Duas coisas são infinitas: o universo e a estupidez humana. Mas, em relação ao universo, ainda não tenho a certeza absoluta.
(Einstein)
But the tune ends too soon for us all (Ian Anderson)
Abre-se a página online em inglês do “Asahi Shimbun”, um dos mais antigos e populares jornais diários do Japão, e quem surge na manchete é Danylo Yavhusishyn. Ou melhor, Aonishiki Arata. Foi este o nome que o jovem ucraniano de 21 anos adotou na sua vida profissional enquanto praticante de sumo e é de Aonishiki que o Japão não pára de falar depois deste se ter tornado no primeiro cidadão ucraniano (e um dos poucos europeus) a vencer um torneio de elite no país, numa fulgurante ascensão no desporto nacional nipónico - o Japão é a única nação onde o sumo é praticado de forma profissional.
Há muito que atletas da Mongólia ou Estados Unidos (muitos com origens japonesas) terminaram com o monopólio japonês no sumo, mas são raros os casos de sucesso entre europeus. Danylo Yavhusishyn pode mudar essa história, ele que chegou há três anos ao Japão, depois da invasão russa do seu país. No fim de semana, Aonishiki venceu o torneio de Kyushu, batendo o yokozuna mongol Hoshoryu, o que lhe deverá valer a subida ao estatuto de ozeki, o segundo mais importante, antes precisamente do grau de yokozuna. Até hoje, apenas três europeus conseguiram chegar a ozeki.
JIJI PRESS
Yavhusishyn é o sexto lutador de sumo mais jovem de sempre a ganhar um torneio, de acordo com o “Asahi Shimbun”. Não descurando as tradições, no final segurou uma gigante dourada, comum quando um lutador vence um torneio, por ser um símbolo de boa sorte e de celebração no Japão. Profissional desde setembro de 2023, Yavhusishyn foi também o lutador a chegar de forma mais rápida à principal divisão da modalidade desde a década de 50, quando o atual sistema de divisões foi criado. E os feitos não deverão ficar por aí. À imprensa japonesa, o ucraniano sublinhou que quer “chegar um nível acima no ranking”. Ou seja, tornar-se no primeiro yokozuna europeu de sempre.
Seria histórico. E, para aqui chegar, Yavhusishyn passou por muito. Como fugir de uma guerra.
Da guerra ao apoio de uma nova família
Danylo Yavhusishyn era ainda uma criança quando o sumo entrou na sua vida. E tudo porque um dia a sua mãe se atrasou a ir buscá-lo a um treino. Inicialmente Danylo praticava judo na sua terra natal, Vinnytsia, no território central da Ucrânia. Quando a mãe se demorou um pouco mais a recolhê-lo após a sessão, o jovem notou que alguns atletas mais velhos tomavam o lugar no pavilhão. Não iam praticar judo, mas sim sumo.
“Tinha 6 anos na altura e não percebia muito bem o que se passava e que desporto era aquele. Mas gostei da forma como era decidido o vencedor e rapidamente as regras também ficaram claras, fáceis de entender. Interessei-me e quando a minha mãe chegou disse-lhe que não queria mais judo, que o sumo era o desporto que eu queria fazer”, explicou no mês passado numa conferência do Clube dos Correspondentes Estrangeiros do Japão. Há atrasos que acontecem por uma razão.
Em 2019, Danylo impressionou no Mundial junior, que se realizou em Sakai, perto de Osaka, ao ficar em 3.º lugar com apenas 15 anos, depois de competir com adversários mais velhos. Foi aí que conheceu alguém que seria, anos depois, decisivo para o ucraniano fazer do sumo um modo de vida. Arata Yamanaka era também ele um jovem praticante e ficou impressionado com a técnica do rival. Os dois iniciaram aí uma amizade que seria regada com constantes interações no Instagram, cada um no seu continente. Quando Yamanaka soube da invasão da Rússia à Ucrânia, apressou-se a tentar ajudar o amigo.
Jordan Pettitt - PA Images
Danylo Yavhusishyn encontrou um primeiro refúgio em Dusseldorf, na Alemanha, onde a mãe trabalhava, mas com poucas condições para continuar a treinar sumo naquele país, perguntou a Yamanaka se este o podia ajudar a mudar-se para o Japão, onde conseguiria perseguir o sonho de se tornar profissional. Chegou ao país em abril de 2022 com apenas uma mala na mão e com a ansiedade de quem acabou de fugir de uma situação limite. Foi a própria família de Yamanaka que se tornou guardiã do ucraniano, ajudando-o a conseguir visto, dando-lhe casa e custeando boa parte da sua formação, conta o “Asahi Shimbun”.
Na hora de escolher o seu nome de combate, Danylo Yavhusishyn homenageou o amigo, elegendo o seu nome próprio como parte da nova identidade: Aonishiki Arata. Já fala fluentemente japonês e usa o azul da bandeira da Ucrânia nos seus uniformes de combate.
“Ele trabalhou no duro, mesmo antes de entrar no mundo profissional do sumo. A nossa família percebeu que ele ia evoluir muito rapidamente”, sublinhou Yamanaka ao “Hochi”, jornal desportivo japonês: “Para mim o Aonishiki é como um irmão mais novo e ele trata os meus pais como mãe e pai. Sabendo como ele começou quando veio para o Japão isto torna-se muito significativo”.
Agora, o ucraniano chega a um restrito grupo. Antes dele, só Kotooshu Katsunori, da Bulgária, Baruto Kaito, da Estónia e Tochinoshin, da Geórgia atingiram o nível de ozeki entre os atletas da Europa que se aventuraram neste desporto que é uma religião no Japão. Aonishiki pode chegar ainda mais longe, ainda há muitas douradas para carregar.
