US-Iran de-escalation hopes drove crude oil and rates lower and put a bid in equities by the end of Friday’s trading day, amid speculation that President Trump would stay at the White House over Memorial Day weekend instead of attending Donald Trump Jr. and Bettina Anderson’s wedding celebrations in the Bahamas.

“As Iran/oil/rates pressure eased on de-escalation hopes, leadership rotated toward small caps, equal weight, housing, transports, discretionary, and selective defensive growth, with short covering in high short-interest/profitless tech and consumer cyclicals reinforcing the catch-up trade,” UBS analyst Torsten Sippel wrote in a note to clients late Friday.

Early Saturday morning, Bloomberg reports that President Trump held a phone call with Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, regarding Pakistani-led efforts to de-escalate Gulf tensions and preserve the fragile US-Iran ceasefire.

Iran’s top negotiator and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf met Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir in Tehran earlier today amid ongoing diplomatic efforts to bring the US and Iran to a peace deal, Reuters reported, citing Iranian state media.

Ghalibaf told Munir that Iran’s Armed Forces “have rebuilt themselves during the cease-fire in such a way that if Trump foolishly restarts the war, they will definitely be more crushing and bitter for the U.S. than on the first day of the war.”

The Iranian top negotiator also said, “We will not compromise on the rights of our nation and country.”

There was a series of headlines from Sky News Arabia, citing sources, indicating that a major push for regional diplomacy was underway earlier today, with officials from Iraq, Oman, Jordan, and Qatar working to mediate with Tehran to avert another flare-up in the conflict.

Sky News Arabia sources said Pakistan’s mediator helped break the deadlock over the Iranian nuclear file, though several major issues remain unresolved, including the conflict in Lebanon, sanctions on bank accounts, the status of Iranian ports, and the presence of U.S. military forces in the Gulf area.

Iran is reportedly demanding the lifting of restrictions on its ports and a U.S. military withdrawal from the region before reopening the Strait of Hormuz and entering a new round of talks within 30 days.

There is also a reported internal conflict between Iran’s government and the Revolutionary Guard over Tehran’s negotiating demands.

Latest negotiation headlines (via sources) from Sky News Arabia:

• Iranian Foreign Ministry: Iraqi and the Omani Foreign Minister discuss in a phone call the ongoing diplomatic efforts to prevent escalation

• The foreign ministers of Jordan and Qatar affirm the necessity of concerted efforts to ensure the success of mediation efforts with Iran to reach a sustainable solution that addresses all the roots of the crisis and prevents the renewal of escalation.

• The Foreign Ministers of Jordan and Qatar affirm the continuation of coordination of efforts to support targeted mediation aimed at ending the escalation in the region and restoring security and stability.

• Sources to Sky News Arabia: The Pakistani mediator has succeeded in overcoming the deadlock on the Iranian nuclear file.

• Sources to Sky News Arabia: The issues that have not yet been resolved include stopping the war in Lebanon and lifting the ban on financial accounts.

• Sources to Sky News Arabia: Iran demands the lifting of the siege on Iranian ports and the withdrawal of military forces from the region to open the Strait of Hormuz and proceed to a round of negotiations within a 30-day timeframe.

• Sources to Sky News Arabia: There is a severe disagreement between the Iranian government and the Revolutionary Guard regarding Iran’s demands for negotiations.

Additional overnight headlines (courtesy of Bloomberg):

Economic Impact

• The dollar ended the week nearly unchanged as risk assets got a boost from optimism around US-Iran peace talks [BN]
• Germany’s business outlook improved for the first time since the Iran war began, with an expectations index rising to 83.8 in May [BN]
• UK retail sales fell 1.3% as consumers made fewer car journeys amid the global energy shock from the Iran war [BN]
• Qatar Airways will skip bonuses for almost 60,000 workers this year after the war forced cancellation of tens of thousands of flights [BN]

Military Readiness

• The US halted arms sales to Taiwan to ensure sufficient munitions for the Iran war, according to Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao [BN]

• Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard resigned from her post, with her anti-war views having spurred tension with the White House [BN]

Trade Disruption

• Japan is set to receive its first Persian Gulf oil shipment to transit the Strait of Hormuz since the war began, with the Idemitsu Maru carrying 2 million barrels of Saudi crude [BN]

• Anglo American is redirecting Brazilian iron ore output to Asia as the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz prevents shipments to Bahrain Steel [BN]

Polymarket Odds For US-Iran Peace Deal By …

Charting Brent Crude

Friday’s US-Iran Wrap

• Iran Says ‘No Deal’ Will Materialize If US Insists On Enriched Uranium Handover

Hormuz Chokepoint:

• Iran Says 35 Ships Exited Strait Of Hormuz As Rubio Condemns Tolls

Chart of the Day (read UBS note): 

Fuel Shock Risks Begin Spilling Into Broader Economy

• Hormuz Shock Raises Recession Risk As Retailers Sound Alarm On Consumer Stress

Professional subscribers can review the latest institutional reads on Iran, Hormuz, energy markets, and more at our new Marketdesk.ai portal.

