The top executive of Japan’s largest shipping company told the Financial Times in an exclusive weekend interview that the path toward normalization in the Strait of Hormuz remains far more complicated than anticipated. He warned that shipping volumes may stay well below prewar levels for months, as IRGC-laid mines are forcing vessels into narrow, safer corridors near Iran and Oman.
“The routes available for navigation are extremely limited — they’re very narrow corridors,” Takaya Soga, chief executive of Japan’s NYK Line, told the outlet. “We’re still nowhere near returning to conditions before the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.”
The warning comes days after International Maritime Organization Secretary-General Arsenio Dominguez stated that IRGC forces had laid 80 naval mines across the main shipping channels in Hormuz.
Tanker transits through Hormuz have gradually resumed in recent weeks following the interim peace deal between the U.S. and Iran, with tracked vessel traffic peaking at 57 transits last Wednesday. That figure, however, likely understates the true level of activity, as the Bloomberg data captures only vessels with transponders.
Last week, IRGC forces warned that commercial vessels must coordinate with Iran’s naval command before transiting Hormuz and cautioned against using unauthorized routes. That warning was followed by an attack on an Evergreen-operated container ship, U.S. retaliatory strikes against Iran, and a subsequent Iranian response targeting Bahrain and Kuwait this weekend.
UK maritime authorities also reported that a tanker’s bridge was damaged by an unidentified projectile. Meanwhile, Iraqi forces locked down Baghdad’s Green Zone and arrested pro-Iranian political officials under the guise of a corruption probe, suggesting the regional pressure campaign is now spilling into Iraq.
The Epstein survivors held up pictures of themselves when they were initially abused by Epstein as minors or young women. “After years of being kept apart, we’re standing together,” they said.
The background was pitch black, and the music was haunting.
The PSA ended with the following: “Stand With Us. Tell Attorney General Pam Bondi IT’S TIME FOR THE TRUTH.”
As a longtime advocate for justice in the Epstein case, the PSA felt like a supernova. I felt an eruption of gratitude. But as my elation faded, I wondered how World Without Exploitation could afford the PSA.
The co-founders of World Without Exploitation, Lauren Hersh and Rachel Foster, have certainly generated remarkable fanfare. In fact, they’ve even been hailed as two of Time magazine’s most influential 100 people of 2026.
I’m the director of Epstein Justice, a 501(c)(3), and our raison d’être is an independent congressional commission to investigate the Epstein case. Like many nonprofits, we struggle to find funders. So, I’ve marveled at the success of World Without Exploitation, which was founded in 2016. By 2019, the Atlanta Jewish Times reports, World Without Exploitation was the “umbrella group of 140 organizations.” The landing page of its website states: “Our 175+ member groups are working to end exploitation.”
But I started to hear whispers about World Without Exploitation that were less than stellar. Let’s dive in.
The Strange Case of World Without Exploitation Co-Founder Lauren Hersh
On paper, Hersh would appear to have impeccable credentials to be the director of an organization dedicated to ending exploitation. She joined the Brooklyn (King’s County) District Attorney’s office in 2004 after graduating from Brooklyn Law School, then transitioned to the domestic violence bureau before joining the rackets division, where she ultimately became “chief” of the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Sex Trafficking Unit. Yet Hersh’s last case as a Brooklyn Assistant District Attorney would be marred by apparent prosecutorial misconduct. The case involved the alleged trafficking and rape of a young woman by four men.
The Backstory of Hersh’s Resignation from the Brooklyn DA’s Office
On March 31, 2010, a 22-year-old Brooklyn woman told NYPD officers that Damien Crooks took her to a party, where she was raped and beaten. She said that she managed to escape her abusers and phoned her best friend. Her friend took her to the police, and she was then sent to the hospital. A June 2, 2012, New York Times article reports that at 6:30 AM the following morning, the young woman talked to an NYPD detective and filed a formal statement, discussing rapes, beatings, and Crooks pimping her out. She said she was “afraid for her life.”
By 10:45 AM, however, she was interviewed again by a second NYPD detective and recanted her prior statements. She informed the detective interviewing her that she was a prostitute, was not forcibly raped by Crooks, and had had consensual intercourse with him several times over the preceding years. The detective wrote that the accuser promulgated her allegations, because one of the men at the party had sex with her, and he hadn’t worn a condom and hit her. The following day, the NYPD terminated its investigation – a turn of events that would prove integral to Herch’s prosecutorial problems.
But the woman’s allegations were not without foundation. She lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which has been a melting pot for both Orthodox Jews and African Americans. Crooks lived in the house directly behind her family’s house.
The young woman said she’d been molested by a family member. She also said her teenage nightmare continued when her brother asked her to purchase marijuana from Jawara Brockett who lived nearby. As her brother waited for her downstairs, she said she was forced to have oral, anal and vaginal sex with three men that included purported perpetrator Jawara Brockett.
The alleged victim claimed that she quickly became immersed in a double life. Women at a neighborhood hair salon remembered a teenager regularly ducking into the salon’s bathroom, where she disrobed from long dresses and slipped into clothes suited for working the streets.
There is a picture of the alleged victim donning a crimson dress – surrounded by black men, including one she named as a perpetrator. Like the men, her hand is rounded into a “C,” which law enforcement asserts is a signal for Crips. One of her alleged perpetrators, Jamali Brockett, would ultimately be sentenced to 24 years in prison on unrelated federal charges for sex trafficking women and minors.
Police records reveal that when she was 13 and 14 years old, in 2004 and 2004, she phoned the police at least four times to report assaults and provided her address. The NYPD said that one arrest was made because of the alleged victim’s complaints in 2003, but the responding commanders didn’t remember meeting her father, who claimed that the police never visited their family home. Her best friend also said that she approached police officers on the street as a teenager, but they had a callous attitude: “You put yourself in this situation, you get yourself out.”
In September of 2004, the alleged victim said a tipping point occurred: a “client” stabbed her. By the time she made it home at 3:00 AM her sweatshirt was drenched in blood. Her panic-stricken parents met her at the front door – and would eventually place their teenage daughter in a psychiatric hospital. She was discharged in 2006, finished high school, and enrolled in John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
The young woman maintained that Crooks’ threats against her sister drove her back into a life of prostitution.
Hersh Forces Botched Indictments
In June of 2010, approximately two months after the young woman recanted her allegations to the NYPD, she met with Hersh and others associated with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, and despite the young woman’s earlier recantation these officials nonetheless prepared her for a grand jury appearance based on her first statement to the NYPD. Hersh presented the case to a Brooklyn grand jury.
The grand jury returned multiple indictments against four African Americans. Damien Crooks was charged with four counts of rape and two counts of sex trafficking, and Jamali Brockett was charged with rape, compelling prostitution, and criminal sex acts. The Brooklyn DA also indicted Jawara Brockett and Darrell Dula for rape.
The Brooklyn DA’s office reported that the men began sexually assaulting the victim when she was just 13 years old, and then they forced her into a life of prostitution until she was 21 years old. She said she came forward because the men had threatened to harm a family member.
“That’s when she realized she had no choice but to say something,” said Hersh.
