Wall Street stocks were little changed on Thursday while Asian equities rose in thin Boxing Day trade, extending their "Santa Claus Rally" with several bourses still shut for the holiday. Japan's Nikkei index closed up 1.1 percent, boosted by comments from the Bank of Japan governor and share price gains for top-selling automaker Toyota. Javascript is required for you to be able to read premium content. Please enable it in your browser settings. Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup. Error! There was an error processing your request. Get the latest need-to-know information delivered to your inbox as it happens. Our flagship newsletter. Get our front page stories each morning as well as the latest updates each afternoon during the week + more in-depth weekend editions on Saturdays & Sundays.Market Whales and Their Recent Bets on HOOD OptionsA CRIME scene has been established after the body of a man was discovered at New Lambton in the early hours of Friday morning. Login or signup to continue reading NSW Police told the Newcastle Herald it's believed a man had a medical episode and collapsed while jogging near the corner of Birdwood Road and Henley Street. The grim discovery was reported to Newcastle City Police District officers about 1am on Friday. At about 7am, Newcastle City Police District officers and the forensic team were still at the scene. Birdwood Road was cordoned off and a blue tent was erected at the scene while forensic officers assessed the situation. NSW Police were unable to confirm the man's age. It's unclear at this stage what caused the man's medical episode but the death is not being treated as suspicious. The Herald understands police have since reopened Birdwood Road to traffic. Madeline Link is a born and bred Novocastrian who started her career as a journalist in the New England North West in 2016. She is an experienced council and court reporter, former deputy editor of the Northern Daily Leader and two-time Kennedy Award finalist. In unrelated incidents, she previously reported on country music in Australia's country music capital and was once flung across Lake Macquarie in a power boat at more than 100 kilometres per hour. Maddie now works at the Newcastle Herald with a focus on Newcastle council. To keep up with my stories, follow my X @madeline_link, for tips email madeline.link@newcastleherald.com.au. Madeline Link is a born and bred Novocastrian who started her career as a journalist in the New England North West in 2016. She is an experienced council and court reporter, former deputy editor of the Northern Daily Leader and two-time Kennedy Award finalist. In unrelated incidents, she previously reported on country music in Australia's country music capital and was once flung across Lake Macquarie in a power boat at more than 100 kilometres per hour. Maddie now works at the Newcastle Herald with a focus on Newcastle council. To keep up with my stories, follow my X @madeline_link, for tips email madeline.link@newcastleherald.com.au. DAILY Today's top stories curated by our news team. Also includes evening update. WEEKDAYS Grab a quick bite of today's latest news from around the region and the nation. WEEKLY The latest news, results & expert analysis. WEEKDAYS Catch up on the news of the day and unwind with great reading for your evening. WEEKLY Get the editor's insights: what's happening & why it matters. WEEKLY Love footy? We've got all the action covered. WEEKLY Every Saturday and Tuesday, explore destinations deals, tips & travel writing to transport you around the globe. WEEKLY Get the latest property and development news here. WEEKLY Going out or staying in? Find out what's on. WEEKDAYS Sharp. Close to the ground. Digging deep. Your weekday morning newsletter on national affairs, politics and more. WEEKLY Follow the Newcastle Knights in the NRL? Don't miss your weekly Knights update. TWICE WEEKLY Your essential national news digest: all the big issues on Wednesday and great reading every Saturday. WEEKLY Get news, reviews and expert insights every Thursday from CarExpert, ACM's exclusive motoring partner. TWICE WEEKLY Get real, Australia! Let the ACM network's editors and journalists bring you news and views from all over. AS IT HAPPENS Be the first to know when news breaks. DAILY Your digital replica of Today's Paper. Ready to read from 5am! DAILY Test your skills with interactive crosswords, sudoku & trivia. Fresh daily!Gaetz's withdrawal highlights how incoming presidents often lose Cabinet nominees MARTIN, Tenn. (AP) — Losing a Cabinet nominee to the confirmation process isn’t unheard of for incoming presidents — including for Donald Trump when he was elected the first time. Matt Gaetz’s decision to pull his name Thursday from consideration for attorney general — amid continued fallout over a federal sex trafficking investigation — represents the first indication of resistance that the president-elect could face from his own party to picks facing allegations of sexual misconduct or other questions. Other Trump picks have drawn negative attention as well, including Pete Hegseth for defense secretary and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence. Vance takes on a more visible transition role as he works to boost Trump's most controversial picks WASHINGTON (AP) — After several weeks working behind closed doors, Vice President-elect JD Vance returned to Capitol Hill this week in a new, more visible role. He's been helping Donald Trump’s most contentious Cabinet picks try to win confirmation in the Senate, where he has served for the last two years. Vance spent part of Wednesday at the Capitol with Rep. Matt Gaetz sitting in on meetings with Trump’s controversial choice for attorney general. On Thursday, Vance was back, this time accompanying Pete Hegseth. Vance is expected to accompany other nominees for meetings over the coming weeks as he tries to leverage the two years he has spent in the Senate to help push through Trump’s picks. Beyond evangelicals, Trump and his allies courted smaller faith groups, from the Amish to Chabad Donald Trump’s lock on the white evangelical vote is legendary, but he didn't focus exclusively on large religious voter blocs. He and his allies also wooed smaller religious groups, away from the mainstream. He posted a tribute to Coptic church members on social media and met with members of Assyrians for Trump — two smaller Christian communities with Middle Eastern roots. He visited the grave of the revered late leader of an Orthodox Jewish movement. His allies sought votes from the separatist Amish community. While Trump won decisively, the outreaches reflected aggressive campaigning in what was expected to be a tight race. NATO and Ukraine to hold emergency talks after Russia's attack with new hypersonic missile KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with a hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war. Ukraine's parliament canceled a session Friday over the security threat. In a stark warning to the West, President Vladimir Putin said in a nationally televised speech Thursday that the attack with the intermediate-range Oreshnik missile was retaliation for Kyiv’s use of U.S. and British longer-range missiles capable of striking deeper into Russian territory. Putin said Russia is launching production of the Oreshnik, saying it's so powerful that several of them fitted with conventional warheads could be as devastating as a strike with strategic — or nuclear — weapons. Texas education board approves optional Bible-infused curriculum for elementary schools AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ education board has voted to allow Bible-infused teachings in elementary schools. The approval Friday follows other Republican-led states that have pushed this year to give religion a larger presence in public classrooms. The curriculum adopted by the Texas State Board of Education is optional for schools to adopt, but they’ll receive additional funding if they do so. Parents and teachers who opposed the curriculum say the lessons will alienate students of other faith backgrounds. Supporters argue the Bible is a core feature of American history and that teaching it will enrich learning. 2 men convicted of charges related to human smuggling after scheme led to an Indian family’s death FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — A prosecution spokesperson says a jury has convicted two men of charges related to human smuggling for their roles in an international operation that led to the deaths of a family of Indian migrants who froze while trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border during a 2022 blizzard. Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel and Steve Shand each faced four charges related to human smuggling before being convicted Friday. Patel is an Indian national. Shand is an American from Florida. They were arrested after the family froze while trying to cross the desolate border during a 2022 blizzard. Northern California gets record rain and heavy snow. Many have been in the dark for days in Seattle FORESTVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A major storm with heavy snow and record rain that's moving through Northern California has toppled trees, closed roads and prompted evacuations in some areas after knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people in Washington and Oregon. Forecasters warn that the risk of flash flooding and rockslides will continue through Friday. The National Weather Service has extended a flood watch for areas north of San Francisco as a plume of moisture known as an atmospheric river inundates Northern California and the Pacific Northwest. Up to 16 inches of rain is forecast in Northern California and southwestern Oregon. The storm system unleashed winds earlier this week that left two people dead and hundreds of thousands without power in Washington. Colorado funeral home owners accused of letting 190 bodies decay plead guilty to corpse abuse COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — Colorado funeral home owners accused of stashing 190 decaying bodies and giving grieving families fake ashes have pleaded guilty to corpse abuse. Jon and Carie Hallford entered the plea on Friday. Prosecutors say the owners of the Return to Nature funeral home began improperly storing bodies in a building outside Colorado Springs as far back as 2019. They allege the couple gave grieving families dry concrete in place of their loved ones’ cremains. Over the years, the Hallfords spent lavishly, buying luxury cars and laser body sculpting. That ended when the bodies were discovered last year. What do hundreds of beavers have to do with the future of movies? NEW YORK (AP) — The low-budget movie “Hundreds of Beavers” has turned into a lo-fi legend. Mike Cheslik’s film, made for just $150,000 and self-distributed in theaters, has managed to gnaw its way into a movie culture largely dominated by big-budget sequels. It’s a wordless black-and-white bonanza of slapstick antics about a stranded 19th century applejack salesman at war with a bevy of beavers, all of whom are played by actors in mascot costumes. It’s been called “the future of cinema” — a proclamation that may sound extreme for a movie about a guy with a giant beaver hat. But in a shrinking movie industry, DIY microbudget filmmaking may increasingly be left to fill some of the void left by risk-adverse, corporate-driven Hollywood. Noodles and wine are the secret ingredients for a strange new twist in China's doping saga Blame it on the noodles. That's what one Chinese official suggested when anti-doping leaders were looking for answers for the doping scandal that cast a shadow over this year's Olympic swim meet. Earlier this year, reports that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for a banned heart medication emerged. None were sanctioned because Chinese authorities determined the swimmers were contaminated by traces of the drug spread about a hotel kitchen. In a strange twist, the leader of China's anti-doping agency suggested this case could have been similar to one in which criminals were responsible for tainting noodles that were later eaten by another Chinese athlete who also tested positive for the drug.