Ukrainian forces have borrowed a page from China’s hypersonic glide-weapon testing and applied it to the Eastern European theater, using one-way attack drones against Russia.

Instead of launching the Hornet strike drone from a ground-based catapult, Ukrainian operators tethered it to a high-altitude balloon, extending its range. 

Defense news website Defense Blog reports:

The test, details of which circulated through Ukrainian military channels, involved a Hornet manufactured by Perennial Autonomy being dropped from a balloon at approximately 8 kilometers altitude after the aerostat carried the drone 42 kilometers from its launch point.

Ukrainian troops tested launching the Ukrainian-American Hornet kamikaze drone from a balloon. The aerostat carried the drone 42 km and released it from 8 km altitude, while the UAV used only 5% of its battery. The method extends range by combining balloon distance, high-altitude… pic.twitter.com/YUlKcaQf7e

— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) May 20, 2026

The outlet said the new tactic would effectively double the Hornet’s range to 300 kilometers (about 186 miles).

Military observers have marveled at Ukraine’s rapid weapons innovation curve, particularly its use of “low-tech” solutions such as drones and interceptors. These have become so effective that the U.S. military and allied Gulf countries have begun procuring some of these weapons.

The Ukraine-Russia war has effectively become a weapons and AI laboratory, accelerating battlefield technology and bringing forward weapons that would otherwise have been seen in the 2030s.

Via Middle East Eye

Since April 14, Morocco has been conducting large-scale deportation operations targeting sub-Saharan Africans migrating to Europe, reportedly arresting over 100 per day, local sources told Middle East Eye.

According to Moroccan human rights groups, around 800 people were detained during coordinated raids in the forests between Fnideq and Belyounech, in the northern tip of the North African state, where many were sheltering before attempting to reach Europe.

The operation is still ongoing, with authorities then moving their focus to operations in and around Tangier. Witnesses have described mass arrests, beatings, racist abuse and forced transfers toward the Algerian border.

Sudanese and Chadian detainees were bused south and abandoned near border zones, while people from countries including Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Guinea were deported on flights departing Casablanca.

The crackdown comes as the European Union has intensified its cooperation with Morocco as part of its border externalization strategy, which is a key component of the bloc’s new Pact on Migration and Asylum set to take effect in June.

The EU increasingly outsources immigration enforcement to North African nations with poor human rights records, designating over €900 million within the bloc’s Global Europe development instrument to fund stricter migration control, border management and surveillance initiatives across the region.

“The EU wants to restrict people’s mobility as far down the route as possible – what officials describe as stopping migration downstream,” Frey Lindsay, a journalist on Statewatch’s Outsourcing Borders project, which tracks how the EU outsources migration control, told Middle East Eye. “It’s about exerting border control without getting your hands dirty, basically.”

Raids and expulsions

Morocco is a key transit country for sub-Saharan Africans en route to Europe. They sail across the Strait of Gibraltar or climb the towering razor wire fence that separates Morocco from Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish enclaves within the kingdom.

Over the years, Morocco has increased cooperation with Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, to prevent migrants from departing the North African coast. In 2025, Moroccan authorities thwarted 73,640 irregular migration attempts toward Europe, according to a report from the interior ministry, a slight decline from 2024 – attributed to alternative migration routes.

In recent weeks, Moroccan security forces have stepped up their role as Europe’s de facto border enforcer, carrying out regular raids on makeshift forest camps and key transit points used by people trying to reach Spain. Attacks on migrant camps have long been pervasive, but have escalated since April 14, with operations concentrated in the north of the country. People who are not deported are typically exiled to the south in an effort to disrupt migration routes.

“According to migrants we have been in contact with, they were subjected to various forms of humiliation, insults and mistreatment by authorities,” Chad Boukhari, a journalist and member of Border Resistance, a grassroots collective that supports migrants across the Mediterranean, told MEE.