Série britânica de 4 episódios, um thriller policial que levanta questões sobre moralidade, identidade e memória
Sob a tranquilidade da sua cidade natal, a detetive Ember Manning investiga um crime com raízes profundas no passado e descobre segredos chocantes que ameaçam tudo o que pensava saber sobre a sua própria vida. Quando um incêndio destrói uma propriedade numa pitoresca cidade à beira de um lago em Lancashire, Ember precisa descobrir a ligação entre o incêndio, uma jornalista de podcast que investiga um caso arquivado de uma jovem desaparecida há 17 anos e um predador sexual que atua na região. Mas, à medida que se aproxima da verdade, esta ameaça destruir a sua vida, obrigando-a a refletir sobre o seu passado e a reavaliar tudo o que pensava saber sobre o lugar que sempre considerou a sua casa. Um thriller policial que levanta questões importantes sobre moralidade, identidade e memória.
‘Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea,’ wrote James Boswell of Samuel Johnson in his biography of his friend in 1778. Evidently Jonathan Carley did. The retired teacher was found guilty on Monday of impersonating a rear admiral without permission. The 65-year-old was fined £500 by Llandudno magistrates’ court, and ordered to pay £85 prosecution costs and a £200 surcharge.
Carley was arrested last November, days after he had appeared at the town’s Remembrance service in naval uniform with a dozen medals pinned to his chest. He told police that he had carried out the deception to have a sense of ‘belonging and affirmation’. Passing sentence, District Judge Gwyn Jones told Carley his actions were ‘totally disrespectful’, adding that ‘it’s a sad reflection upon you that you chose to do such a thing on a very difficult day for so many’.
Half a century ago Remembrance Sunday was indeed a difficult day for the nation. Millions had lived through two world wars, as combatants or civilians, and suffered the grief of losing a father, a husband, a son. That is no longer the case. Of the five million Britons mobilised in the second world war, fewer than 8,000 are still alive, and since 1990 the British Army has shrunk from 155,000 troops to 75,000.
The de-militarisation of Britain allowed Carley to get away with his fakery for 14 years. He exploited the nation’s military ignorance with his ill-fitting uniform and preposterous collection of medals.
In the end Carley’s ego got the better of him. He arrived at Llandudno’s 2024 Remembrance Day parade with a ceremonial sword that caught the attention of veterans. When they peered closely at his medals they were astonished to recognise the Distinguished Service Order, MBE and the Queen’s Voluntary Reserves Medal. The latter is exclusively awarded to military reservists and has never been awarded to a recipient of the DSO.
Forewarned about the mysterious rear admiral, photographer Tony Mottram – a former army reservist who also worked for the RAF – was waiting for Carley at the 2025 parade. He noticed the shabby cut of his tunic. ‘The hemming wasn’t right, the length wasn’t right,’ he said. ‘You either go on parade right or you don’t go at all.’
Some believe Carley got off lightly. His offence, which carries a maximum fine of £1,000, breached the Uniforms Act 1894. As he didn’t gain financially he couldn’t be charged under the Fraud Act 2006. This makes it an offence to profit materially while falsely wearing military uniform or claiming to have served in the armed forces. The Fraud Act carries a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.
Last month the government said these two acts suffice and there are no plans to ‘introduce additional criminal offences for impersonation of military service or wearing unearned medals’. A group of British veterans called the Walter Mitty Hunters Club – named in honour of the daydreaming character of a 1939 short story by James Thurber – pursue and expose military phoneys such as Carley. They described his punishment as ‘pitiful’ and called for the wearing of unearned medals in public to be a criminal offence. ‘The absence of a “Stolen Valour Law”… is an unfortunate reality we face,’ they explain on their website. ‘This legislative gap is the reason we have taken it upon ourselves (for over a decade) to expose the impostors.’
There is a Stolen Valor Act in the USA, passed in 2013, but this legislation specifically criminalises the act of benefiting materially from false military representation. In other words it is similar to Britain’s Fraud Act. Among the phoneys unmasked by the Walter Mitty Hunters are Chris Webber. The 64-year-old claimed to have been a veteran of the Falklands War but his downfall came in 2023 when he was among a group of ex-military personnel invited to No. 10 Downing Street to meet Rishi Sunak.
The prime minister and his aides didn’t have the knowledge to spot that two of Webber’s medals were non-military, but members of the Walter Mitty Hunters Club did when they saw photographs of the event. They also recognised that not only was Webber incorrectly wearing his beret, but that its badge was unique to the second world war.
Many of the 300 fakes exposed by the Walter Mitty Hunters Club claimed to have served in the special forces, usually the Special Air Service (SAS). This is a phenomenon I have also encountered as a military historian of the second world war. I interviewed around 75 wartime veterans of the SAS, along with a few who claimed to have served but didn’t.
I still receive enquiries from people asking for details about what their deceased relative did in the SAS. When he was alive, they explain, ‘he didn’t like to talk about what he did in the war’. I run their name through my extensive records and about one in two turn out to be fictitious.
Why did these old men lie to their families? To impress them, or more likely to impress themselves. Jonathan Carley read history at Oxford and then embarked on a successful career teaching the subject. He taught at Eton, Berkhamsted and Cheltenham College, three illustrious academic institutions, but at some point he decided he needed to be more distinguished. He began telling people he’d served in the army, the navy and military intelligence, not forgetting a stint at Nato.
Probably his pupils and their parents began looking at him with more respect. He felt he was someone. Carley’s defence solicitor told the court that his client ‘underestimated the anxiety, anger and distress’ that his actions caused. Above all, his deception caused disgust, for every man thinks meanly of the impostor who claims to have been at sea.