Israel's attorney general orders investigation into Netanyahu's wife after she is accused of harassing witnesses and opponents in Israeli PM's corruption trial
NASA delays Artemis moon missions once again
Merry Christmas everyone. This is my final newsletter of 2024, marking the end of my first full year with The Herald since joining half-way through 2023. It has been a busy, but very enjoyable, twelve months. We’ve got a full ‘review of the year’ to come next weekend in which I look back over the biggest stories and developments of 2024 – through our coverage of teacher cuts and a marking ‘fiasco’, three separate in-depth series, and quite a bit more – but there are a few more I’d like to highlight too. Most of the work on these was done by my colleague Garrett Stell, who formally joined the team right at the start of the year. The first story concerns a new campaign in the Highlands, where parents from Farr, Gairloch, Kinlochbervie and Ullapool told Garrett that teacher shortages are putting their schools, and therefore their whole communities, at risk. Save Our Rural Schools submitted an open letter to both the education secretary Jenny Gilruth and Highland Council calling for staffing policies to be changed and protections for their schools introduced. All four schools are small: Ullapool is the largest with around 180 pupils, while Kinlochbervie is the smallest with fewer than 30. Parent councils say that an inappropriate staffing formula is leaving these schools unable to offer as full a curriculum as their children deserve. They also say that the use of part-time contracts within that framework means that schools have to choose between the range of subjects on offer and the levels at which those subjects can be studied. The concern, as articulated by one pupil, is that this causes a slow but ultimately disastrous trickle of students away from these schools, and in many cases that will also mean the movement of families away from these areas. Schools are essential to communities, and if the former is undermined or neglected, the latter inevitably suffers the consequences. It's hugely serious stuff, which is why campaigners were so unhappy with the ‘stock responses’ they received. They warned that schools are at ‘breaking point’ and called for a ‘system-wide change in the approach to how education is resourced in small schools’. There are obvious parallels between this issue and our reporting from south-west Scotland, where parents in Dalry successfully campaigned to prevent Dumfries and Galloway Council from mothballing their local secondary school. Towards the end of the year, a story with similar undercurrents started to emerge from the Isle of Mull. The island currently has a single secondary school, but it is not a school for the whole community, because the location in Tobermory means that it is too far away for young people from the south of the island to travel back and forth each day. As a result, they currently have to go to Oban, where they board through the week. But now, a new school is to be built, and many people living in communities around the island are asking if this might be an opportunity to build something new that better serves the whole of Mull. The clear solution here is to build the new secondary school somewhere like Craignure. This would allow every single young person from the island to complete their education in their own community, and could play a major part in attempts to attract more families to the parts of Mull that some might not currently consider to be viable options. But of course it’s not that simple, because this is a country that is largely run by and for the central belt, and the rules around these sorts of construction projects are not immune from that sad reality. In very simple terms, the council wants to use a government-funded scheme to help finance the school, but that programme is predicated on the assumption that all projects are ‘like for like’ replacements. The trouble is, that’s not the case on Mull, because the current high school is actually part of a larger entity that includes early years and primary provision, and it doesn’t make any sort of sense to move those services miles outside of Tobermory. Another way to think of ‘like for like’ is ‘status quo’, and that is clearly not what Mull requires – what the island needs and deserves is something better than what it has right now. Will that be possible? Jenny Gilruth told the Scottish Parliament that the scheme “could potentially” fund a split site, but that the council would have to cover the extra costs. Which, just as in Dalry, Farr, Kinlochbervie, Ullapool and Gairloch, raises questions of fairness and the government – arguably even much of Scotland’s – commitment to the sort of places that are all too often labelled, and dismissed, as ‘remote’.Ravens' running game was crucial in a big win over the Chargers, especially on 4th down
Black Ops 6’s Squid Game crossover shows CoD has lost faith in itselfHeaded South for Winter? 5 Tips for Snowbirds About to Take FlightUniversity of Michigan will no longer use diversity statements in faculty hiring, promotion, tenure
LEE Mack's The 1% Club has returned for a festive special, with Christmas themed questions already catching out contestants. The ITV show sees contestants faced with questions designed to test how their brain works, rather than their intelligence level. 4 The festive special of The 1% Club saw many Christmas themed questions Credit: ITV 4 The second question stumped contestants, with 28 knocked out by the spot the difference Credit: ITV They have to use their logic, reasoning and common sense as they are whittled down to one final question that only 1% of the country can answer correctly. This is all in an effort to try and take home the jackpot prize of up to £100,000. This year's Christmas special featured festive themed questions, but it wasn't long before those trying to win the money were stumped. With the second question focusing on a Christmas 'spot the difference', viewers at home were left stunned to find that 28 contestants had failed to get the answer right. More on The 1% Club SHAPE UP The 1% Club viewers gobsmacked as ‘easy’ question catches out contestants quizzed off 1% Club fans slam ‘trick question’ & insist answer is wrong - could you get it? The question pictured a festive scene where contestants had to spot what was differing between the two, with the answer being a missing pair of Santa's legs. Taking to X, one viewer wrote: " 28 people getting the second question wrong!" Another shared: "28 people. Wow". "What on earth were those 28 people looking at?" asked another baffled viewer. Most read in News TV CHRISTMAS JOY Lorraine Kelly shares sweet snap of granddaughter Billie's first Christmas NO PLACE LIKE HOME Lorraine Kelly shares plans to quit England with her daughter HOLYROOD HONOUR Strictly Come Dancing champion given special honour in Scottish parliament OH MY WORD Scots Countdown contestant is first woman to be crowned champion in 26 years This wasn't the only question that viewers at home were shocked to see the contestants struggling with, as some questioned whether the Christmas special quiz had been made 'easier'. One viewer shared on social media: "these questions are exceptionally easy . how anyone’s getting them wrong i’ll never know." Furious The 1% Club viewers slam show for ‘trick question’ and insist the answer was wrong - would you have got it? Another simply put: "Too easy." The festive special sees comedian Lee Mack back at the helm of the quiz show, which won Best Quiz Game Show for the third year in a row at the NTA Awards. The series has also been recommissioned for a fifth series , with ITV bringing back the show for this festive special and also a charity one for Soccer Aid . A source previously told us: "The show has well and truly proved its popularity with viewers, and so it’s only natural to bring it back for not one, but two more rounds. "This will also include two Christmas specials, which will air on ITV after the main series have run." Previous episodes of The 1% Club are available on ITVX. 4 The answer was Santa's legs were missing in the second image Credit: ITV 4 Lee Mack returned to present the festive special of the ITV quiz show Credit: ITV
A ceasefire deal that could end more than a year of cross-border fighting between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group won backing from Israeli leaders Tuesday, raising hopes and renewing difficult questions in a region gripped by conflict. Hezbollah leaders also signaled tentative backing for the U.S.-brokered deal, which offers both sides an off-ramp from hostilities that have driven more than 1.2 million Lebanese and 50,000 Israelis from their homes. An intense bombing campaign by Israel has killed more than 3,700 people, many of them civilians, Lebanese officials say. But while the deal, set to take effect early Wednesday, could significantly calm the tensions that have inflamed the region, it does little directly to resolve the much deadlier war that has raged in Gaza since the Hamas attack on southern Israel in October 2023 that killed 1,200 people. Hezbollah, which began firing scores of rockets into Israel the following day in support of Hamas, has previously said it would keep fighting until there was a stop to the fighting in Gaza. Here’s what to know about the tentative ceasefire agreement and its potential implications: The agreement reportedly calls for a 60-day halt in fighting that would see Israeli troops retreat to their side of the border while requiring Hezbollah to end its armed presence in a broad swath of southern Lebanon. President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the deal is set to take effect at 4 a.m. local time on Wednesday (9 p.m. EST Tuesday). Under the deal, thousands of Lebanese troops and U.N. peacekeepers are to deploy to the region south of the Litani River. An international panel lead by the U.S. would monitor compliance by all sides. Biden said the deal “was designed to be a permanent cessation of hostilities.” Israel has demanded the right to act should Hezbollah violate its obligations. Lebanese officials have rejected writing that into the proposal. Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz insisted Tuesday that the military would strike Hezbollah if the U.N. peacekeeping force, known as UNIFIL , does not provide “effective enforcement” of the deal. A Hezbollah leader said the group's support for the deal hinged on clarity that Israel would not renew its attacks. “After reviewing the agreement signed by the enemy government, we will see if there is a match between what we stated and what was agreed upon by the Lebanese officials,” Mahmoud Qamati, deputy chair of Hezbollah’s political council, told the Qatari satellite news network Al Jazeera. “We want an end to the aggression, of course, but not at the expense of the sovereignty of the state” of Lebanon, he said. The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said Tuesday that Israel’s security concerns had been addressed in the deal also brokered by France. After months of cross-border bombings, Israel can claim major victories, including the killing of Hezbollah’s top leader, Hassan Nasrallah, most of his senior commanders and the destruction of extensive militant infrastructure. A complex attack in September involving the explosion of hundreds of walkie-talkies and pagers used by Hezbollah was widely attributed to Israel, signaling a remarkable penetration of the militant group. The damage inflicted on Hezbollah has come not only in its ranks, but to the reputation it built by fighting Israel to a stalemate in the 2006 war. Still, its fighters managed to put up heavy resistance on the ground, slowing Israel’s advance while continuing to fire scores of rockets, missiles and drones across the border each day. The ceasefire offers relief to both sides, giving Israel’s overstretched army a break and allowing Hezbollah leaders to tout the group’s effectiveness in holding their ground despite Israel’s massive advantage in weaponry. But the group is likely to face a reckoning, with many Lebanese accusing it of tying their country’s fate to Gaza’s at the service of key ally Iran, inflicting great damage on a Lebanese economy that was already in grave condition. Until now, Hezbollah has insisted that it would only halt its attacks on Israel when it agreed to stop fighting in Gaza. Some in the region are likely to view a deal between the Lebanon-based group and Israel as a capitulation. In Gaza, where officials say the war has killed more than 44,000 Palestinians, Israel’s attacks have inflicted a heavy toll on Hamas, including the killing of the group’s top leaders. But Hamas fighters continue to hold scores of Israeli hostages, giving the militant group a bargaining chip if indirect ceasefire negotiations resume. Hamas is likely to continue to demand a lasting truce and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in any such deal. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas offered a pointed reminder Tuesday of the intractability of the war, demanding urgent international intervention. “The only way to halt the dangerous escalation we are witnessing in the region, and maintain regional and international stability, security and peace, is to resolve the question of Palestine,” he said in a speech to the U.N. read by his ambassador.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has given an exclusive interview to conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson this week. The two talked about a wide range of topics of international concern, primarily the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, as well as the state of US-Russia relations. Here’s the full text of the conversation. Carlson: Minister Lavrov, thank you for doing this. Do you believe the United States and Russia are at war with each other right now? Lavrov: I wouldn’t say so. And in any case, this is not what we want. We would like to have normal relations with all our neighbors, of course, but generally with all countries, especially with a great country like the United States. And President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly expressed his respect for the American people, for American history, for American achievements in the world, and we don’t see any reason why Russia and the United States cannot cooperate for the sake of the universe. Carlson: But the United States is funding a conflict that you’re involved in, of course, and now is allowing attacks on Russia itself. So that doesn’t constitute war? Lavrov: Well, we officially are not at war. But what is going on in Ukraine is what some people call a hybrid war. I would call it a hybrid war as well, but it is obvious that the Ukrainians would not be able to do what they’re doing with long-range modern weapons without the direct participation of American servicemen. And this is dangerous, no doubt about this. We don’t want to aggravate the situation, but since ATACMS and other long-range weapons are being used against mainland Russia as it were, we are sending signals. We hope that the last one, a couple of weeks ago, the signal with the new weapon system called Oreshnik , was taken seriously. However, we also know that some officials in the Pentagon and in other places, including NATO, started saying in the last few days something like that NATO is a defensive alliance, but sometimes you can strike first because the attack is the best defense. Some others in STRATCOM, Thomas Buchanan is his name, representative of STRATCOM, said something which allows for an eventuality of exchange of limited nuclear strikes. And these kinds of threats are really worrying. Because if they are following the logic which some Westerners have been pronouncing lately, that don’t believe that Russia has red lines, they announced their red lines, these red lines are being moved again and again. This is a very serious mistake. That’s what I would like to say in response to this question. It is not us who started the war. Putin repeatedly said that we started the special military operation in order to end the war which the Kiev regime was conducting against its own people in parts of Donbass. And just in his latest statement , President Putin clearly indicated that we are ready for any eventuality. But we strongly prefer a peaceful solution through negotiations on the basis of respecting the legitimate security interest of Russia, and on the basis of respecting the people who live in Ukraine, who still live in Ukraine, being Russians. Their basic human rights, language rights, religious rights, have been exterminated by a series of legislation passed by the Ukrainian parliament. They started long before the special military operation . Since 2017, legislation was passed prohibiting Russian education in Russian, prohibiting Russian media operating in Ukraine, then prohibiting Ukrainian media working in the Russian language, and the latest, of course there were also steps to cancel any cultural events in Russian. Russian books were thrown out of libraries and exterminated. The latest was the law prohibiting the canonic Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. You know, it’s very interesting when people in the West say we want this conflict to be resolved on the basis of the UN Charter and respect for the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and Russia must withdraw. The Secretary General of the United Nations says similar things. Recently his representative repeated that the conflict must be resolved on the basis of international law, the UN Charter and General Assembly resolutions, while respecting the territorial integrity of Ukraine. It’s a misnomer, because if you want to respect the United Nations Charter, you have to respect it in its entirety. The United Nations Charter, among other things, says that all countries must respect the equality of states and the right of people to self-determination. And they also mentioned the United Nations General Assembly resolutions, and this is clear that what they mean is the series of resolutions which they passed after the beginning of this special military operation which demand the condemnation of Russia, that Russia get out of Ukraine; territory in its 1991 borders. But there are other United Nations General Assembly resolutions which were not voted on, but which were consensual, and among them is a declaration on principles of relations between states on the basis of the Charter. And it clearly says, by consensus, everybody must respect the territorial integrity of states whose governments respect the right of people for self-determination, and because of that represent the entire population living on a given territory. To argue that the people who came to power through military coup d’état in February 2014 represented Crimeans or the citizens of eastern and southern Ukraine is absolutely useless. It is obvious that Crimeans rejected the coup. They said, leave us alone, we don’t want to have anything with you. So we did: Donbass and Crimeans held referendums, and they rejoined Russia. Donbass was declared by the putschists who came to power a ‘terrorist group’. They were shelled, attacked by artillery. The war started, which was stopped in February 2015. The Minsk agreements were signed. We were very sincerely interested in closing this drama by seeing the Minsk agreements implemented fully. It was sabotaged by the government which was established after the coup d’état in Ukraine. There was a demand that they enter into a direct dialogue with the people who did not accept the coup. There was a demand that they promote economic relations with that part of Ukraine. And so on and so forth. None of this was done. The people in Kiev were saying we would never talk to them directly. And this is in spite of the fact that