Some were abandoned near the Algerian border without food or water, where they were detained by Algerian forces. “The Algerian army allegedly tortured many of them. Some individuals also found the bodies of other migrants in the desert,” Boukhari added.

In 2025, Algeria expelled more than 30,000 migrants to Niger, abandoning many “deportation convoys” in the Sahara desert. Testimonies of abuse, torture and enslavement have been reported. MEE contacted the Algerian, Moroccan and EU authorities for comment but had not received a reply by the time of publication.

Sub-Sahara Africans often reach Morocco by crossing the Sahel, the arid perilous land belt stretching across the continent. They typically cross through Niger into Algeria or via Mauritania to enter Morocco. Many of the countries along these routes are plagued by chronic instability and rank among the lowest on the Human Development Index.

Once in Morocco, migrants can spend months to years sleeping in the country’s dense, dry woodlands. Humanitarian groups tend to know the whereabouts of informal encampments and provide modest assistance, but even these efforts are often thwarted by authorities.

Since 2014, Human Rights Watch has documented repeated incidents where Moroccan police beat migrants, deprived them of their few possessions, burned their shelters and expelled them from the country without due process.

“Oftentimes, the Red Cross would enter the forest and provide us with blankets and clothing. But we knew that was always a bad sign. Shortly after the Red Cross visits, Moroccan security forces would appear, as if they were watching,” Ousman Sow, a Guinean man who spent a year in Morocco before he was able to cross into Spain, told MEE.

“They burned all of our belongings before driving us far away and dropping us off in remote areas without any possessions,” added Sow, who now lives in Germany. The goal is to prevent migrants from reaching Ceuta and Melilla, the only European territories with a land border in Africa.

On 24 June 2022, at least 37 migrants, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, were killed under unclear circumstances while attempting to climb the fence into Melilla. Another 70 people from that day remain missing, amid reports that Moroccan authorities were burying bodies in unmarked graves.

Externalizing control

Despite stricter enforcement, crossings from North Africa continue amid the war in Sudan and worsening instability across the Sahel. For many, the promise of Europe is still worth the risk.

“The more borders and walls you put up, the more dangerous ways people go around them,” Lindsay told MEE. “Securitization doesn’t change the reason why people want to leave; it just means more people will die.”

Rights groups also say the latest crackdown is a consequence of the EU’s new migration pact, which seeks to overhaul the bloc’s current immigration system, expediting asylum case proceedings and deportations. The new system expands biometric surveillance and increases rejections on the grounds that people passed through a designated “safe third country” before reaching the EU.

Morocco is included in the list of safe countries alongside other nations accused of human rights abuses, such as Egypt and Turkey. If migrants passed through any of these nations on the way to Europe, their deportation will be expedited.

Over 50 NGOs formally objected to the pact, arguing the new expedited procedures deny the right to a fair and thorough review of asylum cases. The EU has progressively blocked migrants before their asylum case can be filed by externalising immigration enforcement, collaborating with countries outside of Europe to prevent migrants from reaching EU soil.

Under the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, it has poured hundreds of millions of euros into strengthening migration enforcement in Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Algeria.

FRANCE AND MOROCCO PREPARE MAJOR NEW TREATY

France and Morocco say they are preparing a first-of-its-kind agreement aimed at deepening cooperation between the 2 countries.

The move follows France recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara last year.

Source:… pic.twitter.com/HvzAtJXKDi

— NewsForce (@Newsforce) May 22, 2026

The adoption of the Pact on Migration and Asylum has put political pressure on the European Commission, which must secure member state backing for a politically contentious overhaul of EU asylum rules.  “The new migration pact is a really critical legislative package for [European Commission President] Ursula von der Leyen and her cabinet. They need this to be a success politically, and will do everything to ensure the pact doesn’t fall apart,” said Lindsay.

“Member states have made it very clear that they are unwilling to go along with the pact if the European Commission doesn’t do everything it can to make sure people don’t arrive – and to deport as many people as possible,” he added.

The new approach has drawn particular scrutiny in Libya, where EU-backed groups have been linked to systemic abuses. The EU directly funds, trains and equips Libya’s coastal authorities, which have been accused of collaborating with human trafficking networks to capture migrants, subjecting them to exploitation, physical and sexual violence, and even enslavement.

The EU is now in the process of funding a maritime control centre in Benghazi aimed at intercepting migrants at sea and forcibly returning them to Libya. This requires cooperation with General Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya in opposition to the UN-recognised government in the west and has been accused of war crimes.

Similar patterns of violent pushbacks have emerged across Europe’s eastern borders. Along the Balkans route, Croatian authorities have been documented violently pushing people back into Bosnia, effectively preventing them from accessing asylum procedures on EU territory.

