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Czech president calls for peace: ‘The surrender of territory would reflect the situation on the battlefield and represent the lesser evil’

In order to reach an agreement to end the war, Ukraine will probably have to give up territory, even if that would violate international law, said Czech President Petr Pavel in an interview published by the CTK news agency on Thursday.

“The surrender of territory would reflect the situation on the battlefield and represent the lesser evil, as opposed to continuing the war, which would result in numerous new casualties and material losses,” said the Czech leader.

He also acknowledged this may only end up being a temporary agreement.

“If peacekeeping forces were to be deployed to Ukraine under such a “temporary” agreement, the Czech Republic should also participate, because it has been an active participant in the peace process from the beginning,” he added.

“This would be more or less an acknowledgement of reality, because Russia has some regions firmly under its control. If we recognize that they are temporarily occupied, then we should call them that, and not Russian territories,” Pavel added.

According to the Czech president, any agreement regarding possible territorial changes is solely the right of Ukraine and Russia.

“I don’t dare to give an opinion on what the agreement on the territories should look like, this is really only a matter for Ukraine and Russia. It would not be good to give advice on what to hand over and what to leave. This is clearly outside our jurisdiction and competence,” the president explained.

Pavel believes that Western sanctions against Russia should have been more decisive and stronger from the beginning, which would have helped Ukraine defend itself more effectively, reducing human and material losses.

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The Case of the Damning FDA Memos

On July 21, 2025, the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN) announced that it had secured the release of over 600,000 pages of Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) data used by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to authorize and approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2), following a successful lawsuit, culminating in a late 2024 court ruling.

These documents, now publicly available on ICAN’s website, are part of a broader release of over 1.6 million pages, including data from the vaccine’s licensure in August 2021 and the earlier EUA in December 2020.

This report builds on my prior investigative work analyzing thousands of FDA documents released following the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) lawsuit, which focused on the biological product file submitted by Pfizer for the full approval of its COVID-19 vaccine in August 2021.

I was one of the initial researchers to uncover and analyse the damning data hidden within Pfizer’s Pregnancy & Lactation Cumulative Review, Interim-Narrative-Sensitive document (3000+ pages), and Cumulative Analysis of Post-Authorization Adverse Event Reports document, among others.

Both ICAN and PHMPT’s lawsuits sought to make public the FDA’s data on the Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 shot, asserting that transparency is critical for public trust and independent analysis, given the global administration of billions of doses of this experimental gene-based product that was mandated in several countries.

My preliminary review of ICAN’s EUA data reveals several irregularities, outlined below with references to key documents and downloadable sources. This report focuses on four critical issues: manufacturing oversight gaps, missing Bell’s palsy data, clinical trial site deficiencies, and the exclusion of unconfirmed COVID-19 cases.

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Canada’s Refusal To Cooperate With DEA On Fentanyl “Superlab” Investigation Fueled Cross-Border Tariffs  

President Trump’s new hemispheric defense strategy, stretching across North, Central, and South America, now includes the deployment of 4,000 troops and three guided-missile destroyers positioned in international waters off Venezuela, as part of a broader campaign to dismantle command-and-control hubs of narco-terrorists and purge Chinese-linked drug and money-laundering networks from the region. 

Last week, the Pentagon positioned three Aegis guided-missile destroyers (the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham, and USS Sampson) directly off the coast of Venezuela as new force posturing takes hold in the region, with the Pentagon’s crosshairs focused on narco-terrorists fueling America’s drug death crisis that claims 100,000 lives per year. 

Simultaneously, attention turns to Canada, which, like Mexico and other surrounding countries, remains a very weak partner in the region as the Trump administration advances its hemispheric defense strategy to clean up the Americas ahead of the 2030s. Trump’s cleanup of the Western hemisphere is almost comparable to his micro efforts to restore law and order in crime-ridden Washington, D.C. – and soon, in many other cities nationwide left in ruins by failed Democratic leadership that allowed violent crime and open-air drug markets to flourish. 

Sam Cooper of the investigative outlet The Bureau has uncovered in recent years that North America’s fentanyl crisis is not just a drug death crisis wiping out military-aged men and women by the hundreds of thousands – it’s also a sprawling international money-laundering machine, run through Chinese Triads, Mexican cartels, and Canadian financial networks in a massive transnational crime web that fuels the crisis. Some view this operation to subvert Washington as Chinese irregular warfare, explained here.

Cooper’s work, as we’ve covered in recent years, spans Chinese narcos using laundering networks via TD bank and other Canadian financial institutions to “Breaking Bad-style” superlabs in Canada to all things China subverting the Americas…

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Big Tech Could Soon Use Brain Chips To Read Your Innermost Thoughts: Study

A new study out of Stanford University reveals that neural implants, also known as brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), might not just help paralyzed individuals communicate – they could potentially lay bare your innermost thoughts to Big Tech.