the demand to talk to them directly was endorsed by the [UN] Security Council. The putschists said they are terrorists, we would be fighting them, and they would be dying in cellars because we are stronger. Had the coup in February 2014 not happened and the deal which was reached the day before between the then president and the opposition [been] implemented, Ukraine would have stayed in one piece by now, with Crimea in it. It’s absolutely clear. They did not deliver on the deal. Instead they staged the coup. The deal, by the way, provided for the creation of a government of national unity in February 2014, and holding early elections, which the then president would have lost. Everybody knew that. But they were impatient and took the government buildings the next morning. They went to this Maidan Square and announced that they had created the government of the winners. Compare the government of national unity to prepare for elections and the government of the winners. How can the people whom they, in their view, defeated, how can they pretend that they respect the authorities in Kiev? You know, the right to self-determination is the international legal basis for the decolonization process which took place in Africa on the basis of this charter principle, the right to self-determination. The people in the colonies, they never treated their colonial powers, colonial masters, as somebody who represents them, as somebody whom they want to see in the structures which govern those lands. By the same token, the people in the east and south of Ukraine, people in Donbass and Novorossiya, they don’t consider the Zelensky regime as something which represents their interests. How can they do that when their culture, their language, their traditions, their religion, all this was prohibited? The last point is that if we speak about the UN Charter , resolutions, international law, the very first article of the UN Charter, which the West never, never recalls in the Ukrainian context, says, “Respect human rights of everybody, irrespective of race, gender, language, or religion.” Take any conflict. The United States, UK, Brussels, they would interfere, saying, “Oh, human rights have been grossly violated. We must restore the human rights in such and such territory.” On Ukraine, never, ever have they mumbled the words “human rights,” seeing these human rights for the Russian and Russian-speaking population being totally exterminated by law. So when people say, “Let’s resolve the conflict on the basis of the Charter,” - yes. But don’t forget that the Charter is not only about territorial integrity. And territorial integrity must be respected only if the governments are legitimate and if they respect the rights of their own people. Carlson: I want to go back to what you said a moment ago about the introduction or the unveiling of the hypersonic weapons system that you said was a signal to the West. What signal exactly? I think many Americans are not even aware that this happened. What message were you sending by showing it to the world? Lavrov: Well, the message is that you, I mean the United States, and the allies of the United States who also provide these long-range weapons to the Kiev regime, they must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call the strategic defeat of Russia. They fight for keeping the hegemony over the world on any country, any region, any continent. We fight for our legitimate security interests. They say, for example, 1991 borders. Lindsey Graham, who visited some time ago Vladimir Zelensky for another talk; he bluntly, in his presence, said that Ukraine is very rich with rare earth metals and they cannot leave this richness to the Russians. We must take it. We fight. So they fight for a regime which is ready to sell or to give to the West all the natural and human resources. We fight for the people who have been living on these lands, whose ancestors were actually developing those lands, building cities, building factories for centuries and centuries. We care about people, not about natural resources which somebody in the United States would like to keep and to have Ukrainians just as servants sitting on these natural resources. So, the message which we wanted to send by testing in real action this hypersonic system is that we will be ready to do anything to defend our legitimate interests. We hate even to think about war with the United States, which will take nuclear character. Our military doctrine says that the most important thing is to avoid a nuclear war. And it was us, by the way, who initiated in January 2022 the message, the joint statement by the leaders of the five permanent members of the Security Council saying that we will do anything to avoid confrontation between us, acknowledging and respecting each other’s security interests and concerns. This was our initiative. And the security interests of Russia were totally ignored when they rejected at about the same time the proposal to conclude a treaty on security guarantees for Russia, for Ukraine in the context of coexistence and in a context where Ukraine would not ever be a member of NATO or any other military bloc. These security interests of Russia were presented to the West, to NATO and to the United States in December 2021 . We discussed them several times, including during my meeting with Antony Blinken in Geneva in January 2022 . And this was rejected. So we would certainly like to avoid any misunderstanding. And since the people, some people in Washington and some people in London, in Brussels, seemed to be not very capable of understanding, we will send additional messages if they don’t draw the necessary conclusions. Carlson: The fact that we’re having a conversation about a potential nuclear exchange and it’s real... thought I’d never see. And it raises the question, how much back-channel dialogue is there between Russia and the United States? Has there been for the last two and a half years? Is there any conversation ongoing? Lavrov: There are several channels, but mostly on the exchange of people who serve [prison] terms in Russia and in the United States. There were several swaps. There are also channels which are not advertised or publicized, but basically the Americans send through these channels the same message which they send publicly. You have to stop, you have to accept the way which will be based on the Ukrainian needs and position. They support this absolutely pointless ‘peace formula’ by Vladimir Zelensky, which was additioned recently by [his] ‘victory plan’. They held several series of meetings, Copenhagen format, Burgenstock. And they brag that [in the] first half of next year they will convene another conference and they will graciously invite Russia that time. And then Russia would be presented an ultimatum. All this is seriously repeated through various confidential channels. Now we hear something different, including Vladimir Zelensky’s statements that we can stop now at the line of engagement, line of contact. The Ukrainian government will be admitted to NATO, but NATO guarantees at this stage would cover only the territory controlled by the government, and the rest would be subject to negotiations. But the end result of these negotiations must be the total withdrawal of Russia from Ukrainian soil. Leaving Russian people to the Nazi regime, which exterminated all the rights of the Russian and Russian-speaking citizens of their own country. Carlson: If I could just go back to the question of nuclear exchange. So there is no mechanism by which the leaders of Russia and the United States can speak to each other to avoid the kind of misunderstanding that could kill hundreds of millions of people. Lavrov: No. We have this channel which is automatically engaged when a ballistic missile launch is taking place. As regards this Oreshnik hypersonic mid-range ballistic missile. 30 minutes in advance, the system sent the message to the United States. They knew that this was the case and that they don’t mistake it for anything bigger and really dangerous. Carlson: I think the system sounds very dangerous. Lavrov: Well, it was a test launch, you know. Carlson: Yes. Oh, you’re speaking of the test, okay. But I just wonder how worried you are that, considering there doesn’t seem to be a lot of conversation between the two countries. Both sides are speaking about exterminating the other’s populations. That this could somehow get out of control in a very short period and no one could stop it. It seems incredibly reckless. Lavrov: No, we are not talking about exterminating anybody’s population. We did not start this war. We have been, for years and years and years, sending warnings that pushing NATO closer and closer to our borders is going to create a problem. In 2007, Putin started to explain [this] to the people who seemed to be overtaken by the ‘end of history’ and being dominant, no challenge, and so on and so forth. And of course, when the coup took place, the Americans did not hide that they were behind it. There is a conversation between Victoria Nuland and the then-American ambassador in Kiev when they discuss personalities to be included in the new government after the coup. The figure of $5 billion spent on Ukraine after independence was mentioned as the guarantee that everything would be like the Americans want. So we don’t have any intention to exterminate Ukrainian people. They are brothers and sisters to the Russian people. Carlson: How many have died so far, do you think, on both sides? Lavrov: It is not disclosed by the Ukrainians. Vladimir Zelensky was saying that it is much less than 80,000 persons on the Ukrainian side. But there is one very reliable figure. In Palestine during one year after the Israelis started their operation in response to this terrorist attack, which we condemned . And this operation, of course, acquired the proportion of collective punishment, which is against international humanitarian law