The new pact also introduces the concept of “return hubs”, nations where rejected asylum seekers may be transferred to and detained while awaiting deportation to their home countries. Migrants will likely have no connections to the designated countries they are deported to; the EU has proposed options everywhere from Bangladesh to Rwanda.

Rights groups say the Pact on Migration and Asylum embodies a broader hardening of attitudes and policies toward migrants across the EU member states, with detrimental consequences for those trying to reach Europe. “Whenever the political climate changes in Europe, you can feel it in Morocco,” Sow told MEE. “If Europe wants immigrants, Morocco is okay. If not, it’s hostile there.”

We reported earlier this week that for the first time Russia’s ‘Union State’ ally Belarus hosted multi-day drills involving a “rehearsal” of Russia’s use of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.

The exercise ran from Tuesday to Thursday and was presided over by Presidents Lukashenko and Putin, and saw hundreds of Russian missile launchers, warships, nuclear submarines, and jets deploy and engage in military maneuvers. As part of it, Russia reportedly sent more tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.

On the occasion, and amid angry denunciations from European leaders, the 71-year-old Lukashenko – who has ruled the former Soviet nation since 1994 – asserted that “We threaten absolutely no one.”

He followed with: “But we have such weapons, and we’re ready in every possible way to defend our common fatherland from [the western Belarusian city of] Brest to [Russia’s Pacific port of] Vladivostok.”

In Ukraine, President Zelensky warned Belarus of “consequences” over potential deepened involvement in Russia’s ‘special military operation’ – though Belarus did act as a staging ground for the initial attack waves in early 2022.

“The de facto leadership of Belarus” must “stay on its toes – that is, clearly understand that there will be consequences if aggressive actions against Ukraine, against our people, are taken,” Zelensky said while making a visit this week to a Ukrainian city which is just dozens of miles from the Belarusian border.

Interestingly, and in what appears another first, Lukashenko actually offered to meet with Zelensky, and that this meeting could take place “anywhere” in Belarus or Ukraine.

“If (Zelensky) wants to discuss something, seek advice, or anything else, please do. We are open to it,” Lukashenka said on Friday, according to state media.

“I am ready to meet with him anywhere – in Ukraine, in Belarus – and discuss the problems of Belarusian-Ukrainian relations,” the Belarusian leader emphasized. 

He also addressed Zelensky’s latest accusations, rejecting the premise, and explained that his armed forces won’t join the conflict unless “aggression is committed against (Belarusian) territory.”

Russia’s defense ministry released footage of this week’s nuclear drills coordinated with Belarus:

🇷🇺🇧🇾 Russia releases video of nuclear weapons exercises with Belarus

A display of military power and strategic readiness. pic.twitter.com/E5xECipGoc

— Iran War Update ☫ (@IranWarUpdate_) May 22, 2026

Of course, such a meeting is very unlikely to ever materialize, unless part of some kind of final lasting peace settlement, which has proved elusive over 4+ years of war.

The Ukrainian leader dismissed the overture. “Since 2022, it has been obvious to everyone that this man’s words mean nothing, and we should pay attention to his actions,” Zelensky’s advisor Dmytro Lytvyn told a press briefing later.

Via Remix News,

A major social study commissioned by VRT, known as the “Photo of Flanders,” reveals that a majority of Flemish people are afraid they are being slowly replaced by migrants, with this study now joining similar ones in France and Germany, which reveal serious fear across Europe about the ongoing Great Replacement.

The VRT survey shows that 56 percent of respondents agree with the statement: “I am afraid that Flemish people are slowly being replaced by migrants/people from abroad.”

Within this category, individuals aged 45 to 64 score at 58 percent, while those over 65 score at 59 percent.

Teenagers between 12 and 17 years old also show a high level of agreement at 58 percent.

The study also showed that 52 percent of Flemish people are afraid of a mosque being built in their neighborhood.

Only 23 percent of Flemish people explicitly say they would be open to a mosque where they live.

Notably, 22 percent of people who say they have no fear of being replaced by migrants also say they would not like to have a mosque in their neighborhood.

According to VRT, the study shows that the fear that “Flemish people will be replaced by migrants” remains great.

Belgium has also been actively erasing traditional signs of Christianity, such as renaming Christmas markets into “winter markets,” which the VRT study indicates has led to divisions in society, especially between older and younger generations.