A protester in a Donald Trump mask suggests Maduro's capture was to do with oil (Alamy)
The image of Nicolás Maduro in US custody has inevitably resurrected the ghosts of foreign policy past. For the reflexively cynical observer, the narrative writes itself: a Republican White House, a Latin American strongman, and the world’s largest proven oil reserves. As with Iraq in 2003, the slogan of American imperialism and its ‘blood for oil’ foreign policy circulated on social media before the dust had even settled over Caracas. ‘The overnight strikes on Venezuela,’ declared the Guardian, and Trump’s neo-imperial ‘declaration that the US would run the country and sell its oil, have driven another truck through international law and global norms’. This is a comfortable, nostalgic critique, harking back to the heady days of 2003. It is also dangerously wrong.
To view the dramatic defenestration of the Venezuelan regime as a resource raid is to misunderstand the fundamental shift in American grand strategy. Washington did not decapitate the Venezuelan state because it needs more oil; it did so because it is preparing itself for a possible war with China.
The ‘oil imperialism’ theory collapses under the weight of basic data. The United States is no longer the energy-starved giant of the late 20th century. Texas alone now accounts for approximately 43 per cent of US crude oil production and 31 per cent of its refining capacity. America is awash in its own hydrocarbons. The strategic imperative, therefore, is not the seizure of Venezuelan crude, which is heavy, sour, and difficult to refine, but the protection of American infrastructure.
The vast refining and export complexes of the US Gulf Coast, the jugular of the Western economy, sit uncomfortably close to the Venezuelan littoral. In an era of hypersonic missiles and loitering munitions, the Caribbean is no longer a sleepy tourist lake; it is a vulnerable southern flank. The calculations in the Pentagon are straightforward and entirely rational: the distance from northern Venezuela to Houston is roughly 3,300 kilometres (2,050 miles); to the Panama Canal, it is barely 1,100 kilometres (680 miles).
This is where the great power competition with Beijing enters the calculus. For the last two decades, while Washington was bogged down in the Middle East quagmire, the People’s Republic of China has been quietly purchasing loyalty in the Western Hemisphere. The numbers are staggering. In 2024, trade between China and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) hit $551 billion (£400 billion). More pointedly, Venezuela accounted for roughly 44 per cent of China’s total development finance in the region since 2005.
Maduro was not merely a socialist pariah; he was a strategic landlord. He offered the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) a foothold in America’s backyard. The nightmare scenario for US planners was never a socialist Venezuela, but a weaponised one, a Caribbean outpost hosting Chinese intelligence capabilities, long-range bombers, or missile batteries. If socialism was the threat, why whack Venezuela and not Cuba?
This anxiety is inextricably linked to the future of Taiwan. American war planners understand that a conflict in the South China Sea would not remain local. If the US Navy attempts to blockade the Strait of Malacca or defend Taipei, Beijing’s countermove would be to threaten the American homeland or its logistics to force a negotiated settlement. A hostile Venezuela, armed with Chinese Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2/AD) systems, could hold the Gulf Coast hostage, effectively checking American power before a single carrier group leaves port.
Furthermore, the logistics of a Pacific war rely heavily on the Panama Canal. The commercial encroachments of Chinese firms in Panama have long worried Washington. With various Hong Kong-based entities holding interests in ports at both ends of the canal (Balboa and Cristóbal) the risk of closure during a crisis is non-zero. If the Canal is shut, the US Navy is forced to sail the long way around the Straits of Magellan.By removing Maduro, the US effectively breaks the northern arm of a potential Chinese pincer movement in the Caribbean.
The operation, ostensibly framed as a law enforcement action against ‘narco-terrorism,’ serves a dual purpose. The indictment detailing 25 years of state-sponsored cocaine trafficking provided the legal veneer, but the timing reveals the geopolitical intent. This is the implementation of a new, muscular Monroe Doctrine. It signals a retreat from the role of ‘Global Policeman’ and a pivot toward the ‘Regional Fortress.’ The Trump administration has signalled that it may tolerate chaos in the Donbas or the Levant. Still, it will not tolerate a peer competitor establishing a forward operating base in the Americas.
The fall of Maduro is also a sharp rebuke to the Kremlin, though less strategically damaging to Moscow than to Beijing. While Russia loses a platform for its own power projection and a rhetorical ally who validated Putin’s own authoritarianism, it is China that suffers the material loss.Beijing’s patient, expensive cultivation of influence has been undone in a night.
Ultimately, those seeking the logic of this intervention in ExxonMobil’s balance sheets are looking in the wrong place. This was not about corporate profits. It was about the grand chessboard of the 21st century. The capture of Maduro was a preparatory move, a clearing of the decks in preparation for a longer game of great-power competition. The United States has decided that if it must face the dragon in the Pacific, it will not have it breathing down its neck in the Caribbean.
I was intrigued to learn from the BBC Today programme on Tuesday that ‘buildings across the UK will be illuminated this evening to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which commemorates the six million people murdered by the Nazi regime more than 80 years ago’. Who were these unfortunate ‘people’, I wondered? Just anyone at all? Was it a wholly indiscriminate spot of slaughter? I have some vague memory that it was one race in particular that was singled out for extermination, but the BBC dared not say their name.
In fact, the sentence I quoted is wholly inaccurate: the ‘six million’ figure relates only to Jewish people. If you include the homosexuals, Sinti, Roma, disabled and Russian prisoners of war, then you would have to come up with another figure – some say as many as 11 million – who were murdered by the Nazis.