as well. So during one year after the operation started in Palestine, the number of Palestinian civilians killed is estimated at 45,000. This is almost twice as many as the number of civilians on both sides of Ukrainian conflict who died during ten years after the coup. One year and ten years. So it is a tragedy in Ukraine. It’s a disaster in Palestine, but we never, ever had as our goal killing people. And the Ukrainian regime did. The head of the office of Vladimir Zelensky once said that we will make sure that cities like Kharkov, Nikolaev will forget what Russian means at all. Another guy in his office stated that Ukrainians must exterminate Russians through law or, if necessary, physically. Ukrainian former ambassador to Kazakhstan Pyotr Vrublevsky became famous when giving an interview and looking into the camera (being recorded and broadcast) he said: “Our main task is to kill as many Russians as we can so that our children have less things to do” . And statements like this are all over the vocabulary of the regime. Carlson: How many Russians in Russia have been killed since February of 2022? Lavrov: It’s not for me to disclose this information. In the time of military operations special rules exist. Our ministry of defense follows these rules. But there is a very interesting fact that when Vladimir Zelensky was playing not in international arena, but at his comedy club or whatever it is called, he was (there are videos from that period) bluntly defending the Russian language. He was saying: “What is wrong with Russian language? I speak Russian. Russians are our neighbors. Russian is one of our languages” . And get lost, he said, to those who wanted to attack the Russian language and Russian culture. When Vladimir Zelensky became president, he changed very fast. Before the military operation, in September 2021, he was interviewed, and at that time he was conducting war against Donbass in violation of the Minsk agreements . And the interviewer asked him what he thought about the people on the other side of the line of contact. He answered very thoughtfully there are people and there are species. And if you, living in Ukraine, feel associated with the Russian culture, my advice to you, for the sake of your kids, for the sake of your grandkids, get out to Russia. And if this guy wants to bring Russians and people of Russian culture back under his territorial integrity, I mean, it shows that he’s not adequate. Carlson: So, what are the terms under which Russia would cease hostilities? What are you asking for? Lavrov: Ten years ago, in February 2014, we were asking only for the deal between the president and the opposition to have government of national unity, to hold early elections, to be implemented. The deal was signed. And we were asking for the implementation of this deal. They were absolutely impatient and aggressive. And they were, of course, pushed, I have no slightest doubt, by the Americans, because if Victoria Nuland and the US ambassador agreed the composition of the government, why wait for five months to hold early elections? The next time we were in favor of something was when the Minsk Agreements were signed. I was there. The negotiations lasted for 17 hours (well, Crimea was lost by that time because of referendum ). And nobody, including my colleague John Kerry, meeting with us, nobody in the West was worried about the issue of Crimea. Everybody was concentrated on Donbass. And the Minsk Agreements provided for territorial integrity of Ukraine, minus Crimea (this was not even raised) and a special status for a very tiny part of Donbass, not for the entire Donbass, not for Novorossiya at all. Part of Donbass, under these Minsk Agreements, endorsed by the Security Council, should have the right to speak Russian language, to teach Russian language, to study in Russian, to have local law enforcement (like in the states of U.S.), to be consulted when judges and prosecutors are appointed by the central authority, and to have some facilitated economic connections with neighboring regions of Russia. That’s it. Something which President Macron promised to give to Corsica and still is considering how to do this. And when these agreements were sabotaged all along by Pyotr Poroshenko and then by Vladimir Zelensky. Both of them, by the way, came to presidency, running on the promise of peace. And both of them lied. So when these Minsk Agreements were sabotaged to the extent that we saw the attempts to take this tiny part of Donbass by force, and we, as President Putin explained, at that time, we suggested these security arrangements to NATO and the United States, which was rejected. And when the Plan B was launched by Ukraine and its sponsors, trying to take this part of Donbass by force, it was then that we launched the special military operation . Had they implemented the Minsk Agreements Ukraine would be one piece, minus Crimea. But even then, when Ukrainians, after we started the operation, suggested to negotiate, we agreed, there were several rounds in Belarus, and one later they moved to Istanbul. And in Istanbul, Ukrainian delegation put a paper on the table saying: “Those are the principles on which we are ready to agree.” And we accepted those principles. Carlson: The Minsk Principles? Lavrov: No. The Istanbul Principles. It was April 2022. Carlson: Right. Lavrov: Which was: no NATO, but security guarantees to Ukraine, collectively provided with the participation of Russia. And these security guarantees would not cover Crimea or the east of Ukraine. It was their proposal. And it was initialed. And the head of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, who is now the chair of the Vladimir Zelensky faction in the parliament, he recently (a few months ago) in an interview, confirmed that this was the case. And on the basis of these principles, we were ready to draft a treaty. But then this gentleman who headed the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul said that Boris Johnson visited and told them to continue to fight. Then there was... Carlson: But Boris Johnson, on behalf of... Lavrov: He said no. But the guy who initialed the paper, he said it was Boris Johnson. Other people say it was President Putin who ruined the deal because of the massacre in Bucha . But they never mentioned any more massacre in Bucha . I do. And we do. In a sense, they are on the defensive. Several times in the United Nations Security Council, sitting at the table with Antonio Guterres, I (last year and this year) at the General Assembly, I raised the issue of Bucha and said, guys, it is strange that you are silent about Bucha because you were very vocal when BBC team found itself on the street where the bodies were located. I inquired, can we get the names of the persons whose bodies were broadcast by BBC? Total silence. I addressed Antonio Guterres personally in the presence of the Security Council members. He did not respond. Then at my press conference in New York after the end of the General Assembly last September, I asked all the correspondents: guys, you are journalists. Maybe you’re not an investigative journalists but journalists normally are interested to get the truth. And Bucha thing, which was played all over the media outlets condemning Russia, is not of any interest to anyone - politicians, UN officials. And now even journalists. I asked when I talked to them in September , please, as professional people, try to get the names of those whose bodies were shown in Bucha. No answer. Just like we don’t have any answer to the question, where is the results of medical analysis of Alexey Navalny, who died recently, but who was treated in Germany in the fall of 2020. When he felt bad on a plane over Russia, the plane landed. He was treated by the Russian doctors in Siberia. Then the Germans wanted to take him. We immediately allowed the plane to come. They took him. In less than 24 hours, he was in Germany. And then the Germans continued to say that we poisoned him. And now the analysis confirmed that he was poisoned. We asked for the test results to be given to us. They said, no, we give it to the organization on chemical weapons. We went to this organization, we are members, and we said , can you show to us, because this is our citizen, we are accused of having poisoned him. They said that the Germans told us not to give it to you. They found nothing in the civilian hospital, and the announcement that he was poisoned was made after he was treated in the military Bundeswehr hospital. So it seems that this secret is not going... Carlson: So how did Navalny die? Lavrov: Well, he died serving the term in Russia. As far as it was reported, every now and then he felt not well. Which was another reason why we continued to ask the Germans: can you show us the results which you found? Because we did not find what they found. And what they did to him, I don’t know. Carlson: What the Germans did to him? Lavrov: Yeah, because they don’t explain to anybody, including us. Or maybe they explain to the Americans. Maybe this is credible. But they never told us how they treated him, what they found, and what methods they were using. Carlson: How do you think he died? Lavrov: I am not a doctor. But for anybody to guess, even for the doctors to try to guess, they need to have information. And if the person was taken to Germany to be treated after he had been poisoned, the results of the tests cannot be secret. We still cannot get anything credible on the fate of Skripals - Sergei Skripal and his daughter. The information is not provided to us. He is our citizen, she is our citizen. We have all the rights and the conventions which the UK is party to, to get information. Carlson: Why do you think that Boris Johnson, former Prime Minister of the UK, would have stopped the peace process in Istanbul? On whose behalf was he doing that? Lavrov: Well, I met with him a couple of times, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was motivated by some immediate desire or by some long-term strategy. He is not very predictable. Carlson: But do you think he was acting on behalf of the US government, on behalf of the Biden administration, or he was doing this independently. Lavrov: I don’t know. And I wouldn’t guess. The fact that the Americans and the Brits are leading in this “situation” is obvious. Now it is becoming also clear that there is a fatigue in some capitals, and there are talks every now and then that the Americans would like to leave it with the Europeans and to concentrate on something more important. I wouldn’t guess. We would be judging by specific steps. It’s obvious, though, that the Biden administration would like to leave a legacy to the Trump administration as bad as they can. And similar to what Barack Obama did to Donald Trump during his first term. Then late December 2016, President Obama expelled Russian diplomats. Just very late December. 