Published in the medical journal Cell, the research shows these devices can decode brain signals to produce synthesized speech faster and with less effort.

BCIs work by using tiny electrode arrays to monitor activity in the brain’s motor cortex, the region controlling speech-related muscles. Until now, the tech relied on signals from paralyzed individuals actively trying to speak. The Stanford team, however, discovered that even imagined speech generates similar, though weaker, signals in the motor cortex. With the help of artificial intelligence, they translated those faint signals into words with up to 74% accuracy from a 125,000-word vocabulary.

“We’re recording the signals as they’re attempting to speak and translating those neural signals into the words that they’re trying to say,” said Erin Kunz, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford’s Neural Prosthetics Translational Laboratory.

But this technological leap has raised red flags among critics who warn of a dystopian future where your private thoughts could be exposed.

Nita Farahany, a Duke University law and philosophy professor and author of The Battle for Your Brain, sounded the alarm telling NPR, “The more we push this research forward, the more transparent our brains become.”

Farahany expressed concern that tech giants like Apple, Google, and Meta could exploit BCIs to access consumers’ minds without consent, urging safeguards like passwords to protect thoughts meant to stay private.

“We have to recognize that this new era of brain transparency really is an entirely new frontier for us,” Farahany said.

While the world fixates on artificial intelligence, some of the tech industry’s heaviest hitters are pouring billions into BCIs. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has raised $1.2 billion for his Neuralink venture, which is now conducting clinical trials with top institutions like the Barrow Neurological Institute, The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis, and the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.

Now, another tech titan is entering the fray.

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Automating Pregnancy through Robot Surrogates

The most human of experiences has been automated as China unveiled a new AI robot that is capable of carrying a fetus to full term, replicating the entire pregnancy process from conception to birth. Kaiwa Technology in Guangzhou plans to release these robots in 2026 for $1,400, or a small fraction of what couples pay for surrogates. Has science gone to far in the quest to play God?

These “pregnancy robots” are vastly different from traditional incubators that are utilized for premature or at-risk newborns. The fetus develops within the robot’s artificial womb in synthetic amniotic fluid. Scientists have developed artificial placentas equipped with a tube system operated by AI, which can feed the baby oxygen and nutrients during gestation. Humans have never procreated through an artificial womb nor has a robot replicated the whole gestation process.

Surrogacy was deemed unethical, and the Chinese government banned the practice in 2001. The government prohibited the trade of ova, sperm, embryos, and other related reproductive items. If not outright banned, most nations have a complicated legal framework surrounding surrogacy and parental rights. The Chinese government believes gestational surrogacy exploits women in poverty, and the law recognizes the birthing mother as the legal mother. Still, repealing the one-child policy and infertility have caused a spike in interest.

Some believe this technology will be a breakthrough for couples suffering from infertility. Outside China, same-sex couples could also benefit from AI-driven surrogacy that costs a fraction of the price. Women may not be exploited for their wombs, but what about the babies born to non-human figures?

The mother-child relationship is the genesis of life and creation. The age-old debate of nature v nurture always concludes that both are essential. Scientists conducted a number of unethical studies during the last World War to see what would happen if a baby were deprived of nurture. Naturally, these studies could never be replicated again.

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Which Western Security Guarantees For Ukraine Might Be Acceptable To Putin?

He might hypothetically agree that the resumption of NATO’s present support for Ukraine (arms, intelligence, logistics, etc.) in the event of another conflict wouldn’t cross Russia’s red lines but he’s unlikely to compromise on the issue of Western troops in Ukraine once the present conflict ends.

Steve Witkoff’s claim that Putin allegedly agreed to the US offering Ukraine “Article 5-like protection” during the Anchorage Summit, which Trump repeated during his White House Summit with Zelensky and a handful of European leaders, raises the question of what form this could hypothetically take if true. Assuming for the sake of analysis that he did indeed agree to this, it’s important to clarify exactly what Article 5 entails. For starters, it doesn’t obligate allies to dispatch troops if one of them is attacked.

Per the North Atlantic Treaty, each member only has to take “such action as it deems necessary”, which could include “the use of armed forces” but doesn’t have to. As was explained earlier this year here, “Ukraine has arguably enjoyed the benefits of this principle for the past three years despite not being a NATO member since it’s received everything other than troops from the alliance.” Arms, intelligence, logistical, and other forms of support have already been provided to Ukraine in the spirit of Article 5.