The judge set bail at $1 million for Crooks and $50,000 for Dula. They were arrested at the end of June in 2011 and incarcerated on Rikers Island. Jamali Brockett and Jawara Brockett had already been incarcerated on unrelated charges.
April of 2012 was a cruel month for the Brooklyn DA. It was nearly a year after Crooks et al. had been incarcerated while awaiting trial. Assistant District Attorney Abbie Greenberger had been assigned to prosecute the case. Though she found the evidence in the case to be problematic, Hersh pressured her into prosecuting it anyway. In April, Greenberger resigned.
“When I brought the inconsistencies to Lauren Hersh, I was told that I didn’t do my job right and that I’m trying to dismiss the case and that I should work harder,” Greenberger told the New York Daily News.
Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Gingold was then assigned to the case, and she discovered that Hersh failed to disclose the existence of the alleged victim’s recantation. Gingold provided it to the men’s defense attorneys.
Greenberger also specified that she didn’t know about the recantation before she resigned. “I feel horrible about Dula,” Greenberger said. The alleged victim had not named Dula as a perpetrator in her initial statement to the NYPD.
A New York Timesarticle from May 25, 2012, reports that Crook’s attorney, Elliot Kay “said prosecutors had turned over another batch of evidence in April that included a document produced by the district attorney’s office with a handwritten note referring to a recantation, indicating that prosecutors knew, before Ms. Hersh presented the case to the grand jury, that the accuser had changed her account. The grand jury indicted Mr. Dula and Mr. Crooks on rape stemming from the episode that the alleged victim had recanted.”
A civil lawsuit filed by Damien Crooks’ attorneys stated he consented to submit DNA before the grand jury, but it “appears” that his tests were not conducted.
After the Brooklyn DA’s office severely fumbled the ball, Justice John Walsh of the King’s County Supreme Court ordered that Crooks and Dula be released from their 10-month incarceration at Rikers Island. The Brockett brothers remained incarcerated on separate charges, but the charges against the men in the rape case were dismissed.
In May of 2012, Hersh resigned from the Brooklyn DA’s office four hours after appearing before an ethics panel. And while the panel found “insufficient evidence” to sanction Hersh, her botched prosecution of the case ultimately ensured that justice would be conclusively denied for the alleged victim, and the grand jury was an additional trauma that she had to endure.
Crooks sued the City of New York for false arrest, malicious prosecution, negligence, and being deprived of his rights under the Constitution of the United States and New York State. He was represented by the New York-based law firm of Sullivan, Papain, Block, McGrath & Cannavo and received a settlement for an undisclosed amount.
Dula sued the City of New York for false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, defamation and violation of due process.
“I deposed the Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes,” said Jonathan Sims, who represented Dula in his civil lawsuit against New York City. “Hynes said that he had authorized Hersh to bring this case before a grand jury. But after the grand jury, he was alerted to the recantation, and also to the fact that the woman had not initially implicated my client. Hynes testified that if he were aware of those facts, he wouldn’t have authorized a grand jury, and obviously the recantation was not presented to the grand jury.”
Sims said that Dula settled his civil lawsuit against New York City for $750,000
One Epstein survivor told me that Hersh had privately claimed she resigned from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office because, while working on a human trafficking case, she discovered her boss’s name and phone number in the records of a trafficking ring she was investigating. Charles Hynes, now deceased, was the Brooklyn DA at the time of Hersh’s resignation. Abbie Greenberger declined to comment for this article.
I emailed various questions to Hersh, and one of the questions pertained to her account of the circumstances surrounding her departure from the Brookyln DA’s office, but she didn’t respond to my questions.
Approximately four years after Hersh resigned as a Brookyln assistant district attorney, she and Rachel Foster started World Without Exploitation.
World Without Exploitation, Tides, and “Dark Money”
After reading about the revelations about Hersh’s resignation from the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office, I started delving into World Without Exploitation. I noticed that the organization didn’t file 990s. A 990 is an annual return that federally tax-exempt organizations file every year, which reports on its financial information, program accomplishments, and compliance with IRS codes.
World Without Exploitation does not file its own 990s, because it is a “fiscally sponsored project” of “Tides.” The Tides Network contains five separate legal entities: Tides Center, Tides Advocacy, Tides Foundation, Tides Two Rivers Fund, and Tides Inc. According to a Tides Network 990 from 2024, the Network had $846,636,595 in “total assets.”
Tides was founded by entrepreneur Drummond Pike in 1976, and he served as its CEO until November 2010. Pike is a progressive, and Tides primarily funds progressive organizations and causes. Tides was a former fiscal sponsor of Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, but Tides and BLM GNF had a very acrimonious split. In a scathing 2024 lawsuit, BLM GNF claimed that Tides withheld $33.4 million from it, alleging myriad transgressions that included breach of contract, fraud, financial mismanagement, and intentional wrongdoing. However, BLM GNF dismissed its lawsuit against Tides and retracted all its allegations.
The Tides Network grants its donors anonymity and allows donors, unions, and corporations to donate unlimited amounts of “dark money” to their recipients of choice – dark money refers to donations that are designed to influence elections or policies without disclosing their donors to the public. Tides terms the practice “donor advised funds,” which “provide our partners with an efficient, high-impact way to champion social justice leaders driving change.”
Though Tides is intentionally opaque regarding its donors, its website from January 17, 2011 through September 16, 2017 listed its “partnership” with the California Endowment, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Open Society Institute, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Gates Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Tides also received $27 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development from 2016 to 2024.
I’ve repeatedly asked a Tides representative to disclose the amount of funding Tides allocates to World Without Exploitation, but my emails haven’t been returned.
Tides and the Epstein “Family”
As I researched World Without Exploitation and Tides, I typed “Tides” into the search engine of the Department of Justice’s Epstein Library, and I found a $100,000 check from Tides to the “TERRAMAR PROJECT” “ATTN: MS. GHISLAINE MAXWELL.” The Terramar Project was a nonprofit organization founded by Ghislaine Maxwell that ostensibly focused on ocean conservation. The check was dated June 6, 2014. In December of 2021, Maxwell was convicted of sex trafficking and recruiting and grooming teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
I found that disclosure to be disconcerting, and I continued searching for “Tides” in the Epstein Library. I then found an enigmatic email, dated February 26, 2011, from Jes Staley to Jeffrey Epstein that merely had the address of the Tides Foundation. The thread starts out with Staley asking a redacted name: “Where does Gary work?” The email thread then has Jes Staley’s brother, Peter, forwarding the address of Tides to Jes Staley, and the latter forwarding it to Epstein. According to Philanthropy New York, Gary Schwartz had multiple roles at Tides for 14 years before becoming Tides’ interim CEO in 2013. Schwartz became the Senior Director of the Novo Foundation in 2015.
Though Jes Staley forwarding the address of Tides to Epstein is seemingly innocuous, Staley himself is not. Staley was formerly the CEO of Barclays and CEO of JP Morgan Asset Management. In a May 27, 2010, email to then-Prince Andrew, Epstein referred to Staley as “family.” Documentation from the Epstein files notes serious accusations of sadistic sexual misconduct by Staley: he forced a woman to touch his genitals during a massage and then raped her, and he also left “bloody marks” on the arms of a woman he called “Tinkerbell”.
