. It also refuses to release the remaining hostages, knowing that if it did, it would be its last act before total annihilation.
As for a “two-state solution,” Israelis backed it (until Oct. 7, anyway); the problem is finding Palestinian leadership to agree to a deal that doesn’t put Israel’s future at risk.
So why is Starmer threatening Israel?
Oh, and here’s a reality check: The outside world can’t actually summon a state into existence; citizens of a would-be nation must create it on their own.
Fact is, neither Britain, France, nor any other country can truly claim to care about Gazans unless they focus solely on the heart of the problem: Hamas.
That Arab nations are at last starting to admit that it is the most hopeful sign yet for peace.
India Hasn’t Given Refiners Directions to Stop Buying Russia Oil
India hasn’t given the country’s oil refiners instructions to stop buying Russian oil, according to people familiar, days after US President Donald Trump blasted New Delhi for the energy purchases.
No decision has been taken as yet on stopping imports from Russia, the people said, asking not to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter. Both state-run or private refiners are allowed to buy from their preferred sources, and crude purchases remain a commercial decision made by them, several of the people said.
Smithsonian Axes Exhibit On Trump's Impeachments As NPR Backer Goes Belly-Up
by Ben Sellers via Headline USA,
Facing sharp scrutiny from the Trump administration over perceived left-wing bias, the Smithsonian Institution said Friday that it had temporarily removed a display on President Donald Trump’s two politically motivated impeachments.
The ultimate fate of the display remained uncertain for the foreseeable future, although a Smithsonian spokesperson maintained that the National Museum for American History’s exhibit on the American presidency eventually “will include all impeachments,” the Associated Press reported.
Smithsonian spokesman Phillip Zimmerman said the decision to restore the exhibit to its previous 2008 state stemmed from a need to update some of the details following a review in July of the museum’s “legacy content.”
The temporary installation on Trump that was added in September 2021 “was intended to be a short-term measure to address current events at the time,” he said.
The exhibit left intact displays on Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, the two other presidents who have been impeached, as well as a display on the forced resignation of Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal.
House Democrats, led by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, first impeached Trump in late 2019 amid claims that he had pressured Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate the corruption of top political rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
However, Joe Biden’s decision to issue a blanket pardon for his son in December 2024, prior to leaving the presidency, appeared to validate the longstanding concerns over Hunter’s illicit influence-peddling while on the board of the energy company Burisma.
Pelosi again led the charge to impeach Trump for inciting an “insurrection” following the U.S. Capitol uprising on Jan. 6, 2021.
Although Democrat majorities in the House advanced both impeachments, Trump was acquitted both times in the Senate.
Since regaining control of the White House in his landslide 2024 victory, Trump has been eager to settle scores within Washington, D.C.’s permanent bureaucracy and elsewhere.
He directly addressed the Smithsonian’s perceived bias in a March executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which tasked Vice President Vice President J.D. Vance with ensuring that no funding went to “exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.”
The Smithsonian’s announcement on Friday came as another publicly funded nonprofit under fire for its political bias announced that it was closing shop.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which bankrolled outlets like NPR and PBS through its congressional grants, announced its closure following Congress’s passage of the Rescissions Act last month, which clawed back some $9 billion in partisan public funding and spending excesses.
BREAKING: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down citing loss of federal funding. pic.twitter.com/JmmJ92J9NG
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) August 1, 2025
CPB stood to lose $1.1 billion from the rollback, according to NPR.
Leftists lashed out following the legislation’s passage, insisting—despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary—that it was nonpartisan and that its programming performed a critical service to the public interest.
“Parents and children, senior citizens and students, tribal and rural communities—all will bear the harm of this vote,” said Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO, in a statement responding to the cuts.
Trump, Carney to speak soon, Canadian official says
U.S. President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will likely talk "over the next number of days" after the U.S. imposed a 35% tariff on goods not covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, a Canadian official said on Sunday.
Dominic LeBlanc, the federal cabinet minister in charge of U.S.-Canada trade, also told CBS News' "Face the Nation" that he was "encouraged" by recent discussions and believed a deal to bring down tariffs remained an option.
"We're encouraged by the conversations with Secretary Lutnick and Ambassador Greer, but we're not yet where we need to go to get the deal that's in the best interest of the two economies," LeBlanc said, referring to U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
The trade minister said he expected Carney and Trump to speak "over the next number of days."
"We think there is an option of striking a deal that will bring down some of these tariffs provide greater certainty to investment," LeBlanc said.
Washington linked Friday's tariff announcement in part to what it said was Canada's failure to stop fentanyl smuggling. It was the latest blow in a months-long tariff war which Trump initiated shortly after returning to power this year.
Carney says Canada accounts for just 1% of U.S. fentanyl imports and has been working intensively to further reduce the volumes.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-carney-speak-soon-canadian-151504366.html
White House officials defend firing of labor official as critics warn of trust erosion
Top White House economic advisers on Sunday defended President Donald Trump's firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, pushing back against criticism that Trump's action could undermine confidence in official U.S. economic data.
U.S Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told CBS that Trump had "real concerns" about the data, while Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, said the president "is right to call for new leadership."
Hassett said on Fox News the main concern was Friday's BLS report of net downward revisions showing 258,000 fewer jobs had been created in May and June than previously reported.
Trump accused BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of faking the jobs numbers without providing any evidence of data manipulation. The BLS compiles the closely watched employment report as well as consumer and producer price data.
The BLS gave no reason for the revised data but noted that "monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses and government agencies since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors."