120 persons with family members. Did it on purpose. Demanded them leave on the day when there was no direct flight from Washington to Moscow. So they had to move to New York by buses with all their luggage, with children, and so on and so forth. And at the same time, President Obama announced the arrest of pieces of diplomatic property of Russia. And we still never were able to come and see what is the state of this Russian property. Carlson: What was the property? Lavrov: Diplomatic. They never allowed us to come and see it though under all conventions. They just say that these pieces we don’t consider as being covered by diplomatic immunity, which is a unilateral decision, never substantiated by any international court. Carlson: So you believe the Biden administration is doing something similar again to the incoming Trump administration. Lavrov: Because that episode with the expulsion and the seizure of property certainly did not create the promising ground for beginning of our relations with the Trump administration. So I think they’re doing the same. Carlson: But this time President Trump was elected on the explicit promise to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. So I mean, he said that in appearance after appearance. So given that, there is hope for a resolution, it sounds like. What are the terms to which you’d agree? Lavrov: Well, the terms, I basically alluded to them. When President Putin spoke in this Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the 14th of June he once again reiterated that we were ready to negotiate on the basis of the principles which were agreed in Istanbul and rejected by Boris Johnson, according to the statement of the head of the Ukrainian delegation. The key principle is non-bloc status of Ukraine. And we would be ready to be part of the group of countries who would provide collective security guarantees to Ukraine. Carlson: But no NATO? Lavrov: No NATO. Absolutely. No military bases, no military exercises on the Ukrainian soil with participation of foreign troops. And this is something which he reiterated. But of course, he said, it was April 2022, now some time has passed, and the realities on the ground would have to be taken into account and accepted. The realities on the ground are not only the line of contact, but also the changes in the Russian Constitution after referendum was held in Donetsk, Lugansk republics and Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. And they are now part of the Russian Federation, according to the Constitution. And this is a reality. And of course, we cannot tolerate a deal which would keep the legislation which are prohibiting Russian language, Russian media, Russian culture, Ukrainian Orthodox Church, because it is a violation of the obligations of Ukraine under the UN Charter , and something must be done about it. And the fact that the West (since this russophobic legislative offensive started in 2017) was totally silent and it is silent until now, of course we would have to pay attention to this in a very special way. Carlson: Would sanctions against Russia be a condition? Lavrov: You know, I would say probably many people in Russia would like to make it a condition. But the more we live under sanctions, the more we understand that it is better to rely on yourself, and to develop mechanisms, platforms for cooperation with ‘normal’ countries who are not unfriendly to you, and don’t mix economic interests and policies and especially politics. And we learned a lot after the sanctions started. The sanctions started under President Obama. They continued in a very big way under the first term of Donald Trump. And these sanctions under the Biden administration are absolutely unprecedented. But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, you know. They would never kill us, so they are making us stronger. Carlson: And driving Russia east. And so the vision that I think same policymakers in Washington had 20 years ago is why not to bring Russia into a Western bloc, sort of as a balance against the rising east. But it doesn’t seem like that. Do you think that’s still possible? Lavrov: I don’t think so. When recently President Putin was speaking at Valdai Club to politologists and experts, he said we would never be back at the situation of early 2022. That’s when he realized (for himself, apparently, not only he, but he spoke publicly about this) that all attempts to be on equal terms with the West have failed. It started after the demise of the Soviet Union. There was euphoria, we are now part of the ‘liberal world’, democratic world, ‘end of history’. But very soon it became clear to most of the Russians that in the 1990s we were treated as - at best as junior partner, maybe not even as a partner, - but as a place where the West can organize things like it wants, striking deals with oligarchs, buying resources and assets. And then probably the Americans decided that Russia is in their pocket. Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton, buddies, laughing, joking. But even at the end of Boris Yeltsin’s term, he started to contemplate that this was not something he wanted for Russia. And I think this was very obvious when he appointed Vladimir Putin prime minister, and then left earlier, and blessed Vladimir Putin as his successor for the elections which were coming and which Putin won. But when Vladimir Putin became president, he was very much open to cooperation with the West. And he mentions about this quite regularly when he speaks with interviewers or at some international events. I was present when he met with George Bush Jr., with Barack Obama. Well, after the meeting of NATO in Bucharest, which was followed by NATO-Russia summit meeting in 2008, when they announced that Georgia and Ukraine will be in NATO. And then they tried to sell it to us. We asked: why? There was lunch and President Putin asked what was the reason for this? Good question. And they said this is something which is not obligatory. How come? Well, to start the process of joining NATO, you need a formal invitation. And this is a slogan - Ukraine and Georgia will be in NATO. But this slogan became obsession for some people in Tbilisi first, when Mikhail Saakashvili lost his senses and started the war against his own people under the protection of OSCE mission with the Russian peacekeepers on the ground. And the fact that he launched this was confirmed by the European Union investigation, which they launched and which concluded that he gave the order to start. And for Ukrainians, it took a bit longer. They were cultivating this pro-Western mood. Well, pro-Western is not bad, basically. Pro-Eastern is also not bad. What is bad is that you tell people, either/or, either you go with me or you’re my enemy. What happened before the coup in Ukraine? In 2013, the president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych negotiated with the European Union some association agreement which would nullify tariffs on most of the Ukrainian goods to the European Union and the other way around. And at some point, when he was meeting with Russian counterparts, we told him, Ukraine was part of the free trade area of the Commonwealth of Independent States. No tariffs for everybody. And we, Russia, negotiated agreement with World Trade Organization for some 17 years, mostly because we bargained with European Union. And we achieved some protection for many of our sectors, agriculture and some others. We explained to the Ukrainians that if you go zero in your trade with European Union, we would have to protect our customs border with Ukraine. Otherwise the zero tariff European goods would flood and would be hurting our industries, which we tried to protect and agreed for some protection. And we suggested to the European Union: guys, Ukraine is our common neighbor. You want to have better trade with Ukraine. We want the same. Ukraine want to have markets both in Europe and in Russia. Why don’t we sit three of us and discuss it like grownups? The head of the European Commission was the Portuguese José Manuel Barroso. He responded it’s none of your business what we do with Ukraine. And then the president of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych convened his experts. And they said, yes, it would be not very good if we have opened the border with European Union, but the customs border with Russia would be closed. And they would be checking, you know, what is coming. So that the Russian market is not affected. So he announced in November 2013 that he cannot sign the deal immediately, and he asked the European Union to postpone it for until next year. That was the trigger for Maidan, which was immediately thrown up and ended by the coup. So my point is that this either/or. Actually, the first coup took place in 2004, when after second round of elections, the same Viktor Yanukovych won presidency. The West raised hell and put pressure on the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to rule that