Google Epstein Island
Google co-founder Sergey Brin has also been affiliated with both Epstein and Tides. A January 31, 2026, New York Times article, “Powerful Men Who Turn Up in the New Batch of Epstein Files,” published in the wake of the latest tranche of Epstein files, describes facets of Brin’s relationship with Maxwell and Epstein.
“Brin, the co-founder of Google and one of the richest men in the world, visited Epstein’s private island near St. Thomas, made plans to dine at Epstein’s New York home and corresponded with Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longtime companion and convicted co-conspirator, according to the documents released Friday.
‘Dinners at Jeffrey’s are always happily casual and relaxed,’ Maxwell wrote to Brin in April 2003. ‘Look forward to seeing you.’
It has long been known that Epstein introduced executives at JPMorgan to Brin, whose net worth exceeds $250 billion, helping the bank land him as a client.
Sarah Ransome, one of Epstein’s accusers, claimed in court documents in 2024 that she had met Brin and his then-fiancée, Anne Wojcicki, on Epstein’s island, which was the center of his sex trafficking operation for many years. One of Epstein’s former boat captains told The New York Times earlier this year that he had seen Brin on the island more than once.”
As mentioned, Tides offers donor anonymity, which makes it difficult to discern its donors and their donations. But a February 2nd, 2023, article from Inside Philanthropy reports that the Sergey Brin Family Foundation had $5 billion in assets as of 2021. And dating back to at least 2017, his foundation channeled money through the Tides Foundation to causes like Black Lives Matter and public safety reform. Moreover, as of 2023, Brin’s foundation continues to “funnel money” for various causes through Tides.
Epstein’s “Go To” Shrink
Billionaire and famed psychiatrist Henry Jarecki has been relatively unscathed by his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, even though he is prominently displayed in Epstein’s Black Book with at least 13 contact numbers, and he also appears on Epstein’s flight logs. And like Epstein, Jarecki owns a private island in the Virgin Islands.
In 2024, Jane Doe 11 filed a lawsuit contending that Epstein introduced her to Jarecki for the treatment of depression that was the result of Epstein’s abuse, and Jarecki raped Jane Doe 11 on her initial visit. She also accused Jarecki of “coercing her into being his modern-day sex slave” over the course of three years.
The lawsuit alleged that Jarecki was Epstein’s “go-to-doctor” for his victims.
The lawsuit also claimed that Jarecki used testosterone pills to increase his sex drive, and he frequently forced Jane Doe 11 to have sex with other men in front of him.
Jarecki has adamantly denied her allegations, claiming the relationship was consensual.
Brad Edwards, a lawyer for the accuser, wrote in an email to CNBC, “A ‘consensual’ relationship to describe a patient 60 years his junior, referred by Jeffrey Epstein, and known to be a sexual abuse victim, is a creative ‘defense,’ if nothing else.”
Jane Doe 11 ultimately recanted her accusation about Jarecki. And the lawsuit was “dismissed with prejudice,” which means the case is permanently closed and barred from being refiled. A case dismissed with prejudice indicates the case was settled or the judge dismissed it due to a party’s wrongdoing or lack of evidence.
Prior to suing Jarecki, Jane Doe 11 received compensation from a fund established for victims of Epstein.
Astonishingly, Epstein sent Jarecki a 2011 email that excoriated Jarecki for mistreating people!
Jarecki is the president and founder of the Falconwood Foundation, which donated $2 million to Tides in 2020.
Gates, Epstein, and Tides
The Epstein documents released in January contain July 2013 emails that Epstein sent to himself, which appear to be drafts earmarked for Bill Gates. The drafts, if factual, portray Gates as a rather unpleasant individual. The drafts indicate that Gates wanted Epstein to participate in “unethical” and possibly “illegal” behavior, from facilitating trysts with married women to providing Gates with drugs to “deal with the consequences of sex” with Russian girls. In a second email, Epstein wrote that Gates requested Epstein provide him with “antibiotics” that Gates could “surreptitiously” slip his wife after Gates apparently gave her an STD.
Tides listed a “partnership” with the “Gates Foundation” from January 17, 2011 through September 16, 2017. But I cannot find Tides mentioning the Gates Foundation on its website after September of 2017. However, in 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively, the Gates Foundation gave Tides’ entities $300,000, $7,540,812, and $2,795,174.
As previously mentioned, I emailed various questions to Hersh. One question pertained to whether or not she was aware that Epstein cronies or perpetrators have given millions of dollars to Tides, and I also inquired if she were aware of any monies that Epstein cronies or perpetrators donated to Tides that were ultimately allocated to World Without Exploitation. Again, she did not answer my questions.
Reid Hoffman and World Without Exploitation
Like his PayPal alumni Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman had a furtive association with Jeffrey Epstein. Hoffman was on PayPal’s board of directors when it was founded, and he became its chief operating officer. Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, called Hoffman PayPal’s “firefighter in chief,” because the company had numerous glitches in its early days. Hoffman was also a co-founder of LinkedIn, which was acquired by Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016. After the sale of LinkedIn, Hoffman joined Microsoft’s board of directors.
Also like Musk and Thiel, Hoffman has a tenuous relationship with the truth about Jeffrey Epstein. Business Insider reports that Hoffman wrote: “My few Interactions with Jeffrey Epstein came at the request of Joi Ito, for the purposes of fundraising for the MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] Media Lab. Prior to these interactions, I was told by Joi that Epstein had cleared the MIT vetting process, which was the basis for my participation.” Ito was the director of the MIT Media Lab, and he resigned after his financial ties to Epstein were exposed.
But after the tranche of Epstein files was released in January, Hoffman confessed that he had meetings with Epstein from 2016 to 2018, even though he had previously said they last met in 2015.
In November 2014, Hoffman and Ito took a private flight to Epstein’s island in the US Virgin Islands. Epstein then paid for Hoffman to fly to New York, and Hoffman spent the night at Epstein’s Upper East Side mansion. Afterward, Hoffman attended a breakfast with Bill Gates and other high-profile guests that was organized by Epstein.
On Christmas Eve of 2014, Hoffman sent a pair of presents to Epstein: ice cream for Epstein and “the girls” and “something that may strike your funny bone for the island.” The present for the island was from an artist who creates sculptures of little monsters out of recycled metal. A spokesperson for Hoffman later stated that “the girls” referred to adult members of Epstein’s team.
In a January 8, 2015, email, Hoffman was evidently aware of Epstein receiving unflattering “recent press.” The genesis of the “recent press” was a motion filed in federal court on December 30th, 2014, by lawyers Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell on behalf of Epstein victims Jane Doe #3 and Jane Doe #4. Jane Doe #3 was Virginia Giuffre, and she named Epstein, Maxwell, Alan Dershowitz, and the individual formerly known as Prince Andrew as among her perpetrators.
The motion produced a media firestorm whose epicenter was Jeffrey Epstein, and Hoffman wanted to assist Epstein in counteracting the media firestorm by “looking for help on the on-line front.”
In an email dated August 20, 2015, from Epstein to Tom Pritzker, Epstein wrote that he had a “wild” dinner with Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Reid Hoffman. The dinner was hosted by Hoffman in Palo Alto.