Meanwhile, the Holocaust Memorial Trust is a little clearer about the business. ‘We commemorate the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust, and the millions more murdered under Nazi persecution. Prejudice still continues today within our communities and across the UK.’
Sho’ nuff does indeed, not least within the BBC. I suspect that it, like the left in general, is uneasy about a commemoration dedicated to one specific group of people, especially that group of people, a group of people to whom they perhaps do not feel kindly disposed. One might infer that from their speed at conferring the title ‘genocide’ on the war in Gaza, being thus unable to distinguish betweentens of thousands of people killed via missile attacks during a prolonged war and a deliberate and stated policy to wipe out an entire race, of which the six million was just the start.
If you cannot distinguish between those two rather differing scenarios then I would suggest you are either an idiot or an anti-Semite or, more likely, if you’re writing the BBC news bulletins, both. If we were to confer the title genocide upon Israel’s war in Gaza then we would also be obliged to do so for the UK’s carpet-bombing of German -cities as the second world war drew to a close, or the Vietnamese Tet Offensive in January 1968, or even the (successful) attempt by Millwall’s Bushwackers to take Bristol Rovers’ home end in the late 1970s.
I am not trying to be facetious here. Genocide refers to the deliberate attempt to wipe out a race. It should not refer to acts of aggression in which innocent civilians are killed or, in the case of Millwall’s assault, hurt. We can condemn them all, as we see fit, but to describe them as genocide is a category error which, in the case of Gaza, has been made solely for political reasons. The fact that post-Marxist halfwits who festoon the United Nations make the same category error does not dissuade me too much from this point of view. Rather, the reverse. Nor are Palestinians, or Bristol Rovers supporters, a ‘race’. The Palestinians are an Arab ethnonational group. I’m not sure how one should describe Bristol Rovers fans, but they are certainly not a race.
This is how lies get propagated, by what might seem the slenderest of infractions. You gerrymander the vocabulary, you change the story – and right now, I would suggest, the left is attempting to do so on a number of fronts. You will be aware that anti-Semitic attacks have been at their highest level in the UK since records began and a subtle change in how we describe the Holocaust gently feeds into that climate of racial hatred. The BBC is not alone, of course, in such derogations. The decision of the West Midlands Police to prevent Israeli fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv from supporting their team during a cup tie at Villa Park in Birmingham was anti-Semitic, I think. The Jews in Birmingham just didn’t have the clout to sway the minds of either the idiot of a police commissioner or the coppers themselves: their needs were considered subsidiary to volatile members of the Muslim community who had, police were told, suggested they would ‘arm themselves’, turn up and kick their heads in. The police then took a decision which was utterly devoid of principle in order to placate a local mosque and groups that have a history of hosting anti-Semitic speakers. This loathsome amalgam have bought into the ideas of democracy and plurality of thought less eagerly than maybe we hoped they might.
But it is not just the Jews who feel the brunt of it. Nothing, now, must inflame our rapidly – almost exponentially – growing Muslim minority, in case some of them get cross and start ‘arming themselves’ all over the place. A Ukip protest planned to be held in Whitechapel, east London, has been effectively banned by the Metropolitan Police from taking place. The Met said: ‘The conditions prevent anyone taking part in the Ukip protest gathering in the London borough of Tower Hamlets. They have been imposed to prevent serious disorder and serious disruption. Breaching the conditions, or encouraging others to do so, is an arrestable offence.’
Now, I don’t doubt that the Ukip march was intended to be provocative. But that is not the point. The resident population should be inculcated in the virtues of tolerance and turning the other cheek, rather than clamouring that the march should be banned simply because they do not like the look of it. They should be told that over here, we have – or had – freedom of speech and freedom of protest. Once this principle was cherished by our Establishment – I remember the ludicrous figure of the National Front’s Martin Webster performing a solo walk through Hyde, Manchester in 1977, protected from assault by 2,500 coppers. That Webster was odious was not the point: freedom of speech and assembly must be protected. But those days are long gone.
En zone occupée, l’État prélève plus de la moitié de la richesse nationale pour la redistribuer à sa guise, au profit de ses clients, pour les enfermer dans la dépendance. En zone occupée, en effet, on ne produit quasiment plus rien, car l’industrie et l’agriculture ont été détruites par la mise en œuvre du libre-échange, des délocalisations et par la multiplication des réglementations, notamment écologiques, et des charges. La croissance économique y est donc plus faible et le chômage plus élevé que dans le reste du monde. En zone occupée, les gouvernements ne font plus que de la figuration, car les vraies décisions sont prises par des autorités placées hors de portée du suffrage populaire. Les gouvernements ne sont donc plus au service des peuples — ce serait du populisme — mais ils obéissent aux commandements d’une oligarchie néoconservatrice et hors sol. En zone occupée, « il ne peut y avoir de choix démocratique contre les traités européens » : donc c’est le régime de la souveraineté limitée qui s’applique comme autrefois au sein du Pacte de Varsovie, au temps de l’URSS. Les peuples de la zone occupée n’ont pas le droit de remettre en cause son idéologie ni sa direction. Les élections ne servent donc plus à rien. En zone occupée, ce sont les minorités qui imposent leurs préférences aux majorités, réduites au silence. En zone occupée, les étrangers qui s’y installent ont les mêmes droits sociaux que les citoyens autochtones, voire des droits supérieurs, s’agissant notamment de la gratuité de certaines prestations. Car la préférence nationale est assimilée à une discrimination interdite.