McEntarfer's firing added to growing concerns about the quality of U.S. economic data published by the federal government and came on the heels of a raft of new U.S. tariffs on dozens of trading partners, sending global stock markets tumbling as Trump presses ahead with plans to reorder the global economy.
"I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the BLS, somebody who can clean this thing up," Hassett said on "Fox News Sunday."
In an interview with CBS' "Face the Nation," Greer acknowledged there were always revisions of job numbers, "but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways."
Critics, including former leaders of the BLS, slammed Trump's move and called on Congress to investigate McEntarfer's removal, saying it would undermine trust in a respected statistical agency.
There was no way a commissioner could rig the jobs numbers, said William Beach, a former BLS commissioner and co-chair of the group Friends of the BLS.
"Every year we've revised the numbers. When I was commissioner, we had a 500,000 job revision during President Trump's first term," Beach said on CNN's "State of the Union.
"And why do we do that? Because firms are created or firms go out of business, and we don't really know that during the course of our of the year, until we reconcile against a real full count of all the businesses."
Democrats and at least two Republican senators also criticized the firing.
"This is a preposterous charge. These numbers are put together by teams of literally hundreds of people following detailed procedures that are in manuals," former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."
"What does a bad leader do when they get bad news? Shoot the messenger," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor on Friday.
The firing came amid a flurry of economic upheaval last week.
Just hours before the tariff deadline on Friday, Trump signed an executive order imposing duties on U.S. imports from countries including Canada, Brazil, India and Taiwan, in his latest round of levies as countries attempted to seek ways to reach better deals.
Greer and Hassett said on Sunday the bulk of those tariffs are likely to stay in place rather than be cut as part of continuing negotiations.
India pushed back on Trump's threats of an additional penalty if it kept purchasing oil from Russia, two Indian government sources told Reuters on Saturday. Trump imposed a new 25% tariff on Indian goods.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/white-house-officials-defend-firing-152651509.html
Reuters Does Medvedev
Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has become embroiled in a tense back-and-forth on social media that prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to announce he had ordered the re-positioning of two U.S. nuclear submarines.
Who is Medvedev, what is his track record and how influential is he?
PRESIDENT WHO BRIEFLY RAISED HOPES IN THE WEST
Medvedev was elected Russian president in 2008 when Vladimir Putin, having served two terms, was barred from standing again under the law in force at that time. Medvedev ran the Kremlin for four years, with Putin as his prime minister but widely assumed by analysts in Russia and the West to be still calling the shots, before the two swapped places after the 2012 election - a political manoeuvre that provoked opposition protests.
Medvedev, the son of two university professors, had studied law and worked for a time in the private sector. Short in height and quietly spoken, he was described by contemporaries as cultured and intelligent.
As president, he was seen initially in the West as a potential moderniser and reformer, prepared to work to thaw relations with the United States. In 2009 he signed the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with President Barack Obama.
But Medvedev's presidency also saw Russia fight a brief war with its neighbour Georgia in 2008, and he failed to achieve his stated goals of tackling pervasive corruption, improving the rule of law in Russia, strengthening the role of civil society and rebalancing the economy to reduce its over-reliance on oil and gas production.
AFTER THE KREMLIN
Medvedev served as Putin's prime minister for eight years in a period in which tensions with the West escalated anew, particularly over Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. But his political fortunes took a dive when he was removed in January 2020 and replaced by Mikhail Mishustin, who has held the post ever since. Medvedev was shunted into a new role as deputy chairman of the Security Council, a powerful body that includes the heads of Russia's intelligence services.
WAR CHEERLEADER
After Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Medvedev carved out a new role for himself as an arch-hawk and full-throated champion of the war, hurling aggressive rhetoric at Kyiv and the West and warning repeatedly of the risk of a nuclear "apocalypse".
In May 2024 he said it would be a "fatal mistake" on the part of the West to think that Russia was not ready to use tactical nuclear weapons against Ukraine.
He also spoke of the potential to strike unnamed hostile countries with strategic nuclear weapons.
His statements - including personal attacks on foreign leaders - were frequently designed to shock, insult and provoke. He referred to Ukrainians as "cockroaches", in language Kyiv condemned as openly genocidal, and called President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a criminal, a drug addict, a louse, a rat and a freak.
In January 2023, he accused Japan's prime minister of shameful subservience to the United States and suggested he should ritually disembowel himself.
Russian opposition figures have dismissed Medvedev's outpourings as sad, impotent rants. However, some Western diplomats say they give a flavour of the thinking in Kremlin policy-making circles. Until now, they have rarely provoked a direct response from Western leaders.
SPAT WITH TRUMP
That changed last month when Trump rebuked Medvedev and accused him of throwing around the "N" word after the Russian criticised U.S. air strikes on Iran and said "a number of countries" were ready to supply Iran with nuclear warheads.
When Trump imposed a deadline on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine or face further sanctions, including on buyers of its exports, Medvedev accused him of playing a "game of ultimatums" and moving a step closer to war between Russia and the U.S.
Trump retorted: "Tell Medvedev, the failed former President of Russia, who thinks he’s still President, to watch his words. He’s entering very dangerous territory!"
edvedev waded in again last Thursday, saying Trump's "nervous reaction" showed Russia was on the right course and referring again to Moscow's nuclear capabilities. Trump delivered his statement the following day on posting U.S. nuclear submarines in "the appropriate regions", since when Medvedev has not posted again.
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/factbox-dmitry-medvedev-russian-war-152052578.html