Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said the nation isn’t considering unilateral negotiations with Iran to secure passage for its vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, following a report that Tehran is prepared to grant the access.
“It’s not something we’re considering at this point,” Motegi said Sunday on a Fuji Television program. Instead, Japan is focused on ensuring “conditions where everyone can pass,” he said, stressing the importance of maintaining broad freedom of navigation.
A senior Iranian official told Al Jazeera that Iran did not launch an attack against the joint US-UK military base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.
The Wall Street Journal had previously cited multiple unnamed US officials saying that Iran launched two intermediate-range ballistic missiles toward the island. Although the rockets were said to have failed to reach Diego Garcia, the incident potentially indicated Iran's ballistic missiles had a greater range than believed.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Iran-denies-it-attacked-Diego-Garcia/65921426
The United Kingdom deployed a nuclear-powered Royal Navy submarine to the Arabian Sea to potentially launch strikes on Iran if the conflict escalates further, according to the Daily Mail.
The paper cited anonymous military sources, stating that the submarine took up position in the northern Arabian Sea from where it could launch Tomahawk missiles on Iran.
Previously, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer allowed the US to use the kingdom's military bases for strikes on Iranian missiles attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/UK-said-to-move-nuclear-submarine-to-Arabian-Sea/65921430
Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry announced the interception of nine hostile drones over the Eastern Region, amid the ongoing war with Iran. In addition, the ministry said air defense shot down one ballistic missile flying toward the Riyadh area, while two projectiles fell in open areas.
At the same time, the United Arab Emirates' Ministry of Defense detected missile and drone launches from Iran, stating it was responding to the threat.
https://breakingthenews.net/Article/Missile-drone-attacks-target-Saudi-Arabia-UAE/65921504
by Monica Showalter
So what's new among the dirtbags in Los Angeles and San Francisco?
Citizen investigative journalists James O'Keefe and J.J. Smith have found that the latest offering on Los Angeles's skid row is 'drugs for signatures' on California ballot initiatives, the petitions supposedly signed by the voters to place legislative propositions in front of the voters in what's billed as 'direct democracy.'
And cash. And cigarettes.
CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS FRAUD CASH FOR BALLOTS PART I: Homeless Bribed with Cash & Drugs In Exchange For Registering To Vote & Signing Election Petitions Caught On Tape Undercover On Skid Row In California.
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) March 17, 2026
“You can just put Pinocchio Lane.”
California NGOs Encourage Fake… pic.twitter.com/2pkylhgPY9
I rewatched James O’Keefe’s Los Angeles investigation of NGOs paying the homeless for signatures
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 21, 2026
I found something insane
- The NGO this is happening at is Weingart Center
- Weingart Center has gotten hundreds of millions from Gavin Newsom
- These people are REGISTERING THE… pic.twitter.com/ga5xTMOzE4
My team, myself & @camhigby were just violently assaulted on Skid Row, my camera crew were punched in the neck and face, we were pepper sprayed, but thankfully just escaped. Some members of our team had to run 10 blocks to get out.
— James O'Keefe (@JamesOKeefeIII) March 20, 2026
We were in the heart of Skid Row confronting… https://t.co/lCmAAPl1op pic.twitter.com/MAOu1oic2L
Earlier this month, J.J. Smith found the same thing going in in the Mission District in San Francisco.
🎥Mar09 2026 1:54pm Location
— jj smith (@war24182236) March 9, 2026
6th & Mission
These people are paying people $5 dollars to sign a ballot, but as you watch the video their telling them what name to sign (which is someone else name) and what address to write. Seems kind of suspicious to me. Why not sign your own… pic.twitter.com/GIHdLHaHCl
Obviously, this puts paid to the 'direct democracy' claims of the defenders of the petitiion system. It also suggests that there may be already-passed petitions -- for tax hikes (the latest is a suicidal tax-the-billionaires measure), government spending, drug legalization, and decriminalization measures, maybe even redistricting, that ought never have been put on the ballot. If bums paid with drugs are the ones signing these peititions, and bums put their numbers over the top, then democracy is just a sham game to fatten the NGOs. which may have some part in this activity, based on O'Keefe's exposure to the Weingart Center, and the fact that obviously, someone was paying these signature gatherers to pay bums, either in money, cigarettes, or drugs, for these signatures, and they got violent when O'Keefe asked too many questions. O'Keefe was zeroing in on the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority as seemingly behind it, given that they came by and filmed O'Keefe, not the petition racket, falsely claiming they were the police. He also named political consulting firms aligned with big corporate interests.
It's enough to make one wonder whether bums should be allowed to vote at all, given their susceptibility to payoffs owing to their addictions, and whether NGOs should be allowed in the petition process owing to their big dollar incentives. O'Keefe says he has filmed 28 instances of cash-for-voter registrations in Los Angeles alone.
The O'Keefe videos, done first dressed as a bum and then as man-on-the-street interviews, with O'Keefe himself clad in a suit on the graffiti-filled streets, are somewhat in-your-face and provocative. The sight of O'Keefe running down the streets as gaggles of angry NGO bum advocates chase him is unintentionally comical.
But the message delivered was important -- California's election process is shot through with fraud, from dirty voter rolls to drugs-for-signatures. Only the citizen journalists are exposing it, the media is obviously in hock to those who like this kind of system.