Une zone de liberté conditionnelle
En zone occupée, les gouvernements réunis en conseil peuvent décider de placer sous sanction toute personne qui diffuse des informations ou des positions qui leur déplaisent, et cela sans procès équitable. La personne placée sous sanction voit notamment ses comptes bloqués et ses avoirs saisis, ce qui ne lui permet plus de payer ou de recevoir un salaire. Si elle réside à l’étranger, on lui interdit l’accès à la zone occupée. En zone occupée, les banques peuvent clôturer les comptes des dissidents, sans fournir la moindre justification. En zone occupée, l’État peut fermer une télévision qui lui déplaît et interdire un spectacle ou une manifestation au prétexte d’empêcher que des propos contraires à la loi seraient susceptibles d’être tenus. Car en zone occupée, c’est la loi et le jugequi définissent ce qu’on a le droit de dire, de publier, de montrer, de faire ou de rire : on y vit donc sous un régime de liberté conditionnelle. En zone occupée, les droits que les traités européens reconnaissent ne s’appliquent pas à ceux qui contestent les objectifs de l’oligarchie. Toute personne qui conteste les affirmations et les actions des gouvernements de la zone est réputée relever de l’extrême-droite, de l’action souterraine d’une puissance étrangère ou de la désinformation par les réseaux sociaux. Car, en zone occupée, les opinions contraires sont assimilées à des délits ou à des maladies (à des phobies). En zone occupée, c’est le juge qui décide de la vérité historique et de ce que les parlementaires ont le droit de voter. En zone occupée, on peut poursuivre une personne pour des propos qu’elle aurait tenus dans un cadre privé. On peut aussi la poursuivre pour des messages qu’elle a diffusés ou rediffusés sur Internet et qui critiquent le gouvernement ; la police peut alors perquisitionner son domicile et saisir son matériel informatique. On peut même l’emprisonner. En zone occupée, les gouvernements peuvent demander aux fournisseurs d’Internet de censurer certains contenus ou certains mouvements, sous peine de sanctions financières importantes. Ils encouragent pour cela la délation par le biais d’associations militantes qui ont pour fonction de surveiller le net en permanence. En zone occupée, les juges peuvent interdire à un candidat de se présenter à une élection locale, législative ou présidentielle. Voire annuler un scrutin qui déplaît. En zone occupée, les gouvernements s’efforcent de supprimer la monnaie fiduciaire pour contrôler toutes les transactions de la population. Et de tout numériser pour conserver trace de tout. En zone occupée, on peut être condamné à la prison pour un excès de vitesse sur la route, car l’automobiliste individuel y est suspect par principe.
Une zone de propagande continue
En zone occupée, la population est soumise à une propagande de tous les instants, notamment via le système médiatique et publicitaire. En zone occupée, on doit respecter toutes les religions, sauf le catholicisme. On ne doit pas souhaiter, par exemple, un Joyeux Noël mais de Joyeuses Fêtes. En zone occupée, il faut être russophobe, sinophobe et ne pas critiquer l’OTAN, sinon on risque l’accusation d’intelligence avec une puissance étrangère. En zone occupée, ceux qui critiquent l’islam, l’immigration ou l’insécurité peuvent être accusés d’incitation à la haine et à la discrimination. Et ceux qui critiquent la politique de l’État d’Israël en Palestine risquent d’être accusés d’antisémitisme et d’apologie du terrorisme. En zone occupée, demander à un immigrant de parler la langue du pays peut être assimilé à un « crime de haine ». En zone occupée, les races humaines sont réputées ne pas exister ; en conséquence de quoi le racisme anti-blanc n’est pas reconnu par les juges. En zone occupée, il est interdit de dire qu’un homme ne peut être enceint, car il faut affirmer que le sexe biologique n’existe pas. En zone occupée, avorter est considéré comme un droit de la femme. Et tuer les personnes âgées malades est présenté comme un geste humanitaire. De toute façon, on recommande aux autochtones de ne pas faire d’enfant pour « sauver la planète ». Et pour faciliter l’arrivée de nouveaux immigrants. En zone occupée, on encourage à l’école le questionnement des écoliers sur leur sexe et on organise des lectures à destination des jeunes enfants, par des personnes travesties. En zone occupée, les politiques et les intellectuels n’ont de cesse d’accuser les Européens de tous les péchés du monde, de diaboliser leur civilisation et d’effacer leur religion. Brandir un drapeau national quand on est autochtone est d’ailleurs de plus en plus assimilé à un geste d’extrême-droite.
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Ouvrons les yeux. L’Union Européenne a trahi les espoirs placés en elle en devenant la prison des peuples européens et en instaurant la dictature d’une oligarchie globaliste qui poursuit un projet néoconservateur qui nous conduit au désastre dans tous les domaines. Et en devenant une zone de servitude où les Européens autochtones ne sont plus maîtres ni de leur territoire ni de leur destin. Et c’est d’ailleurs bien ainsi que le reste du monde, le vrai monde libre donc, nous perçoit désormais avec une répulsion croissante et justifiée. Il est temps de mettre fin à cette mortelle occupation.
No próximo dia 29 de Janeiro irá estrear na RTP2 a série Cemitério Índio, de título original Cimetière Indien.
O projeto francês acompanha Lidia, que se encontra no auge da carreira, mas que se vê obrigada a encarar o passado e a reviver uma investigação de 1995. Na altura, Lidia, uma jovem e ambiciosa recruta de uma unidade antiterrorista, tinha sido enviada até à cidade de Péranne, na Riviera Francesa, para investigar o assassino de um imã, uma espécie de sacerdote muçulmano. Aí começa a trabalhar juntamente com Jean, um polícia local assombrado pelas suas memórias dos tempos da guerra da Argélia. Agora, passados 25 anos, o súbito desaparecimento de Jean e um conjunto de assassinatos macabros semelhantes ao caso do passado, levam a personagem principal a regressar a Péranne. Sendo agora Jean o principal suspeito, Lidia irá colocar a sua carreira e vida em risco para provar a inocência do seu antigo colega ao mesmo tempo que revela segredos e mentiras da cidade que todos achavam já estar enterrados.