The New York Post reports that Epstein even set up a meeting with Hoffman and formerly-Prince Andrew.
Which Brings Us Back To the 2026 Super Bowl
Prior to the Super Bowl PSA, World Without Exploitation produced a PSA for Monday Night Football, which averages 15 million viewers per game, and a 30-second spot costs an average of $500,000. The one-minute PSA aired during a commercial break in the fourth quarter of the Cowboys-Raiders game on November 17, 2025, and, like the Super Bowl PSA, it featured Epstein survivors talking directly to the camera, holding up pictures of themselves as minors or young women, when they were initially abused by Epstein. The following day, the House voted 427-1 and the Senate unanimously to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
A November 17, 2025, Daily Beast article, “Trump Enemy Spends a Fortune on Epstein Ad,” reports that a “billionaire Trump foe helped Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors to confront Congress by funding a prime-time ad calling for the full release of the files related to the dead pedophile financier.” The billionaire foe was Reid Hoffman, who even tweeted about his contribution on X: “The Epstein Files must be released, in full. Tonight, I supported World Without Exploitation to run this ad on Monday Night Football, calling for exactly that.”
Time magazine, which, as mentioned, named World Without Exploitation co-founders Hersh and Foster as two of the 100 most influential people of 2026, gave a step-by-step account of the Monday Night Football PSA:
“Hersch[sic] and her team hired film teams in Los Angeles and New York to interview survivors. But when they sat down to look at the footage collected on soundstages in those coastal caverns, they realized their best material came not from the scripted readings, but from the impromptu observations. “You don’t really hear much of the script in the actual PSA because what ended up happening in the space was just so moving. These women came together, the raw emotion that surfaced because of the bond that they shared was so powerful,” Hersh said months later. Initially, the ad was just going to go online. Once it went viral, it caught the eye of a donor – LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman – who helped it air during Monday Night Football, hours before House lawmakers were set to vote.”
In addition to Hoffman supporting World Without Exploitation, the Hoffman-affiliated, non-profit organization American Future Republic played an integral role in funding the expenses for E. Jean Carroll’s civil lawsuits against Donald Trump. A 2023 jury found that Trump was liable for sexual abuse and defamation and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. A second jury, in 2024, found him liable for defamation and awarded $83.3 million in damages to Carroll. Both judgments were upheld on appeal.
Hoffman’s American Future Republic is now facing a Justice Department probe, and he is accusing the Trump administration of waging lawfare against him.
Hoffman posted the following on X: “Trump cannot be allowed to use the full weight and power of the US Government to come after women who speak up, or anyone who supports them in doing so.”
Hoffman’s financial support for abused children via the World Without Exploitation seems to qualify him for a rarefied Mother Theresa-like sainthood. But before Hoffman is canonized, his motives for financially supporting World Without Exploitation should be scrutinized, because they appear to be highly calculated. Judging by Hoffman’s email correspondences with Epstein, he didn’t care about the welfare of the Epstein victims. His only concern was whitewashing Epstein’s former predations. Hoffman’s apparent indifference to the Epstein victims and his seemingly incongruous support for the World Without Exploitation’s Monday Night Football PSA indicate that the Epstein survivors were being used for a political agenda.
Unfortunately, the Epstein survivors have been repeatedly betrayed by every facet of our government, and now they’ve seemingly been used for political expedience.
The Monday Night Football PSA was a pittance compared to the Super Bowl PSA. A 30-second advertisement during the Super Bowl has a hefty price tag of $7 to $ 8 million. Hoffman and World Without Exploitation were transparent about the Monday Night Football PSA, but I’ve been unable to find a price tag and funder information for the Super Bowl PSA.
The latest tranche of Epstein files dropped on January 30 – nine days before the Super Bowl. Hoffman lobbied for the release of the Epstein files, but he was apparently blind to the fact that they portrayed him in an extremely negative light. When I asked Hoffman via X chat if he contributed to World Without Exploitation’s Super Bowl PSA, he declined to comment. Hoffman is a partner at Greylock Partners, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, and I emailed him at two Greylock Partners’ email addresses: the general email of company and also what is reported to be his personal email. But, once more, he declined to comment.
I also asked Hersh if Hoffman contributed to World Without Exploitation’s Super Bowl PSA, but, again, she didn’t respond to any of my questions
Hoffman’s past communications with Epstein, as revealed in the Epstein files, show no evident concern for the victims. This raises legitimate questions about whether World Without Exploitation’s leadership was aware of those documented associations if it accepted Hoffman’s funding for the Super Bowl PSA.
The Epstein survivor who commented earlier about Hersh leaving the Brooklyn DA also expressed frustration with what they described as World Without Exploitation’s involvement in certain advocacy efforts, telling me: “The Epstein survivors and their attorneys had a Zoom meeting with congressional policymakers that focused on our demands for justice. But somehow Lauren and Rachel were invited to the Zoom meeting, and they brought their PR people, which I thought was a huge violation of our confidentiality.“
I heard an allegation that I’ve unable to corroborate: World Without Exploitation personnel actually decided which Epstein survivors would testify at the House Oversight Committee’s “shadow” hearing held on May 12 in West Palm Beach, Florida. Again, I queried Hersh about that allegation but an answer wasn’t forthcoming.
A second Epstein survivor questions the motives of World Without Exploitation: “Everything they’re doing seems to be driven by a political agenda and personal gain instead of an agenda for justice.”
Moreover, should anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation organizations have opaque funding? Because World Without Exploitation operates as a fiscally sponsored project of Tides, the ultimate sources of some of its funding are not disclosed in public filings in the same way they would be for an independent 501(c)(3). This structure makes it significantly more difficult to trace the origins of certain donations.
Child Sex Trafficking is Not a Partisan Issue
I’ve been alarmed that so few anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation organizations have made the Epstein survivors a cause célèbre, because Epstein’s child trafficking was covered up in broad daylight before all of America. I’ve come to believe that Epstein is the white elephant in the living room for anti-exploitation organizations. So I was initially impressed by the way World Without Exploitation supported the Epstein survivors: I enthusiastically lauded their efforts and made various overtures to World Without Exploitation to form an alliance with Epstein Justice. But when I started delving into the subject matter of this article, I ceased further overtures.
The US government has flagrantly covered up the child sex trafficking of Jeffrey Epstein and his ilk. To cover up a crime is to aid and abet that crime, which translates into the US government aiding and abetting child sex trafficking. Given the heinous nature of these crimes and their coverup, I’m shocked that Americans haven’t hit the streets en masse to protest our government’s protection of child molesters.
I believe that a major impediment to justice is the politicization of the Epstein case, and Reid Hoffman’s funding of World Without Exploitation seems to epitomize that politicization. Currently, the right blames the left for the coverup, and the left blames the right for the coverup. However, the Epstein coverup has been perpetrated by four administrations – George W. Bush, Barak Obama, Joseph Biden, and now Donald Trump. Two of the administrations have been Republican and two have been Democratic. The Epstein coverup has been, and continues to be, a bipartisan effort.