there must be a third round. The Constitution of Ukraine says there may be only two rounds. But the Constitutional Court, under the pressure of the West, violated the Constitution for the first time then. And pro-Western candidate was chosen. At that time, when all this was taking place and boiling, the European leaders were publicly saying Ukrainian people must decide: are they with us or with Russia? Carlson: But it is the way that big countries behave. I mean, there are certain orbits, and now it’s BRICS versus NATO, US versus China. And it sounds like you’re saying the Russian-Chinese alliance is permanent. Lavrov: Well, we are neighbors. And of course geography is very important. Carlson: But you’re also neighbors with Western Europe. And you’re part of it, in effect. Lavrov: Through Ukraine the Western Europe wants to come to our borders. And there were plans that were discussed almost openly to put British naval bases on the Sea of Azov. Crimea was eyed. Dreaming about creating NATO base in Crimea and so on and so forth. Look, we have been very friendly with Finland, for example. Overnight, the Finns came back to the early years of preparation for World War II when they were best allies of Hitler. And all this neutrality, all this friendship, going to sauna together, playing hockey together, all this disappeared overnight. So maybe this was deep in their hearts, and the neutrality was burdening them, and niceties were burdening for them. I don’t know. Carlson: They’re mad about the ‘winter war’. That’s totally possible. Can you negotiate with Zelensky? You’ve pointed out that he has exceeded his term. He’s not democratically elected president of Ukraine anymore. So do you consider him a suitable partner for negotiations? Lavrov: President Putin addressed many times this issue as well. In September 2022, during the first year of the special military operation , Vladimir Zelensky, in his conviction that he would be dictating the terms of the situation also to the West, he signed a decree prohibiting any negotiations with Putin’s government. During public events after that episode, President Vladimir Putin is asked why Russia is not ready for negotiations. He said, don’t turn it upside down. We are ready for negotiations, provided it will be based on the balance of interest, tomorrow. But Vladimir Zelensky signed this decree prohibiting negotiations. For starters, why don’t you tell him to cancel it publicly? This will be a signal that he wants negotiations. Instead, Vladimir Zelensky invented his ‘peace formula’. Lately, it was complemented by a ‘victory plan’. They keep saying, we know what they say when they meet with European Union ambassadors and in other formats, they say no deal unless the deal is on our terms. I mentioned to you that they are planning now the second summit on the basis of this peace formula, and they don’t shy away from saying, we will invite Russia to put in front of it the deal which we agreed already with the West. When our Western colleagues sometimes say nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine in effect, this implies that anything about Russia without Russia. Because they discuss what kind of conditions we must accept. By the way, recently they already violated, tacitly, the concept nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. There are passes, there are messages. They know our position. We are not playing double game. What President Putin announced is the goal of our operation. It’s fair. It’s fully in line with the United Nations Charter . First of all, the rights: language rights, minority rights, national minority rights, religious rights, and it’s fully in line with OSCE principles. There is an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe which is still alive. And well, several summits of this organization clearly stated that security must be indivisible, that nobody should expand his security at the expense of security of others, and that, most important, no organization in Euro-Atlantic space shall claim dominance. This was last time it was confirmed by OSCE in 2010. NATO was doing exactly the opposite. So we have legitimacy in our position. No NATO on our doorsteps because OSCE agreed that this should not be the case if it hurts us. And please restore the rights of Russians. Carlson: Who do you think has been making foreign policy decisions in the United States? This is a question in the United States. Who is making these decisions? Lavrov: I wouldn’t guess. I haven’t seen Antony Blinken for years. When it was the last time? Two years ago, I think, at the G20 summit. Was it in Rome or somewhere? In the margins. I was representing President Putin there. His assistant came up to me during a meeting and said that Antony wants to talk just for ten minutes. I left the room. We shook hands, and he said something about the need to de-escalate and so on and so forth. I hope he’s not going to be angry with me since I am disclosing this. But we were meeting in front of many people present in the room, and I said, “We don’t want to escalate. You want to inflict strategic defeat upon Russia.” He said, “No. It is not strategic defeat globally. It is only in Ukraine.” Carlson: You’ve not spoken to him since? Lavrov: No. Carlson: Have you spoken to any officials in the Biden administration since then? Lavrov: I don’t want to ruin their career. Carlson: But have you had meaningful conversations? Lavrov: No. Not at all. When I met in international events one or another person whom I know, an American, some of them say hello, some of them exchange a few words, but I never impose myself. It’s becoming contagious when somebody sees an American talking to me or a European talking to me. Europeans are running away when they see me. During the last G20 meeting, it was ridiculous. Grown-up people, mature people. They behave like kids. So childish. Unbelievable. Carlson: So, you said that when in 2016, in December, the final moments of the Biden administration, Biden made the relationship between the United States and Russia more difficult. Lavrov: Obama. Biden was vice-president. Carlson: Exactly. I’m so sorry. The Obama administration left a bunch of bombs, basically, for the incoming Trump administration. In the last month since the election, you have all sorts of things going on politically in bordering states in this region. In Georgia, in Belarus, in Romania, and then, of course, most dramatically in Syria, you have turmoil. Does this seem like part of an effort by the United States to make the resolution more difficult? Lavrov: There is nothing new, frankly. Because the US, historically, in foreign policy, was motivated by making some trouble and then to see if they can fish in the muddy water. Iraqi aggression, Libyan adventure - ruining the state, basically. Fleeing from Afghanistan. Now trying to get back through the back door, using the United Nations to organize some ‘event’ where the US can be present, in spite of the fact that they left Afghanistan in very bad shape and arrested money and don’t want to give it back. I think this is, if you analyze the American foreign policy steps, adventures, most of them are the right word - the pattern. They create some trouble, and then they see how to use it. When the OSCE monitors elections, when it used to monitor elections in Russia, they would always be very negative, and in other countries as well, Belarus, Kazakhstan. This time, in Georgia, the monitoring mission of OSCE presented a positive report. And it is being ignored. So when you need endorsement of the procedures, you do it when you like the results of the election. If you don’t like the results of elections, you ignore it. It’s like when the United States and other Western countries recognized unilateral declaration of independence of Kosovo, they said this is the self-determination being implemented. There was no referendum in Kosovo - unilateral declaration of independence. By the way, after that the Serbs approached International Court of Justice, which ruled that (well, normally they are not very specific in their judgment, but they ruled) that when part of a territory declares independence, it is not necessarily to be agreed with the central authorities. And when a few years later, Crimeans were holding referendum with invitation of many international observers, not from international organizations, but from parliamentarians in Europe, in Asia, in post-Soviet space, they said, no, we cannot accept this because this is violation of territorial integrity. You know, you pick and choose. The UN Charter is not a menu. You have to respect it in all its entirety. Carlson: So who’s paying the rebels who’ve taken parts of Aleppo? Is the Assad government in danger of falling? What is happening exactly, in your view, in Syria? Lavrov: Well, we had a deal when this crisis started. We organized the Astana process (Russia, Türkiye and Iran). We meet regularly . Another meeting is being planned before the end of the year or early next year, to discuss the situation on the ground. The rules of the game are to help Syrians to come to terms with each other and to prevent separatist threats from getting strong. That’s what the Americans are doing in the east of Syria when they groom some Kurdish separatists using the profits from oil and grain sold, the resources which they occupy. This Astana format is a useful combination of players, if you wish. We are very much concerned. And when this happened, with Aleppo and surroundings, I had a conversation with the Turkish minister of foreign affairs and with Iranian colleague. We agreed to try to meet this week. Hopefully in Doha at the margins of this international conference. We would like to discuss the need to come back to strict implementation of the deals on Idlib area, because Idlib de-escalation zone was the place from where the terrorists moved to take Aleppo. The arrangements reached in 2019 and 2020 provided for our Turkish