Com realização de Stéphane Demoustier e Farid Bentoumi, a série de oito episódios conta com um elenco constituído por nomes como: Mouna Soualem, Olivier Rabourdin, Denis Eyriey, Idir Azougli, Marina Dol, Hafsia Herzi, Kamel Mahjoubi e Rémi Pedevilla.
Donald Trump’s dramatic intervention in Venezuela has achieved much more than to bring a brutal, corrupt dictator and drug trafficker to justice in an American court of law, something which no amount of human rights declarations, international law or indictments in the international criminal court were able to achieve.
It took President Trump deciding it was in America’s interests to helicopter Nicolas Maduro to face justice, and this is the awful truth that Europe’s political leaders are coming to terms with: Trump has the means and the will and they don’t.
Europe’s growing geopolitical impotence in the world is becoming the issue now, and histrionics about Greenland is confirming this brutal reality. The future of Greenland is being misunderstood. Trump is not going to ‘invade’ it. He doesn’t need to. He’s already there. What will happen is that the threats to Arctic security posed by China and Russia will crystallise in European minds, performative statements about ‘sovereignty’ and Nato’s future will fade, and serious discussion will take over. Together, the US, Denmark and other allies will address how the Arctic region is properly secured with a considerably beefed-up role and status and military deployment by America.
The bigger issue is how both sides of the western coin – America and Europe – are going to establish a modus vivendi in this Age of Trump.
This era (of which, as I argued in September in my Ditchley annual lecture, Trump himself is more consequence than cause) is coming to terms with myriad conflicts going on in the world at the moment. Their handling, and the larger struggles and confrontations on the horizon, are all made more complicated by the fact that, for a long time, the ‘rules-based system’ beloved of foreign offices, thinktanks and academic seminars has effectively not existed.
President Trump is not some populist disruptor bent on destroying it; it ceased to have meaning before he was elected. He has not single-handedly broken up the postwar ‘global order’: if that ever fully existed, it started to evaporate two decades ago when China emerged as a great power contesting the US-led unipolar world. Under Xi Jinping, China is no longer prepared to accept the status of junior partner. The implications of this new bifurcated world can be seen in Ukraine, where colonialist Russia is backed by Chinese diplomatic power, Iranian technology and North Korean fighters.
As ambassador in Washington, I had a ringside seat as the Trump administration made sense of this world and how it is changing America’s outlook and global role. I am afraid I don’t think, even now, that European leaders have adjusted to the revolution under way. They are guilty of a lazy interpretation of ‘America First’ to mean ‘America Alone’, even though President Trump is expending huge effort to end the war in Ukraine and has acted in a decisive way to halt the conflict in Gaza, where he remains committed to the vital ‘phase two’.
Europe is transfixed by the Truth Socials coming out of the White House but without following the arguments underpinning them. When these were brought together last month in the administration’s National Security Strategy, Europe’s reaction was one of horror that America’s allies were allegedly being relegated and America’s European security guarantee apparently discarded.
They would do better to ask themselves why the US is making an adjustment and how they, as America’s allies, can mitigate its consequences and offset the transfer of American resources elsewhere. In other words, how and when the piggybacking stops and Europe starts assuming its full military and financial responsibilities beyond fine words – which is what they amount to in most cases at the moment, notwithstanding the future ‘military hubs’ promised by Britain and France to Ukraine.
Presently, Europe’s consideration of the hard military power and reliable diplomatic muscle it needs to bring to the table is being masked by outpourings about a sheriff president who does not follow conventional practice or a traditional diplomatic rule-book. Europe’s leaders need to ask themselves whether this is because it is intrinsically wrong for a US president to take powerful, unilateral actions or because Trump and his playbook trigger a particular and instinctive allergic reaction in Europe’s capitals.
In Caracas last weekend, as earlier last year in the case of Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility at Fordow, Trump did more in a day than orthodox diplomacy was able to achieve in the past decade. This is likely to continue in the Age of Trump, so what are America’s allies going to do: use hard power and hard cash to increase their relevance and influence or continue to slide into unimportance?
Britain’s interests and those of other liberal democracies lie in how we harness the power of the US to continue safeguarding the principles – if not always the letter – of the UN Charter. This will mean accepting that Trump’s decisive approach when faced with real-world situations is preferable to the hand-wringing and analysis paralysis that has characterised some previous US administrations or, indeed, the deadlock and prevarication that so often characterise the UN and the EU respectively.
In the meantime – and this should worry us more in Europe – MAGA reservations about foreign ‘interventionism’ will stiffen as pressure mounts on Trump to focus on pocketbook issues rather than foreign policy. Hopefully, this pressure will not get the better of Trump’s attention to Ukraine, Gaza and, as is coming down the track, Iran’s democratic transition.
US vice president JD Vance on a visit to Greenland last year (Getty images)
It was the Viking, Eric the Red who, in AD 986, first saw Greenland’s potential. He wanted to colonise his newly-discovered island, and in a blatant piece of tenth-century spin-doctoring hit on a wizard wheeze to encourage other Norse people to come to this bleak, icy and remote corner of the unknown world:
‘In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favourable name.‘
More than a thousand years later, US president Donald Trump is proposing something similar.