Discussions surrounding inclusive naming conventions also generate pushback. A majority of Flemish people, at 57 percent, maintain that a Christmas market should simply remain a Christmas market. Resistance to neutral terms like winter market is highest among older demographics, with 64 percent of 45-to-64-year-olds and 67 percent of those over 65 opposing the change. This opposition drops among younger populations, with 41 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds and 45 percent of 25-to-44-year-olds objecting to the replacement of the traditional name.

The Photo of Flanders is an ongoing tracking study that VRT has conducted since 2009 to observe the social themes that concern Flemish residents.

Regarding specific statistics on Islam, 60 percent of Flemish people report feeling concerned about Islam’s presence in Flanders.

This concern peaks among individuals aged 45 to 64 at 65 percent, and among those over 65 at 67 percent, though these percentages have decreased slightly compared to 2023 and 2024.

For youth between the ages of 12 and 17, the figure stands slightly lower at 61 percent, though researchers note an upward trend in this youngest bracket.

Patrick Loobuyck, an ethical philosopher of the University of Antwerp/UGent, states that these anti-diversity figures are “quite high” and Flemish people are struggling with “rapid social changes.”

“They are concerned about themes that are important to our society: who we are, what the future is of Flanders and what is the place of the population that is there today,” said Loobuyck.

“The population has actually changed a lot in recent decades. That diversity is no longer limited to cities, but is felt almost everywhere. People see and feel that, and also notice consequences in education and society.”

Is there a “plan” behind population replacement?

Nevertheless, despite this clear demographic replacement, which is quantifiable and observable, Loobuyck says that “theories” put out by the identitarian right, like the Great Replacement, should not be embraced.

“There is sometimes a pretense that there is a plan behind it, as if elites are consciously allowing mass migration to destroy us. That adds to the uncertainty that is already there,” he said.

Often, this is how the left and the mainstream try to “debunk” the Great Replacement, attaching all kinds of meanings to it that were not behind the original meaning, as articulated by the man behind the original term. For example, claims that Jews are behind the replacement, or that a cabal of elites is behind the replacement, are not actually what Renaud Camus articulated. However, if those opposed to the term can assign extraordinary meanings to it, they can more easily “debunk” whatever it is they say the term is actually supposed to mean.

Nevertheless, in many ways, this has been a “plan.” A UN think tank, for example, has promoted 60 million migrants for Europe by 2050. The UN, which has long advocated for “replacement migration” as a solution to Europe’s aging population, is now warning that Europe will not gain these migrants “if it does not stop being a fortress against immigration.”

Europe’s top leader, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is calling for more legal migration after already record numbers of immigrants arriving. If anyone is an “elite,” it is most certainly von der Leyen, who wields an enormous amount of power within the EU.

Even for those elites who have routinely been the target of conspiracy theories, such as George Soros, there are quotes on record where he openly promotes and supports mass immigration.

Speaking about former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s effort to control migration, Soros stated that:“[Orbán’s) plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle. Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”

During the height of the migration crisis, Soros stated: “[Europe] has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future.”

Soros even proposed in a column he wrote for MarketWatch in 2015 that Europe should take on debt to pay for “surge funding” for refugees and migrants, suggesting that EU member states implement a massive €45 billion spending package. Soros even says in the article that might not be enough, and that spending more would be “justified.”

In the piece, Soros wrote that paying extra money for migrants upfront “would allow us to address the most dangerous consequences of the crisis — including anti-immigrant sentiment in receiving countries and despondency and marginalization among refugees — more effectively.”

Soros also wrote that a large influx of refugees results in panic, which can lead to “expensive and counter-productive measures, like erecting fences and walls.”

There have also been numerous top left-wing politicians who have long promoted mass immigration as a means to gaining more power, while journalists have promoted this very trend as well in thousands of articles and publications.

A German left-wing politician claimed Germany needs more migrants because the “Nazi” Germans are not very good at making babies.

“Every year, more Germans die than are born. Fortunately, this is because the Nazis are not very prolific,” said MP Gregor Gysi.

Gysi is a long-time… pic.twitter.com/EDk65oxjHJ

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) January 7, 2025

Notably, poll after poll from across Europe shows that a majority of Europeans want an end to mass immigration, and yet, it continues unabated.

A majority or near majority of Europeans feel they are being replaced in their home countries. For example, nearly half of Germans also agree with the statement: “I believe that Europeans are gradually being replaced by immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.”

Meanwhile, in France, 60 percent of voters believe France is witnessing “a replacement of the French population by non-European populations” at a time when immigration has reached record levels.