It might therefore be the case that Putin agreed that such “Article 5-like protection” could be resumed in the event of another conflict without crossing Russia’s red lines. Although Russia objects to Ukraine’s remilitarization after the present conflict ends, it’s possible that it could agree to this too as part of a grand compromise in exchange for some of its other goals being met as explained here. What Russia doesn’t agree to, however, is the dispatch of Western troops to Ukraine after the present conflict ends.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova declared on the day of the White House Summit that “We reiterate our long-standing position of unequivocally rejecting any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO military contingents in Ukraine”. This position isn’t expected to change since one of the reasons behind the special operation is to stop NATO’s expansion inside Ukraine. Western boots on the ground there afterwards would therefore amount to the perceived failure of Russia’s primary goal.

This would especially be the case if they’re deployed along the Line of Contact, but their deployment west of the Dnieper in parallel with the creation of a demilitarized “Trans-Dnieper” region controlled by non-Western peacekeepers as proposed here could hypothetically be a compromise. That said, Russia would prefer for there to only be non-Western peacekeepers, if any at all. The deployment of foreign military forces, regardless of the country, could embolden Ukraine to stage false-flag provocations.

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Russian Forces Advance in Donetsk Capturing Three Villages

Russian forces have taken control of three settlements in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The captured areas include Katerynivka, Volodymyrivka, and Rusyn Yar, which are part of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. This development occurred amid ongoing heavy combat in the eastern front.

The advances represent incremental progress in Russia’s military campaign in Donetsk Oblast. Troops are pushing toward key Ukrainian positions, including areas near Pokrovsk, a significant logistics center.

These gains follow the earlier seizure of Avdiivka in February 2024, which opened pathways for further operations northwest.

In the past week, Russia has claimed control over nine additional Ukrainian settlements. These include Kolodezi by the Western military group and Oleksandro-Shultyne along with another Katerynivka by the Southern group.

The Pokrovsk offensive, ongoing since July 2024, focuses on capturing this strategically vital city. Pokrovsk serves as a major supply hub with intersections of highways leading to Chasiv Yar and Kostiantynivka. Its railway station supports regional operations, making it a high-priority target for Russian forces.

Recent assessments show Russian units conducting attacks near Pokrovsk and surrounding areas like Rodynske and Krasnyi Lyman.

Geolocated footage confirms Ukrainian counterattacks in places such as Petrivka north of Pokrovsk. The situation remains fluid, with neither side fully securing initiative in the Dobropillya penetration.

Kostiantynivka, located about 20 miles from the newly captured villages, holds importance as part of Ukraine’s fortress belt in western Donetsk.

This network of fortified towns provides a defensive bulwark against further Russian incursions. Control of such areas aids in maintaining supply lines and logistical support for Ukrainian troops.

Artillery fire has damaged a major gas pipeline in the region, leading to the suspension of supplies to Kostiantynivka.

The Donetsk regional administration reported that operational pressure could no longer be maintained due to extensive damage. As a result, civilian evacuations from the town have commenced.

Shelling in Kostiantynivka has caused additional consequences, including injuries to at least one person. The attacks have disrupted essential services, exacerbating challenges for remaining residents. Restoration efforts for gas supply have been deemed unfeasible under current conditions.

Broader territorial shifts in Donetsk include Russian gains of 241 square miles between mid-July and mid-August 2025.

These advances highlight the concentration of Russian efforts in the area. Ukrainian forces continue to mount defenses and counteroperations to stabilize the front.

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Flag Wars Everywhere!

One of the curious aspects of moving from the UK to the US is adjusting to the everyday cultural differences. There’s the tipping, the peculiar phrases (waiters often say ‘I appreciate you’ rather than ‘thank you’), and the kind of generalised politeness from strangers that in London I would naturally treat with suspicion. For me, one of the most notable variations has been the unabashed patriotism. The Stars and Stripes is a common sight, fluttering above public buildings, as bunting on shops, and from huge flagpoles erected along the highway. It’s almost as though these people are actually proud of their country.

In the UK, by contrast, the national flag has long been distrusted. Some view it as a symbol of racism and the legacy of empire, but more often it evokes a kind of embarrassment, as if patriotism itself were a form of bad manners. This week the Labour-run council in Birmingham ordered the removal of British and English flags from lamp posts, claiming that such “unauthorised attachments” can be “dangerous”. At the same time, Palestinian flags are flown with impunity throughout the UK, and many suspect that the police are too frightened to take them down.

The backlash against Birmingham council has become an unexpected flashpoint in the culture wars, with locals in various towns and cities now hoisting the flags of the Union and St George in defiance. The movement has been dubbed ‘Operation Raise the Colours’, spreading rapidly to London, Bradford, Newcastle, Norwich, Swindon and beyond.

Inevitably, woke activists see the British flag as threatening and “unsafe”, a declaration of support for colonialism and slavery, as though a nation’s flag can only possibly represent the worst aspects of its history. These same activists do not seem to baulk at the raising of the Progress Pride flag in public, in spite of the fact that this design is associated with the mutilation of children, the destruction of women’s spaces and the rolling back of gay rights.