Nick Bryant is the Director of Epstein Justice, a 501(C)(3) dedicated to an independent congressional commission to investigate the Jeffrey Epstein case: epsteinjustice.com
Heat Dome Halts German Trains After Track Sealant Liquifies
Europe’s heat wave is now quickly morphing from a public health crisis into an infrastructure nightmare, with power prices surging, more than 1,000 excess deaths reported across France, and extreme temperatures bringing parts of Germany’s rail infrastructure to a halt.
The local German outlet Leipziger Zeitung reports that after a week of sweltering temperatures above 30°C, with readings climbing toward 40°C on Saturday, critical transport infrastructure in Leipzig failed under the heat.
The city, located in the eastern German state of Saxony, about 120 miles southwest of Berlin, was forced to suspend tram service after the asphalt–rubber joint sealant around embedded tracks softened and liquefied.
Here’s more color from the local outlet:
Shortly afterwards, it was the turn of the Leipzig Transport Authority (LVB). At several points across the network, trams simply came to a standstill; nothing was working at all. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, the LVB announced the suspension of all scheduled tram services: “The joint sealant between the tracks and the tarmac has become liquid and, in some places, has clumped together,” confirmed a representative for the Leipzig Group, to which the LVB belongs, in response to an inquiry from the LZ in the early evening.
One road-sealant spec lists a softening point of 100°C, or about 210°F, while another asphalt–rubber joint sealer has a softening point of 185°F and says the material is heated to 300°F to 350°F for application. That means that on a 40°C day, dark asphalt and rail beds accumulated enough heat to fall within the range noted above for liquefaction.
Bloomberg data shows relief coming for Germany after a week and a half of sweltering temperatures…
The effects of the weather phenomenon El Niño are likely to push average global temperatures to elevated levels in both 2026 and 2027.
These dynamics and the incentives they generate lead to systemic crisis and collapse.
As I noted in What Once Explained Everything Now Explains Nothing, the simplicity of either-or ideologies appeal to us. Identifying with an ideology is like having a favorite sports team: yea for our team! Our team good, other team bad.
The roots of this simplistic either-or are obvious: our tribe good, other tribe bad. The problems with this simplistic loyalty arise when we attempt to explain complex real-world dynamics with the comic-book simplicities of ideology, which extend from politics to culture to finance.
Rather than explain everything, they add a layer of mud rather than illuminate. The emotions of tribal / ideological identity and loyalty bypass our rational processes in favor of fight-or-flight limbic responses. Needless to say, these hormonal floods of emotions are the equivalent of smashing a rock on a machine to “problem-solve” what’s broken in the device.
Fortunately, we have conceptual tools that bypass this smash-it-with-a-rock approach to making sense of a complex, increasingly chaotic world. These tools show up in all my work, stretching back 20 years.
1. The problem-solving power of self-organization. Humans are social animals because the ability to cooperate with others opens vast vistas of problem-solving power via self-organization: we self-organize to pursue mutual / shared interests in ways that benefit us all. This is the core function of tribes, i.e. self-organizing social structures in which our self-interest is advanced by advancing our mutual interests.
Both markets and society are self-organizing structures that arise to benefit individual self-interests by benefiting shared interests. In other words, both capitalist and socialist structures arise to serve shared interests. They are not either-or, they’re both manifestations of the same dynamic. This is why the ideological either-or is such a misleading false choice.
Markets only function to everyone’s benefit within a high-trust society. If there is no social structure that serves everyone’s shared interests by limiting predation and exploitation, then you end up with the extractive “market forces” of totalitarianism, i.e. rackets, in which the few impoverish and immiserate the many to the exclusive benefit of the small cadre of insiders.
As I have taken pains to explain, private-sector totalitarianism is the “market” manifestation of totalitarianism, a privately owned version of political totalitarianism. The core dynamic is the same: the system exploits and immiserates the many to benefit the few.
When private equity snaps up the only manufacturers of fire engines and then jacks up prices without adding any value, this impoverishes and immiserates the many who must collectively pay more money for no added value to enrich the few who own / control the racket. There is no functional difference between a totalitarian state structure that enriches party insiders at the expense of the many and “markets” in which private equity enriches insiders at the expense of the many.
This leads to the second dynamic:
2. Diffusion and Concentration. Control–i.e. power–self-organizes around the dynamics of Diffusion and Concentration. Consider the power of a monopoly that can raise prices for all customers, customers who have no alternative because the monopoly controls the “market” / political structure. The gains of the price increases (value is unchanged but the cost rises) are concentrated in the hands of the monopoly’s managers and owners while the impoverishment and immiseration is diffused across a vast spectrum of customers / taxpayers.
The incentives to raise prices is extremely high for insiders, as they will reap enormous personal gains. The incentives to resist a relatively small increase in price among the millions of customers / taxpayers is low, because life is already demanding, and what’s the potential gain of fighting a losing battle against a powerful opponent over a small sum of money? The cost in time and effort is far more significant than the relatively modest financial benefit of winning the battle.
Diffusion and Concentration establish incentives which then organize the system. Consider a local government which sells bonds for a project that benefits only a small sector of the populace. The costs of this borrowing from future income to pay for benefits the few will enjoy today is spread not just over the entire current populace but over future taxpayers who weren’t old enough to vote on the decisions they will pay for.
3. Benefits, Risks, Costs and Incentives. Those seeking to reduce their private risks and increase their private gains seek to concentrate the gains generated by control structures and distribute the risks and costs to others. Pull the strings that diffuse the costs and risks over a large populace and gather the gains into the hands of the insiders that manage the control structure, typically some form of monopoly, either public or private, or a fusion of public-private rackets.
So corporations that engage in blatantly illegal skimming and scamming face low risks–managers or owners are never imprisoned, and the fines paid when caught are modest compared to the profits skimmed–while the gains are extremely enticing. This diffusion of risk and concentration of potential gains establishes perverse incentives to increase extractive, exploitive, well-hidden rackets that impoverish and immiserate the many, but in doses small enough to avoid triggering push-back.
In a system that concentrates gains and diffuses risk, the “rational actor” seeks to maximize rackets that distribute impoverishment and immiseration to the many in small doses over time that attract little attention and are not significant enough to trigger an emotionally potent resistance. This leads to:
4. The Ratchet Effect. Costs ratchet up, value ratchets down, but in increments too small to change the risk-reward equation and over time so the pain of this impoverishment and immiseration is normalized as the populace herded into the corral habituates to the decay of value and the rise in costs.
So the parking ticket that once cost $15 is now $60, but exactly how does the individual citizen push back against the monopoly powers of the city government? Yes, the citizen can file a complaint with their representative, but the odds that this will lead to reduced parking fines is zero. The same is true should the citizen attend a public meeting and get 30 seconds to speak at the end of a long meeting when everyone just wants to go home.
Bureaucracies optimize The Ratchet Effect by their very nature. Regulators and administrators must “do something” to justify the high costs of their employment and benefits, and so they “serve the public” by incrementally adding to regulatory thickets that over time strip out self-organizing functionality and replace it with control structures that are impervious to reform.
Reformers seeking to reduce bureaucratic regulations and costs run into Diffusion and Concentration. Those whose jobs are threatened by cost-cutting are extremely motivated to spend every waking second resisting any cost-cutting, while those who stand to benefit–the citizens paying fines or business license fees–will only see a modest reduction in costs, too small to motivate them to self-organize in support of the reforms / cost cutting.