In Belgium itself, Brussels has already seen massive population replacement, with 72 percent of children and teens in Brussels now having a non-EU migration background, while only 10.5 percent are Belgians of Belgian origin

It can be openly debated what the motive for this mass immigration is, but the reality is that there are many players behind it, all the way from business interests to radical ideologues, which means there is no “single” reason for mass immigration. There are, in short, many motives. There are many actors, and they are not necessarily all working in concert.

🇧🇪 Belgian Justice Minister Annelies Verlinden said in an interview this week you’d have to be a “hero” to go for an evening jog in Brussels these days. pic.twitter.com/1ctwlbUhDT

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) May 21, 2026

Nevertheless, the demographic change behind the Great Replacement, which simply states that non-Europeans are replacing Europeans in their native countries, is a statistical reality. There does not have to be a “nefarious” elite that conspires in a room with the blinds drawn, but there is undoubtedly an elite that wants more immigration.

At the same time, the term Great Replacement will continue to be promoted by the right because it is a term that is remarkably apt for the situation that is unfolding. Europe, which values free speech, must allow for an open discussion about the motives, players, and ideological movements behind this demographic development, along with why it is happening, who benefits, and even how it can be reversed. Otherwise, we are quite simply not living in the liberal democracy that the most powerful politicians and journalists in Europe continuously tell us we are living in.

Read more here…

Summary

• Iran Foreign Ministry says “no deal” will be reached if the US makes enriched uranium handover demand (Al Jazeera).
• Rubio confirms that there’s been no deal and that “we’re not there yet” – amid broader late morning pushback against morning optimistic, premature headlines.
• Saudi sources report Pakistan army chief & a Qatar delegation en route to Tehran, after which Field Marshal Munir arrives – calls trip ‘last ditch effort’ to avert war.
• Influential Iranian parliament member threatens ‘preemptive’ military action if preparations & movements by US forces in region is perceived. 

Speculation Over Trump Staying Close to D.C.

There’s been plenty of afternoon speculation that President Trump could order renewed attacks on Iran this Memorial Day weekend after the below Truth Social post on missing his son’s wedding…

Iran FM: Agreement ‘Not Close’

Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson says cannot necessarily say that have reached a point where an agreement is close, Tasnim reports; focus of negotiations is on ending the war:

• Delegation from Qatar is currently holding talks with Iran’s foreign minister, but Pakistani side remains the mediator in negotiations.
• Details related to the Nuclear issue are not being discussed at this stage.

At around the same time as the above headline emerged, Sky News Arabia offered more optimism, citing a source who said that “broad outlines” have been reached in terms of an understanding on the nuclear issue.

Still, Al Jazeera reports that “no deal” will be reached if the US makes an enriched uranium handover demand. The Foreign Ministry maintains this will be a non-starter:

“We will not reach a conclusion if we try to delve into details related to highly enriched uranium in Iran,” the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.

Baghaei also said a Qatari delegation ‌is currently holding talks with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, ⁠adding ⁠Pakistan remains the main ⁠mediator in ⁠the ⁠negotiations.

Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir has arrived in Tehran: ‘Last Ditch Effort’

So it looks like the rumors were true, after Pakistan officials first seemed to deny, and also said no comment. 

Army chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, a key mediator between Iran and the US, has arrived in Tehran as the Iranians are said to be reviewing the latest updated Washington proposal for peace.

Pakistan FM: “Not Aware of Any Visit” to Iran by Army Chief

In a quick market update, Newsquawk says risk-off as reporters push back on optimistic geopolitical reporting + Rubio says not there on Iran deal.

And this bit of serious contradiction of earlier reports, via CBS:

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi said Friday that he was “not aware of any visit right now” when asked about reports by Iranian state media since Thursday that Army chief Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir, a key mediator between Iran and the U.S., was expected in Tehran.

“I am sure this will be announced in due course, if it is to be announced. I can neither confirm nor deny it now,” Abdrabi said.

“As regards the details of any agreement, our consistent position on this matter is that we do not talk of specifics. As a mediator and as a facilitator, it is the inherent ingredient of our mandate that we remain quiet on the individual positions and the process — also not ascribe any adjective to the process i.e. fast, slow, medium,” said Adrabi, adding that he would “stick to this consistent position.”

Pakistan, Qatar Delegations En Route to Tehran

Despite the attempts of some regional outlets to spin a narrative of imminent peace (which we saw yesterday), a senior Iranian source told Reuters on Thursday that “no deal had been reached with the US” – though he did also claim that “gaps had narrowed” – somewhat in line with the optimistic narrative.