‘It’s a large real estate deal. Owning Greenland is vital for US security… and economic security… It’s an absolute necessity and I cannot assure you that we would not use military or economic coercion.‘
That may sound outlandish. But Trump’s ambition isn’t new. America has controlled Greenland before: during the Second World War, it became a de facto US protectorate. The US has also previously sought to buy Greenland; in 1946, it offered $100 million in gold bullion; around $7 billion in today’s money.
For now, Greenland belongs to Denmark. But Denmark’s ownership of Greenland is itself a piece of bare-faced colonialism, as a glance at their policy of forced assimilation in the 1940s and 50s makes clear. As a result, the Danes are much resented by most Greenlanders.
Greenland has been moving towards independence almost as long as it has been a colony of Denmark. They were granted Home Rule in 1979. This was expanded to full self-rule with the 2009 Self-Government Act – legislation that also handed Greenland the right to declare independence. Today, Denmark retains control only of defence, foreign affairs, and monetary policy. The 2023 Greenlandic constitution explicitly commits the island to independence; and in his 2025 New Year speech, Greenland’s prime minister, Múte Egede, called for an end to ‘the shackles of colonialism’ and a future shaped by Greenlanders themselves.
The final umbilical cord linking Greenland to Denmark is the annual block grant of 3.9 billion kroner (roughly £410 million), making up about 19 per cent of Greenland’s GDP. But to put that in perspective, it is less than the amount annually spent by the US on the city of El Paso, Texas. And it is minuscule compared to the mineral wealth Greenland could one day command in partnership with a deep-pocketed ally, of whom there are at least three: America, China and Russia.
China, in particular, has shown intense interest. At one point, Beijing proposed a $2.5 billion (£1.8 billion) investment in a Greenlandic mine (more than the island’s entire GDP), which would have brought in 5,000 Chinese workers. Then they proposed massive infrastructure investments, including a deep-sea port and two international airports. These would require capital which would leave Greenland beholden for all time. Denmark and the US, unsurprisingly, blocked these plans.
So why are the great powers so keen to own Greenland? Natural resources are a big reason why. The great powers’ unashamed lust for Greenland’s rare earths is but one element of a global race to control the production of the strategic minerals which are essential components of batteries, phones, electric vehicles and all modern computing devices. It’s about silicon, germanium, phosphorus, boron, indium phosphide, gallium, graphite, uranium, copper, lithium, cobalt and nickel, among others. He who controls their production holds the key to the digital globe.
Odd as it may sound, it’s also about Taiwan. Taiwan manufactures over 60 per cent of the world’s semiconductors and more than 90 per cent of its most advanced chips. If China were ever to carry out its threat to invade Taiwan (which some observers think may be imminent, perhaps encouraged by Donald Trump’s daring raid on Venezuela), it would gain near-total control of the global microchip supply. Do we really want to be dependent on China for every phone, computer and electric vehicle produced in the West?
The US needs to develop chip-making capabilities comparable to Taiwan’s. To achieve this it needs reliable sources for the 50 or so critical minerals required. And Greenland holds concentrated quantities of 30 of them, amounting to a considerable chunk of the world’s total rare earth reserves. But the reality is that with a population of just 57,000 – many of them Inuit fishermen and hunters – Greenland lacks the industrial infrastructure to extract these minerals. Both China and the US would be keen to fill that gap.
Another great attraction of Greenland is its strategic position. As the ice melts – at a rate of as much as 270 billion tonnes per year – several strategic sea routes are being opened up. The world is waking up to the potential strategic value of Greenland, the largest non-continental island on Earth. Greenland controls the top end of the Greenland–Iceland–UK Gap. This area is crucial to Nato submarine surveillance and was vital in resupplying Europe during WWII. It also hosts the Thule Air Base (now renamed Pituffik Space Base), an essential part of US air defence and missile early warning systems. Any Russian missile strike on the US would pass directly over Greenland. Since 2017, Thule has housed a key ballistic missile detection system, with nearly $4 billion (£3 billion) in upgrades recently approved.
The increasingly ice-free Northwest Passage skirts Greenland’s shores. There’s even talk of a deep-sea port to serve the emerging Northern Sea Route or NorthEast passage), either in Iceland or – just possibly – in East Greenland. In 2019, Mike Pompeo called Arctic sea-lanes the ’21st-century Suez and Panama Canals.’ If the US controlled Greenland, it would control access to these routes as well.
So yes: Greenland’s strategic value to the US is unambiguous, and Washington is determined to keep rivals at bay. In October 2024, the US and Greenland issued a joint statement pledging deeper cooperation on many of these critical issues. While an outright purchase may be politically impossible, other options exist. These include a Compact of Free Association, similar to agreements the US has with other strategically placed Pacific nations. These can deliver economic and security benefits to both parties. Trillions of dollars of Wall Street investment in mineral extraction would surely follow.
Trump’s call to ‘buy’ Greenland sounds outlandish – even offensive – as with so much of his rhetoric. But beneath the bombast may lie the bones of a deal: one that could benefit the predominantly Inuit population, while delivering enormous strategic and commercial gains to the United States.
In its 1,000-year recorded history, Greenland has been a Viking colony, an abandoned Inuit wilderness, a territory traded between powers, a wartime protectorate, a Danish province, and now an autonomous country edging towards independence. Whatever comes next, Greenland must find a way to harness its vast resource wealth while preserving its fragile culture and ecology. Greenland cannot be sacrificed to short-term capitalism – but it can, and must, find a way to benefit from it. If managed with wisdom and care, the coming years could bring not only prosperity to Greenlanders, but a global model of sustainable extraction and indigenous self-determination.
America, China and Russia may want Greenland. But perhaps Greenlanders need them just as much?
Contributeur régulier de Polémia, Pierre Boisguilbert est journaliste spécialiste des médias et chroniqueur de politique étrangère.