friends to control the situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone and to separate the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (former Nusra) from the opposition, which is non-terrorist and which cooperates with Türkiye. And another deal was the opening of M5 route from Damascus to Aleppo, which is also now taken completely by the terrorists. So we, as ministers of foreign affairs, would discuss the situation, hopefully, this coming Friday. And the military of all three countries and the security people are in contact with each other. Carlson: But the Islamist groups, the terrorists you just described, who is backing them? Lavrov: Well, we have some information. We would like to discuss with all our partners in this process the way to cut the channels of financing and arming them. The information which is being floated and it’s in the public domain mentions among others the Americans, the Brits. Some people say that Israel is interested in making this situation aggravated. So that Gaza is not under very close scrutiny. It’s a complicated game. Many actors are involved. I hope that the context which we are planning for this week will help stabilize the situation. Carlson: What do you think of Donald Trump? Lavrov: I met him several times when he was having meetings with President Putin and when he received me twice in the Oval Office when I was visiting for bilateral talks. Well, I think he’s a very strong person. A person who wants results. Who doesn’t like procrastination on anything. This is my impression. He’s very friendly in discussions. But this does not mean that he’s pro-Russian as some people try to present him. The amount of sanctions we received under the Trump administration was very big. We respect any choice which is made by the people when they vote. We respect the choice of American people. As President Putin said, we are and we have been open all along to the contacts with the current administration. We hope that when Donald Trump is inaugurated, we will understand. The ball, as President Putin said, is on their side. We never severed our contacts, our ties in the economy, trade, security, anything. Carlson: My final question is: how sincerely worried are you about an escalation in conflict between Russia and the United States, knowing what you do? Lavrov: Well, we started with this question, more or less. Carlson: It seems the central question. Lavrov: Yes. The Europeans whisper to each other that it is not for Vladimir Zelensky to dictate the terms of the deal - it’s for the US and Russia. I don’t think we should be presenting our relations as two guys decide for everybody. Not at all. It is not our style. We prefer the manners which dominate in BRICS , in Shanghai Cooperation Organization , where the UN Charter principle of sovereign equality of states is really embodied. The US is not used to respect sovereign equality of states. When the US says we cannot allow Russia to win on Ukraine because this would undermine our rules-based world order. And rules-based world order is American domination. Now, by the way, NATO, at least under Biden administration, is eyeing the entire Eurasian continent, Indo-Pacific strategies, South China Sea, East China Sea, is already on NATO agenda. NATO is moving infrastructure there. AUKUS, building ‘quartet’ Indo-Pacific Four as they call it (Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea). US, South Korea, and Japan are building military alliance with some nuclear components. And Jens Stoltenberg, the former Secretary General of NATO, last year after the summit he said that the Atlantic security is indivisible from Indo-Pacific security. When he was asked does it mean that you go beyond territorial defense, he answered - no, it doesn’t go beyond territorial defense, but to defend our territory, we need to be present there. This element of preemption is more and more present. We don’t want war with anybody. And as I said, five nuclear states declared at the top level in January 2022 that we don’t want confrontation with each other and that we shall respect each other’s security interests and concerns. And it also stated nuclear war can never be won, and therefore nuclear war is not possible. And the same was reiterated bilaterally between Russia and the United States, Putin-Biden, when they met in 2021 in Geneva in June . Basically, they reproduced the statement by Reagan-Gorbachev of 1987 ‘no nuclear war’. And this is absolutely in our vital interest, and we hope that this is also in vital interest of the United States. I say so because some time ago John Kirby, who is the White House communications coordinator, was answering questions about escalation and about possibility of nuclear weapons being employed. And he said, “Oh, no, we don’t want escalation because then if there is some nuclear element, then our European allies would suffer.” So even mentally, he excludes that the United States can suffer. And this is something which makes the situation a bit risky. It might – if this mentality prevails, then some reckless steps would be taken, and this is bad. Carlson: What you’re saying is American policy makers imagine there could be a nuclear exchange that doesn’t directly affect the United States, and you’re saying that’s not true. Lavrov: That’s what I said, yes. But professionals in deterrence, nuclear deterrence policy, they know very well that it’s a very dangerous game. And to speak about limited exchange of nuclear strikes is an invitation to disaster, which we don’t want to have.
The former Geordie Shore star, who is nearly eight months pregnant, thanked a security company “for all the hard work this week” after adding the protections to her home. “Trebling our security measures, worth every penny to feel safe again in my own home,” the 34-year-old said in a post to her Instagram story. “Scumbags are gunna get a big shock the next time they even step foot on any perimeter of my land.” It comes after her fiance, Jake Ankers, said on social media that a group of men carrying a machete entered their home on Thursday evening while they were in the house with their two-year-old daughter. The businessman said one of the four men “had a red balaclava on” and was carrying the weapon at the top of the stairs. Durham Constabulary were alerted at 7pm on Thursday to reports of an aggravated burglary in Houghton-le-Spring, a town in the Sunderland area. A spokeswoman for the force said: “Officers attended the area, however the suspects left the scene before their arrival. “Nobody was injured in the incident and no items are believed to have been taken.” She added that an investigation is under way and anyone with information is asked to contact police. After the incident, Crosby was admitted to hospital after experiencing “serious pains” in her stomach, but confirmed her baby is “all fine”. Ankers appeared with the reality star on BBC Three reality show Charlotte In Sunderland. Crosby is best known for appearing in the MTV reality series Geordie Shore and winning the 12th series of Celebrity Big Brother in 2013. She and Ankers got engaged in October 2023 after she gave birth to their first child in 2022.James Webb Space Telescope unveils secrets of early universe over last 3 years
Israel's attorney general has ordered police to investigate allegations Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's wife harassed political opponents and witnesses in her husband's corruption trial. The Israeli Justice Ministry made the announcement in a terse message late on Thursday, saying the investigation would focus on a recent report by the Uvda investigative program into Sara Netanyahu. The program uncovered a trove of WhatsApp messages in which Sara Netanyahu appears to instruct a former aide to organise protests against political opponents and to intimidate Hadas Klein, a key witness in the trial. The announcement did not mention Sara Netanyahu by name and the Justice Ministry declined further comment. But in a video released earlier on Thursday, Benjamin Netanyahu listed what he said were the many kind and charitable acts by his wife and blasted the Uvda report as "lies". "My opponents on the left and in the media found a new-old target. They mercilessly attack my wife, Sara," he said. He called the program "false propaganda, nasty propaganda that brings up lies from the darkness". It was the latest in a long line of legal troubles for the Netanyahus — highlighted by the prime minister's ongoing corruption trial. Netanyahu is charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of cases alleging he exchanged favours with powerful media moguls and wealthy associates. Netanyahu denies the charges and says he is the victim of a "witch hunt" by overzealous prosecutors, police and the media. The report obtained correspondence between Sara Netanyahu and Hanni Bleiweiss, a former aide to the prime minister who died of cancer last year. The messages indicated that Sara Netanyahu encouraged police to crack down violently on anti-government protesters and ordered Bleiweiss to organise protests against her husband's critics. She also told Bleiweiss to get activists in Netanyahu's Likud party to publish attacks on Klein. Klein is an aide to billionaire Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and has testified in the corruption case about her role in delivering tens of thousands of dollars worth of champagne, cigars and gifts to Netanyahu for her boss. According to the report, Sara Netanyahu mistreated Bleiweiss, prompting her to share the messages with a reporter shortly before her death. Sara Netanyahu has been accused of abusive behaviour toward her personal staff before. This, together with accusations of excessive spending and using public money for her own extravagant personal tastes, has earned her an image as being out of touch with everyday Israelis. In 2019, she was fined for misusing state funds.NoneTrump hit by shock withdrawal