So these control structures, public and private, run on automatic, concentrating benefits in the hands of insiders and owners and distributing the risks and costs to the diffused many. The result is institutional sclerosis, and self-reinforcing resistance to any adaptation that benefits the many at the expense of the few insiders / managers / owners.
5. Semi-chaotic tests of the system’s stability. Benoit Mandelbrot’s book The (Mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin and Reward explains how self-organizing structures such as markets–and by extension, all of life, which is also self-organizing–are prone to unpredictable cascades that operate outside the “normal, predictable” rules we’ve identified as “the way things work.”
In terms of selective pressures and adaptation, these unpredictable crises test the system’s adaptability and stability. In this way, they are essential to maintaining the adaptive “muscles” and coherence of the system which boil down to the dynamics of self-organization–precisely what all the control structures running on automatic have stripped out in the “rational actor” incentives to optimize concentrating gains and diffusing costs and risks.
These dynamics led to a rising wedge of asymmetric distributions of power, control, wealth and income that strip out self-organizing adaptation and the system’s ability to survive unpredictable but inevitable crises. These dynamics and the incentives they generate lead to systemic crisis and collapse.
The only structures capable of re-organizing the post-collapse world are islands of coherence that managed to retain self-organizing capacities that escaped the control and predation of “rational actors” maximizing self-interest at the expense of the system’s adaptive capacity and stability.
As noted above, these dynamics inform all my work. You can review all my books here.
Araghchi Visits Soleimani Assassination Site, Issues Fresh Warning Over US Moves In Hormuz
“The Strait of Hormuz will return to its pre-war operating conditions within 30 days under a management framework implemented by Iran,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has warned during a joint press conference with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein.
The timing behind his visit to Baghdad is interesting, right at the moment a widening corruption sweep conducted by elements of the Iraqi government, which has unleashed mass protests and unrest outside Baghdad’s Green Zone. The symbolism of defiance and readiness to fight was on display too, given Araghchi’s corresponding visit to the site of former IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani’s assassination outside Baghdad Airport.
Iraq’s state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that several political figures were arrested in a corruption probe tied to testimony from former Deputy Oil Minister Adnan al-Jumaili, who was detained last month.
As we reported earlier, security forces locked down Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and carried out raids inside the government and embassy district that sits on the west bank of the Tigris River. It contains key Iraqi state institutions, including parliament and government offices, as well as foreign embassies, most notably the US Embassy.
As for Aragchi, he also also called on “all parties to refrain from interfering in Iran’s management of the strait and to allow the memorandum to proceed as agreed.“
This also as a separate statement out of the Iranian government condemned what it called severe violations of the ceasefire and agreed-to Memorandum of Understanding by the US.
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) spokesman Brig. Gen. Hossein Mohebbi vowed harsher retaliation in the scenario of any new US attacks.
“We have responded, and will continue to respond, to every action the enemy takes in this regard. We reiterate: if the enemy breaks its commitments and violates the ceasefire, we will respond more forcefully than before,” said Mohebbi.
Crucially while in Iraq Sunday the top Iranian diplomat FM Araghchi visited the site where Qasem Soleimani, the former IRGC Quds Force commander, was killed in a US strike during the first Trump term:
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is in Iraq today and visited the site where Qasem Soleimani, the former IRGC Quds Force commander, was killed in a U.S. strike during the first Trump administration. pic.twitter.com/p1jRdroKtD
The aforementioned major Baghdad protests triggered by the ongoing anti-corruption sweep appears aimed at Iraq’s political class aligned with Iran. The US has long sought to peel away this influence, which ironically became solidified only in wake of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Baathist secular Sunni strongman Saddam Hussein.
The timing is also critical, coming just after Iran targeted Bahrain and Kuwait with drones and missiles in response to US strikes. That suggests Baghdad, with US influence, may be moving to eliminate Iran-linked networks inside Iraq before they can become a more worrisome pressure point.
The London mayor who once insisted there was “no indication” of grooming gangs now faces explosive new scrutiny after a police review uncovered thousands of previously sidelined child sexual exploitation files.
The Metropolitan Police has identified more than 4,000 potential child sexual exploitation cases across London that may require reopening.
These stem from roughly 12,000 reports dating back to 2010, with about one in three previously closed after police or prosecutors took no further action.
Met Police uncovers 4,000 potential grooming gang cases as Sadiq Khan faces fresh scrutiny over London claimshttps://t.co/c2Wpx1MwOL
The cases have now been referred to the National Crime Agency under Operation Beaconport for urgent assessment.
‘What on Earth are we doing? Why are we allowing this to happen?’
Journalist Andy Jones reacts to the horrifying news that a Met Police review has identified more than 4,000 grooming gang cases that may need reopening. pic.twitter.com/zaAyo6V7s1
This development directly contradicts Sadiq Khan’s past public statements. In January 2025, appearing before the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, Khan repeatedly dodged questions from Conservative member Susan Hall about the scale of grooming gangs in the capital.
He claimed his understanding from regular police briefings was that there were “no reported cases and also no indication of the grooming gangs” she was concerned about.
When pressed on how many such gangs operated in London, he asked her to clarify what she meant by the term.
Scotland Yard has identified more than 4,000 rape gang cases that may need to be reinvestigated in London alone!
Here’s Pakistani mayor Sadiq Khan pretending he doesn’t know what a rape gang is.
4,000 rape gangs who are predominantly Pakistani and the Pakistani didn’t see it? pic.twitter.com/Xd8Ewg38dW
— Tommy Robinson ?? (@TRobinsonNewEra) June 28, 2026
Critics now describe the position as gaslighting. Hall called the scale “utterly disgraceful,” noting it represents 4,000 young girls raped and sexually abused while authorities looked the other way or actively resisted scrutiny.
Khan’s team now claims he has always supported leaving “no stone unturned.” The gap between that line and his earlier blanket denials has not gone unnoticed.
This London revelation fits a wider, years-long scandal of institutional failure and political cowardice. Earlier this year we detailed how even the BBC exposed the scale of grooming activity in the capital under Khan’s watch.
Separate investigations laid bare mini-mart operations where vulnerable children were plied with alcohol and cigarettes in exchange for sexual abuse. Illegal shops were caught handing out free vapes to kids in return for sexual favours. And the weary response from parts of the establishment often boiled down to telling victims and the public to simply “get over it.”
The common thread remains the same: authorities slow-walked or buried evidence, prioritised community relations over child safety, and treated any mention of ethnic or cultural patterns as radioactive.
None of this emerged in a vacuum. Long before the current review, the machinery of denial was already well oiled. Official files had ethnicity redacted. In two-thirds of cases, perpetrator background went unrecorded.
Police in some areas told victims the Asian men who abused them were “probably not going to catch them.”
A 2020 Home Office report, relying on hopelessly incomplete data, pushed the false narrative that most grooming perpetrators were white – a claim parroted in Parliament and by broadcasters even after it was exposed as statistical sleight-of-hand.
The motivation was always the same: fear of “racism” accusations, dread of community tension, and the overriding imperative to protect the narrative that mass immigration and multiculturalism have been an unalloyed success.