The Islamic Republic is reportedly still reviewing the latest peace blueprint handed down by the Trump administration. However, this is the latest from a Wall Street Journal correspondent:

Source tells me the draft “deals” circulating are inaccurate.

— laurence norman (@laurnorman) May 22, 2026

Trump has meanwhile explicitly warned that further military action remains firmly on the table if Tehran doesn’t bend the knee. Yet there’s more ‘action’ taking place in the interim – as Pakistan’s army chief once again is on his way to Tehran, per Al Arabiya, and this – though already previewed the day prior – caused oil to dump amid the usual daily optimistic headlines emerging just ahead of the US market open. And in an apparent first, Qatar is sending a delegation too:

Futs hits session high on Reuters report Qatar has sent negotiating team to Tehran with the US team to help secure a deal to end war.

Field Marshal Asim Munir is expected to receive and relay Tehran’s answer to Washington on the latest.

Iran Threat of ‘Preemptive’ Military Action

Meanwhile, speaking to state television, Fadahossein Maleki, an influential member of Iran’s Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, strongly hinted that Iran might not wait around to be hit. When pressed on whether the ceasefire could collapse, Maleki bluntly stated, “Anything is possible.”

He took it a step further, openly floating the idea of an Iranian preemptive strike if Iran believed the Pentagon is moving its forces into position for resumption of military action.

“It could even come from Iran’s side, frankly,” Maleki warned, according to a report by Iran International. “If we feel that something is happening from a US base, Iran has the legitimacy to respond and prevent it.”

Despite these threats, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has freshly said there has been some “slight progress” in talks with Iran to end the war, but followed by saying he did not wish to exaggerate how much.

Which helped push crude oil prices to the lows of the day…

More possibly premature reports of a ‘final draft’ being worked on…

🔴 BREAKING: The final draft of a possible agreement between the United States and Iran, mediated by Pakistan, is expected to be announced within hours, according to Al Arabiya sources. Its key terms include the following:

🔴 Final draft of possible US-Iran agreement mediated by… pic.twitter.com/Fb0gTmv8nd

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) May 22, 2026

Rubio Condemns Toll System: Unacceptable

Rubio is going full press against Iran’s efforts to impose a Hormuz toll system under its own permission protocols. “They’re trying to convince Oman, by the way, to join them in this tolling system in an international waterway. There is not a country in the world that should accept that. I don’t know of a country in the world that’s in favor of it, except Iran, but there’s no country in the world that should accept it,” Rubio said in Helsingborg, Sweden, on the sidelines of a NATO ministers meeting. 

“I don’t know of anyone in the world that should be in favor of a tolling system in an international waterway, that’s just not acceptable. It can’t happen,” Rubio continued.  

“If that were to happen in the Strait of Hormuz, it will happen in five other places around the world. Why would countries all over the world say, ‘Well, we want to do this too’? Not to mention how vital and critical that strait is to every country represented here today, but frankly, to countries not represented here today, particularly the Indo-Pacific,” he also said. Importantly, he also confirmed there’s as yet no deal – which should be obvious to all. He underscored “we’re not there yet”.

More Headlines

More latest developments via Newsquawk:

• Arabiya and Al Hadath exclusively report the text of the anticipated US-Iran agreement in case of its approval. The agreement includes: an immediate, comprehensive, and unconditional ceasefire on all fronts, a halt to military operations, ensuring freedom of navigation in the Arabian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Sea of Oman and establishing a joint mechanism for monitoring and resolving disputes.
• US Secretary of State Rubio said there has been slight progress on Iran. Iran is trying to create a tolling system in the Strait, and no nation should accept that. We will be continuing talks with Iran, and there is progress.
• “A Pakistani source says that cautious optimism is the prevailing sentiment in the ongoing discussions regarding the planned agreement.”, Al Arabiya reported.
• Pakistan source said the US and Iran’s insistence on raising the bar for their demand regarding uranium and the Strait of Hormuz has led to a “crisis in negotiations”, Al Jazeera reported.
• Pakistani Interior Minister met again with Iran’s Foreign Minister to study proposals for resolving disputes between US and Iran, Al Jazeera reported, citing the Pakistani Embassy.
• Pakistan’s Interior Minister will remain in Tehran on Friday to continue consultations and meet with Iranian officials, while a high-level source said the Pakistani Army Chief would not travel to Tehran on Thursday night, according to Al Arabiya.
• Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China supports mediation efforts and has presented a 5-point initiative.
• Iranian National Security Commission member Rezei posted “These negotiations are probably also a hoax and the Americans have no desire for diplomacy”; says “instead of diplomats, send missiles to negotiate.”
• Iranian Foreign Ministry said “Everything being circulated about the status of the negotiations is not accurate”, Al ArabyTV reported.
• UAE official said there is a ’50-50′ chance of US-Iran Strait of Hormuz agreement, AFP reported.
• Unconfirmed reports of explosions in the UAE, Tasnim reported. Details of the explosions have not yet been released.
• Iraqi ports said search teams have been mobilised within territorial waters after contact was lost with two ships, while they did not receive any distress calls from the two Bolivian-flagged ships with which contact has been lost.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