Les deux morts, victimes d’inexcusables bavures à Minneapolis, aux États-Unis, ont été bien davantage traités par les médias français se voulant dominants que les 30 000 — ou peut-être plus — victimes de la répression bouchère de Téhéran. Cela ne surprendra que ceux qui n’ont pas compris que rien n’est innocent et que tout est récupéré. Pierre Boisguilbert
1.Hiérarchie médiatique et message politique
2.Les chiffres de l’immigration comme frein au récit
3.Renoncements internationaux et retour du réel
Hiérarchie médiatique et message politique
Le massacre iranien n’est pas porteur pour l’idéologie médiatique. Il met en cause un régime certes condamné, mais jamais vraiment diabolisé, car toute critique pourrait être exploitée par les « islamophobes », qui sont partout en France. Pour les médias, c’est un terrain miné.
En revanche, Minneapolis est le sujet rêvé : il permet de dire du mal de Trump et de sa politique migratoire. Mais l’essentiel est ailleurs, dans le message subliminal : regardez ce qui arrivera si les partis populistes hostiles à l’immigration accèdent au pouvoir en France — certes — mais peut-être aussi dans certaines villes. Tous les citoyens, au-delà même des étrangers, seraient alors en danger de mort du fait de l’application d’une politique répressive.
Les chiffres de l’immigration comme frein au récit
La montée en puissance de cette argumentation a toutefois été freinée par la publication des chiffres sur l’immigration légale. En 2025, plus de 380 000 ressortissants extracommunautaires ont obtenu un premier titre de séjour, près de 40 000 de plus qu’en 2024 (+11 %), selon une estimation rendue publique mardi 27 janvier par le ministère de l’Intérieur. Cette hausse, précise Le Monde, correspond à une progression continue des flux migratoires puisque, depuis 2011, le nombre de premiers titres a doublé. Au total, 4,5 millions d’étrangers (hors Union européenne) résident aujourd’hui en France de façon régulière, principalement des ressortissants du Maghreb, suivis de Turcs, de Britanniques, de Chinois et d’Ivoiriens.
Parmi les nouveaux détenteurs de titres, 92 000 personnes ont été admises au séjour pour un motif humanitaire (asile, étranger malade…), contre 56 000 en 2024 (+65 %). Un point particulier mérite d’être souligné. Une note de la Fondapol et de l’Observatoire de l’immigration et de la démographie montre que les Afghans sont devenus la première nationalité des demandeurs d’asile après les Ukrainiens. Un phénomène « massif, récent et inattendu par son ampleur », note le rapport élaboré par l’Ofii. Cette analyse est confirmée par les derniers chiffres publiés : la France a accordé 384 230 premiers titres de séjour en 2025, soit une hausse de 11 % sur un an. Les principaux pays d’origine des demandeurs ont été l’Ukraine, la RDC et l’Afghanistan (environ 11 500 demandes chacun). Ce sont là des arithmétiques que la gauche n’aime pas, qu’elle minimise ou occulte.
Renoncements internationaux et retour du réel
Pour l’Iran, pas question de devoir d’ingérence ni d’intervention humanitaire. Cela, c’est bon pour les petits pays — Serbie, Irak ou Libye. Pour l’Iran, on se contentera de se donner bonne conscience. « Une réflexion est en cours avec nos partenaires européens sur la désignation des Gardiens de la révolution comme organisation terroriste », a indiqué la porte-parole du gouvernement français, Maud Bréjon. Le bras armé idéologique de la République islamique d’Iran est pourtant accusé par les organisations de défense des droits humains d’avoir orchestré la répression meurtrière du vaste mouvement contestataire qui secoue le pays.
Mais, d’une manière ou d’une autre, on est toujours rattrapé par ses lâchetés, comme nous le rappellent les Kurdes, que l’on a trahis une fois de plus,et dont plus personne ne parle afin de ne pas froisser les djihadistes en cravate au pouvoir. Récit effroyable pourtant dans Paris Match : « Une dizaine de soldates des Unités de protection de la femme (YPJ) ont les yeux rivés à la télévision. La mine sombre, elles assistent en direct à l’écroulement d’un rêve pour lequel elles ont tout sacrifié. Sur l’écran, les mauvaises nouvelles défilent : la ville de Kobané assiégée, les flots de déplacés, les centaines de camarades tombées au combat. Dans ce marasme, la commandante Ariane a longtemps guetté un signe de soutien de l’Occident. En vain. « Tout le monde nous a abandonnées », lâche-t-elle, sidérée. À ses côtés, Ezda tire simultanément sur une vapoteuse et une cigarette. Elle nous montre une compilation de vidéos où l’on voit ses sœurs d’armes scalpées, leurs cadavres profanés. Sur une autre, des soldats hirsutes de l’armée syrienne promettent d’offrir à leur « émir » des combattantes capturées lors de la prise de Raqqa — douloureux rappel du calvaire de milliers de femmes yézidies, réduites en esclavage sexuel à l’époque du califat. La démonstration par l’horreur qu’« il n’y a aucune cohabitation possible avec ces monstres », assène-t-elle. « Comment voulez-vous que des femmes comme nous vivent avec des hommes comme eux ? Nous incarnons tout ce qu’ils détestent, et inversement. » Comme toutes ses camarades présentes dans la pièce, Ezda conserve sur elle une grenade destinée à se suicider pour ne pas être prise vivante. » Et la conclusion est un avertissement, sans aucune compassion : « Les attentats vont se multiplier en Europe. Et je ne suis pas désolée pour vous. » Mais le danger qui nous menace, selon les médias dominants, reste la politique migratoire de Trump… à Minneapolis.