Working-class girls, often from broken homes or care systems, paid the price while officials and media looked the other way or actively smeared whistleblowers.
London’s current review notes a broader mix of offender backgrounds than the classic Pakistani-heritage networks documented in Rotherham, Rochdale, Telford and elsewhere. That distinction does not erase the scale of what was ignored or the political class that spent years insisting the problem did not exist in the capital.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has already warned that reopening cases will require extra officers and resources on top of the force’s existing load of around 2,000 sexual offences a month. Victims are being urged to come forward again, with promises they will be listened to this time.
The public is entitled to ask harder questions. What did Khan know and when? Why did the Met and CPS close so many files prematurely? Who decided that protecting certain community sensitivities outweighed protecting British children?
And why has the political class that championed open borders and diversity dogma shown such consistent reluctance to confront the specific cultural and integration failures that allowed these networks to operate for so long in plain sight?
This London revelation drops just days after the release of Rupert Lowe’s Rape Gang Inquiry Report, which documented a coordinated national campaign of rape, torture and abuse against up to 250,000 British girls by predominantly Muslim grooming gangs operating across 149 local authority districts.
Lowe’s findings laid bare the same pattern of police warnings to rapists, political interference and deliberate suppression of evidence that protected predators for decades while treating working-class girls as disposable.
Sadiq Khan remains in office. The same establishment voices that spent years minimising or denying the problem now urge calm and more reviews. The British public has watched this movie before. The ending is always the same: more victims, more excuses, more demands that everyone just move on.
The only thing that has changed is the number – now over 4,000 in London alone – and the growing realisation that the denial was never accidental.
Real justice requires more than another inquiry. It requires consequences for those who chose political expediency over the safety of the vulnerable. British girls deserve better than gaslighting from City Hall. They still do. The denial only ends when enough people refuse to look away.
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Saudi Aramco Helicopter Crash Kills 14 In Ras Tanura , Cause Unknown
One week after a mysterious explosion – attributed to a “technical incident” – at Qatar’s massive Ras Laffan industrial city killed dozens and set back restoration and recovery efforts at the giant LNG production facility by weeks if not months, a helicopter belonging to Saudi oil giant Aramco crashed on Sunday in Ras Tanura on Saudi Arabia’s eastern coast on the Gulf, west of the Strait of Hormuz, killing 14 nationals, the state news agency reported, adding that the cause was unknown.
Aramco had resumed crude oil loadings on Friday at its Ras Tanura terminal in the Gulf after they were halted for nearly four months.
“The relevant authorities have launched a full investigation to determine the cause of the crash,” the state news agency added.
Aramco did not respond immediately to an emailed request for comment.
The incident took place at 6 a.m. local time (0300 GMT), the state agency said, without providing further details.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, had joined a rush to move cargoes after Middle East producers ramped up oil and gas output and exports ahead of an interim deal to halt the war between the United States and Iran.
Tehran Retaliates Against Bahrain, Kuwait After US Bombing Campaign Along Iranian Coast
Update(2300ET): Earlier the IRGC warned: “If any aggression is repeated, the response will be broader.” That broader response has come in the overnight into Sunday hours: Tehran attacks Bahrain, Kuwait after US bombs Iranian coast, Al Jazeera reports:
Air raid sirens blare in Bahrain as Kuwait’s military says its air defenses are responding to “hostile missile and drone threats.“
Iranian state media is also confirming the fresh ‘retaliation’ for limited US airstrikes over the last two days, triggered initially by the Iranians seeking to enforce ‘control’ of the Strait of Hormuz, by attacking no less than two foreign vessels in as many days.
Latest via the same publication:
The US has bombed Iran for a second day, hitting the city of Sirik, Bandar-e Lengeh and Qeshm Island, following a drone attack on a commercial vessel near the Strait of Hormuz.
Israel has bombed southern Lebanon, killing at least one person, a day after signing a framework agreement with the Lebanese government to end hostilities.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun asks Trump to help prevent Israeli violations, as Hezbollah rejects the agreement with Israel, describing it as “a surrender of sovereignty”.
Some unconfirmed emerging video showing some of the latest US action along Iran’s coast, in a widening tit-for-tat:
US launched a fresh wave of attack against IRGC targets in Iran after Iran attacked Bahrain
A massive explosion struck Shahid Rajaee port in Bandar Abbas, southern Iran, shaking the ground and echoing through nearby towns. pic.twitter.com/RaPdGkVSsi
Iran is threatening to walk away from the peace deal if the bombings continue:
The IRGC is saying that the enemy – the United States – should know that violating the ceasefire is against the first clause of the MoU and will lead to a complete halt to the process.
It is clearly warning the United States that if these attacks continue, the MoU and the ongoing negotiations are going to come to a halt.
CENTCOM released footage from its earlier Saturday wave of attacks on Iran:
U.S. Navy and Air Force fighter jets conducted strikes tonight on 10 Iranian military targets at multiple locations in and near the Strait of Hormuz for Iran’s drone attack on M/T Kiku. pic.twitter.com/Z0TLZRqmF6
Update1930ET): The Pentagon has sought to level the score once again, after Iran had attacked a second commercial vessel in the Strait of Hormuz in under 48 hours on Saturday.
Late in the day, the US military conducted more air strikes against “multiple targets in Iran”. According to a fresh CENTCOM statement:
After yesterday’s U.S. strikes in response to the Iranian attack on M/V Ever Lovely, Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not to when its forces launched a one-way attack drone that hit M/T Kiku this morning at 4:30 a.m. ET. The Panama-flagged tanker was transiting near the Strait of Hormuz with more than two-million barrels of crude oil.
CENTCOM forces launched strikes today in direct response to continued Iranian aggression against commercial shipping. U.S. military aircraft targeted Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities.
Commercial vessel transits through the Strait of Hormuz continue. U.S. forces remain vigilant, lethal, and ready.
While each side has accused the other of violating the ceasefire, neither has yet shown itself ready to just walk away from the signed US-Iran Memorandum of Understanding – even if commitments are slipping.
* * *
A lot of escalation has ensued in the last 48 hours, starting when Thursday Tehran struck a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, after which by the end of Friday US CENTCOM confirmed a series of fresh attacks on Iranian missile and drone storage sites as well as coastal radar installations, reportedly on Sirik Island located near the Strait of Hormuz.
Referring to Thursday’s attack on a vessel off Oman, the Pentagon called it a “powerful response to yesterday’s attack,” in the Friday statement. By early Saturday, Iran had re-retaliated and launched a fresh drone attack on Bahrain. Additionally, another ship in the Strait of Hormuz separately came under attack Saturday.
The Associated Press points to the obvious potential US-Iran deal (MoU) unraveling: “The attacks across the Persian Gulf show the danger of the Iran war again spinning out of control, even after Iran and the U.S. reached an interim deal to try and agree on a final accord to end the conflict” – though neither side has as yet indicated they are walking away from the deal at this point.
According to more details from the Saturday developments:
Bahrain said it was targeted by “a number” of Iranian drones on Saturday, accusing Tehran of “undermining peace efforts” in the region. In a statement, the country’s foreign ministry said it expressed “Bahrain’s condemnation in the strongest terms of the targeting of its territory at dawn today,” adding that the attacks were a “blatant threat to the security of citizens and residents”.