The hypocrisy has been particularly obvious in areas such as Tower Hamlets, a council that has consistently displayed the Palestine flag, but has now said that any UK equivalent will not be tolerated. But why should the national flag be considered controversial in any area of the country it represents? In military terms, it is unthinkable to allow a flag to fall, because that is to suggest surrender or defeat. But in places like Tower Hamlets, the concept of raising it in the first place seems anathema.

Of course, all of this comes down to what the flag signifies. To many, the Union flag serves as a rallying point, binding people to shared values within one nation. To others, it is a symbol of dominance and jingoistic supremacy. But the same could surely be said of the Palestinian flag. While some will argue that it is a show of solidarity for a cause, in many cases it appears to function less as a unifying symbol than as a political provocation, aimed at alienating those who dissent from its message.

Take for instance the example of Labour donor and entrepreneur Dale Vince, who is currently displaying an oversized 30-foot-long Palestinian flag outside his office in Stroud. He had previously hung the European Union flag at the same spot. For Vince, flags are not simply a means of declaring his political affiliations. They are also instruments for his culture war; a way to hammer home his point of view while goading his Cotswold neighbours in the process.

I have had some personal experience of how flags can be used to promote dissent rather than unity. When I was at university, my mother moved to a house in the Brandywell area of the city of Derry in Northern Ireland, not far from where she grew up. In the surrounding roads there were plenty of Irish Tricolours painted onto walls, and even some of the kerbstones were decorated in the green, white and gold. You could argue that this was all in celebration of Irish culture, but of course these were really territorial markings, a way to ensure that Unionists knew they were not welcome. In turn, the nearby Fountain Estate was plastered with the colours of the UK flag, and remains so to this day.

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Business Flees California due to Overregulation

California has been repelling capital through overregulation. The energy sector high-tailed out of the state in recent years under Governor Gavin Newsom’s net-zero policies. Now, even retailers feel forced to evacuate as California becomes increasingly anti-business.

Bed Bath & Beyond announced that it must close all retail stores within the state of California. “This decision isn’t about politics—it’s about reality,” company head Marcus Lemonis said in a social media post. “California has created one of the most overregulated, expensive, and risky environments for businesses in America. It’s a system that makes it harder to employ people, harder to keep doors open, and harder to deliver value to customers.”

Newsom’s office commented that Bed Bath & Beyond was already a dead business, failing to take any responsibility. To begin, California’s minimum wage continues to rise year after year at a pace unsustainable for businesses. Automation is replacing the human workforce, and some studies have shown that minimum wage workers in California are simply receiving fewer working hours as employers aim to cut costs.

Newsom believes he can continue spending and rescue the state from the debt through taxation. Fleeing businesses can’t pay taxes, and California forces both businesses and residents to pay some of the highest taxes in the nation. All corporations operating in the state must pay a flat corporate income tax rate of 8.84% on net income. Banks and financial institutions pay a bit more at 10.84%. There is an annual franchise tax of $800 for businesses as well. But wait—corporations are still beholden to the 21% federal corporate income tax, which means businesses are paying roughly 29.84% on corporate income taxes alone.

Payroll taxes in California are higher than the national average, largely due to social programs like State Disability Insurance (SDI) and the Employment Training Tax (ETT), which must be paid in addition to Unemployment Insurance (UI). There is a personal income tax withholding of up to 14.63% that employers must withhold from employees as well.

The state was forced to overturn its policy regarding shoplifting and burglary after criminals used the minimum $950 amount for petty theft to avoid felony charges. Countless businesses shuttered their brick-and-mortar locations as a direct result of light-on-crime policies.

Capital flees excessive regulation and it’s almost a no-brainer for corporations to move beyond state lines where operating costs are drastically lower.

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These Are The US Cities Where Groceries Are The Most Expensive

Grocery bills vary dramatically across the U.S., and some cities are feeling the pinch more than others.

Adding to the strain are record meat prices, driving up up food price inflation 3% compared to June of last year. Meanwhile, vegetable prices are spiking as farmers struggle with labor shortages amid rising deportations.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, ranks the top 20 American cities with the highest cost of groceries, based on data from Numbeo.

Honolulu, Hawaii ranks far above all other U.S. cities with a groceries index of 120.2. That’s over 20% more than in New York City, the benchmark.

As an island state, Hawaii faces higher import and transportation costs, driving up the price of food staples. The state’s geographic isolation continues to make everyday goods, including groceries, particularly expensive.

Meanwhile, California and Washington state are well-represented in the top 20. San Francisco (100.1), San Jose (89.8), Sacramento (81.8), and Los Angeles (81.7) all make the list, as does Seattle (95.3) and Spokane (76.5).

These cities are known for higher costs of living in general, and groceries are no exception. Limited space for agriculture and strong demand from dense populations contribute to elevated food prices.

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