California's governor, Gavin Newsom, not surprisingly, is threatening to prosecute O'Keefe, not the cash-for-petitions racket. California's U.S. Attorney, Bill Essayli, is reportedly investigating. If he succeeds in shutting these rackets down, it's one more pillar off the blue state establishment that has rigged and ruled California into a shambles and made a complete joke of its democracy.
by Thomas Kolbe
In the debate over the future of the EU carbon trading system, the EU commission is playing for time. For Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, this offers an opportunity to rise as the opposition leader and voice of reason within the EU.
Giorgia Meloni is a political chameleon. Charitably, one might describe her as a bridge-builder -- between Italy’s national interests, European policy, and the Union’s integration with global power centers.
Her proximity to the U.S. government provided reassurance at the height of the tensions between Brussels and Washington.
Yet her zigzag approach on the Ukraine war -- sometimes acting as a force for dialogue, other times siding with the war faction – raises fresh questions.
As the leader of the EU’s third-largest economy, she wields political leverage that could make her a dangerous counterweight to Brussels’ centralizers. The ostentatious transfer of Italy’s gold reserves from the national central bank to the custody of the state can be interpreted as a provocation against Brussels. Is Rome preparing for a currency crisis emergency and positioning a gold-backed currency?
Von der Leyen can consider herself fortunate that the European commentary scene pays little attention to such details -- and that many journalists hang on her every word as she waxes poetic about the charms of green policy and the EU Green Deal success story.
And this is precisely where it gets interesting.
At Thursday’s EU Council meeting, alongside the escalating Iran conflict, questions about the EU carbon mechanism (ETS) were on the agenda. The exploding energy prices are not just a problem for Europe’s businesses and consumers.
From the commission’s perspective, they represent a super-disaster, exposing the catastrophic consequences of the green transformation -- previously masked by media narratives, moralizing, and generous subsidies -- in glaring public light.
The daily mounting pressure on the economy has made the fractures within the EU’s political fabric painfully clear. On one side stands the faction of climate policy opponents, fronted unmistakably by Italy’s prime minister.
Last week, she called for a fundamental reform -- or even the abolition -- of the emissions trading system, pointing out that the CO2 mechanism is economically destructive and politically unsustainable.
She now leads a growing opposition bloc, joined openly by Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Greece. It almost seems as if Rome has realized that it may be politically advantageous to confront Brussels precisely at this moment -- at the provisional peak of multiple crises.
On the other side of the European schism are the stewards of Brussels’ zigzag course. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz attempted Thursday, at the sidelines of the meeting, to lightly flank and dismiss the opposition’s critique of the ETS.
“We have noted the criticism, and relief measures are already in place,” said Merz. It is the old EU playbook: a regulatory framework is established that centralizes power in Brussels, threatens sanctions, and buys consent through subsidies -- money extracted from European taxpayers.
Either openly through contributions and tax burdens or covertly via this vehicle: CO2 taxation.
Yet we must assume that the monstrous Green Deal vehicle, which in its countless subsidies, price controls, and fund allocations became the nucleus of Brussels’ power, will be defended by those who benefit from it. Naturally, alongside the ever-more powerful EU bureaucracy, numerous corporations cling like dependents to public funds -- the taxpayers’ allocations.
These include companies such as Danish wind turbine giant Ørsted, a world leader in offshore wind, and Signify, the multinational lighting company behind the Philips brand, which have publicly supported and defended the Green Deal in the media.
Thursday’s EU Council meeting once again offered the opportunity to study the commission’s media and delay tactics live and in color.
In truth, the EU train continues on its predetermined track. The crisis is used as an opportunity to further increase debt, providing fresh cheap credit to patronage industries to stabilize them for the time being.
In the Ukraine conflict, von der Leyen currently enjoys easier media conditions. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico are holding the €90 billion credit for continuation of the war under veto in light of the escalating energy conflict with Kyiv. Above all, Orbán embodies the villain in the European media sphere. Meloni, the perennial rival, stays discreet but uses Thursday’s EU Council meeting to reiterate her call for a return to a rational border regime in case of a new migration wave. She counts, among others, on Denmark, a social-democratic country, to support her.
One can sense that even outside WhatsApp groups of conservative patriotic forces, the cracks in the firewall are becoming visible -- economic and domestic pressures bind the affected parties together. And they need leaders and spokespersons to publicly represent their interests and arguments. Giorgia Meloni is steadily and skillfully positioning herself for this role. Will she emerge as the big winner in the EU’s looming crisis?
The Italian leader also demonstrated domestic leadership this week by temporarily cutting fuel taxes by €0.25 per liter, providing immediate relief.
Giorgia Meloni is currently the dominant and most visible political force in the EU. Her fight against climate policy and the open borders regime signals above all within Italy’s domestic political sphere a return to national sovereignty -- a desire many Europeans harbor but dare not speak aloud.
In foreign policy, with Brussels in mind, Meloni uses the Ukraine conflict to demonstrate her ability to build consensus. The moment Italy aligns with those advocating Russia’s reintegration into the European energy mix, like Belgian Bart De Wever, and a long-term normalization of relations with Moscow, the break with Brussels is complete.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2026/03/giorgia_meloni_eu_maverick.html