US Central Command announced that American aircraft had hit Iranian missile and drone storage locations as well as coastal radar sites in response to Iran striking the M/V Ever Lovely ship with a one-way attack drone as it navigated the Strait of Hormuz.
“The Singapore-flagged cargo ship was exiting the Strait of Hormuz along the Omani coast at the time of Iran’s attack,” CENTCOM said, adding that Iranian forces had “clearly violated” the ceasefire agreement.
But it remains that Iran is now firing warning shots at ships that haven’t cleared permits to transit the Strait of Hormuz under Iran’s own protocol, which highlights that deep divisions remain over each side’s interpretation of the terms. The latest via Reuters:
IRAN WEIGHS WALKING AWAY FROM SWISS TALKS AFTER US STRIKE
IRAN MAY HALT SWISS TALKS AFTER US STRIKE ON SIRIK
Gulf states have newly condemned “in the strongest terms the treacherous Iranian attacks” on Bahrain, after drones hit the country’s territory. The GCC statement further alleged that the Iranians targeted “civilian infrastructure and properties”.
Other nations weighed in separately, with for example Kuwait’s foreign ministry saying “The continuation of these aggressions, amid regional and international efforts aimed at de-escalation and reducing tensions, represents a dangerous undermining of efforts for peace and stability and a threat to the security and stability of the region,” on X.
Amid all the tit-for-tat, Iran’s IRGC is blaming the US for breaking it commitments under the signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). A Saturday statement described:
According to Article Five of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, arrangements for monitoring maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz are carried out in coordination with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
However, according to the statement, the United States sought to violate this commitment through various movements and received an appropriate response, and the same will apply in the future. If any aggression is repeated, the response will be broader.”
Laden Panama-flagged VLCC KIKU (IMO: 9329796) carrying Qatar Energy oil was struck during outbound transit of the Strait of Hormuz.
This is the second vessel struck by Iran since Thursday after the PGSA reiterated that the SoH is closed to those ships that do not have… pic.twitter.com/tWqPbTswaD
Al Jazeera has meanwhile reported Saturday that that IRGC ‘targets’ US military sites in region after attacks – and so the response could be ongoing.
Independent journalist and pundit Michael Tracey points out sarcastically but aptly thatIndefinitely bombing Iran sounds a lot like what you might call “endless war”. And so the weekly tit-for-tat escalation might grow more regular until there simply is no more MoU deal to reference back to at all.
Ironically this comes just as Israel, Lebanon, and Israel hailed the signing of a ‘trilateral peace framework’ in Washington – and as Hezbollah is being pushed out of a political solution in south Lebanon, while the IDF occupation of significant territory remains.
While immigration often dominates discussions about Europe’s changing population, another migration trend receives far less attention: many countries are also losing their own native-born citizens.
This visualization, created by DataPulse using Eurostat data via Visual Capitalist, ranks selected European countries by the net migration of native-born residents in 2024. Only Lithuania and Bulgaria recorded net gains, while Germany, Italy, Sweden, and several other major economies saw more locally born citizens leave than return.
The pattern reflects a mix of economic opportunity, housing affordability, demographic change, and labor mobility within Europe, all of which are reshaping where people choose to build their careers and lives.
The Countries Seeing the Biggest Losses
The table below shows net migration of native-born citizens per 1,000 inhabitants across selected European countries.
Lithuania stands out with a positive rate of 2.67 per 1,000 inhabitants, while Bulgaria also records a modest gain. At the opposite end, Luxembourg posted the largest net loss, followed by Belgium, Sweden, Estonia, and Romania.
Notably, several of Europe’s largest economies, including Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, also show negative balances, indicating that more native-born residents are leaving than returning.
Why Are Native Europeans Leaving?
For many workers, especially younger and highly educated professionals, migration is driven by the search for better wages, stronger career prospects, and improved quality of life. Countries in Eastern and Southern Europe have long experienced outward migration toward larger labor markets in Western Europe.
At the same time, rising housing costs, labor shortages, and demographic pressures are encouraging some workers to look beyond their home countries. Similar dynamics can be seen globally, where migration increasingly plays a role in population growth and workforce sustainability.
A Growing Demographic Challenge
Population researchers increasingly warn that migration alone cannot fully offset Europe’s broader demographic headwinds. Fertility rates remain below replacement levels across much of the continent, while populations continue to age.
When highly skilled workers leave and do not return, the effects can extend beyond population figures. Regions may face slower economic growth, labor shortages, and reduced innovation capacity. As Europe navigates demographic decline, retaining talent may become just as important as attracting newcomers.
Migration patterns continue to reshape economies and societies around the world. Explore Visualizing the World’s Busiest Migration Corridors on the Voronoi app to see how people move between countries at a global scale.
Baghdad’s Green Zone Locked Down As Officials Arrested In Corruption Sweep
Beyond Sunday’s Iranian drone and missile attacks targeting Bahrain and Kuwait, launched in response to earlier U.S. airstrikes, Hormuz shipping traffic remains stable but well below last week’s peak, when 57 vessels transited the strait on Wednesday. With maritime flows stable through the critical waterway, attention now shifts to Iraq, where a widening corruption sweep inside Baghdad’s Green Zone could become the next area of focus.
Iraq’s state-run Iraqi News Agency reported that several political figures were arrested in a corruption probe tied to testimony from former Deputy Oil Minister Adnan al-Jumaili, who was detained last month.
Security forces locked down Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone and carried out raids inside the government and embassy district that sits on the west bank of the Tigris River. It contains key Iraqi state institutions, including parliament and government offices, as well as foreign embassies, most notably the U.S. Embassy.
Video footage on X showed security forces in tanks and other heavily armed vehicles locking down the Green Zone.
Iraq’s Green Zone in Baghdad has been placed under lockdown as military forces deploy, with reports of raids targeting the residences of government officials, according to The New Region. pic.twitter.com/1i3eKPsTEZ
According to a security report obtained by AP News, seven people were arrested, including five members of Parliament whose immunity was revoked. Some were reportedly linked to the political bloc of former Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani.
🔻A photo of a number of officials and bodyguards who were arrested in the Green Zone. pic.twitter.com/EzCfIfk7ag
“Al-Sudani’s bloc won the largest share of seats in November’s parliamentary elections, but he ultimately stepped aside amid a deadlock in the Coordination Framework — a coalition of Shiite parties allied with Iran that brought al-Sudani to power — over their preferred candidate for premier,” AP News noted.
JUST IN: 🇮🇶 Gunfire heard across Baghdad Green Zone as Iraqi forces raid and arrest high profile officials for corruption. pic.twitter.com/orTUPdyKNI
The outlet added, “He was replaced by Ali al-Zaidi, a businessman and political newcomer, who emerged as a consensus candidate and received the blessing of the United States.”
The immediate read is that this anti-corruption sweep appears aimed at Iraq’s political class aligned with Iran. The timing is also critical, coming just after Iran targeted Bahrain and Kuwait with drones and missiles in response to U.S. strikes. That suggests Baghdad, with US influence, may be moving to eliminate Iran-linked networks inside Iraq before they can become a more worrisome pressure point.