The New Silk Roads/BRI and its derivations such as the Northern Sea Route/Arctic Silk Road remain alive and kicking

SHANGHAI – This is it.

The Russia-China strategic partnership, the leaders in the process of Eurasia integration, the leaders of multipolar bodies BRICS and the SCO, have formally endorsed and boosted the drive towards multipolarity and a new system of international relations via a strategic joint declaration signed, sealed and delivered during President Putin’s visit to China this Wednesday.

This is one for the History books – in several more ways than one. I was privileged to follow the proceedings in Beijing during the whole day at the Aurora College, a top Shanghai private school and university, among a fabulous congregation of teachers and students.

So we had plenty of time to discuss the implications of how the Top Two Eurasia powers – and global powers – are establishing the lineaments of a new geopolitical future for most of mankind. The exceptions will be exceptionalist recalcitrants and vassals addicted to commit serial political suicide.

We all remember President Xi’s visit to Russia in 2023, when leaving the Kremlin, side by side with Putin, he voiced what he was already polishing for some time, in a very concise way: “Right now there are changes we have not seen in 100 years.” And then Xi and Putin agreed that now, “we are the ones driving these changes together”.

The practical result is the sharply focused Beijing joint statement, penned by unmistakable “civilizations with ancient history.”

Let’s go through some of the highlights.

The declaration minces no words and no concepts when it comes to offering a serious alternative to the current – dwindling – unilateral historic moment.

Polycentrism: “The attempts of a number of states to single-handedly manage global affairs, impose their interests on the entire world, and limit the sovereign development of other countries in the spirit of the colonial era have failed.” Russia-China will focus on establishing a “long-term state of polycentrism.”

The ”law of the jungle”: “Basic universally recognized norms of international law and international relations are regularly violated (…) there is a danger of fragmentation within the international community and a return to the ‘law of the jungle’.”

A new security architecture: “It is necessary to pay due attention to the rational concerns of all countries in the field of security, to focus on cooperation on security issues, to reject bloc confrontation and zero-sum game strategies, to oppose the expansion of military alliances, hybrid wars, and proxy wars, and to promote the creation of an updated, balanced, effective, and sustainable global and regional security architecture (…) It is unacceptable to force sovereign states to abandon their neutrality.”

This is exactly what Moscow proposed to Washington and NATO in December 2021: indivisibility of security. The non-response response precipitated the SMO in Ukraine two months later, as it became obvious to Moscow that NATO’s plan was a blitzkrieg in Donbass.

Hegemony: “Hegemony in the world is unacceptable and should be prohibited. No state or group of states should control international affairs, determine the fate of other countries, or monopolize opportunities for development.”

Global governance: that’s President Xi’s cherished concept, fully delienated in the SCO summit last year in Tianjin: “In global governance, which is an important tool for streamlining the system of international relations, it is necessary to adhere to the principles of sovereign equality, the rule of international law, multilateralism, human-centeredness, and results-oriented approach.”

The United Nations: it’s necessary to “strengthen the role of multilateralism as the primary tool for addressing the multifaceted and complex global challenges, and to prevent the weakening of the United Nations.” That should lead to “the reform of the United Nations”. Yet everyone knows that will definitely not happen under the current administration in the White House.

Point 4 of the declaration: global civilizational and value diversity. That may be the crux of the matter – inexorably burying any Exceptionalist pretensions: “The spiritual and moral system of any civilization cannot be considered exceptional or superior to others. All countries should advocate a view of civilizations based on equality, mutual exchange of experience, and dialogue, and should strengthen mutual respect, understanding, trust, and exchanges between different nationalities and civilizations, promote mutual understanding and friendship among the peoples of all countries, and protect the diversity of cultures and civilizations.”

Enter the new “indispensable nation”

The Russia-China declaration, as concisely as possible, delivers what amounts to much-needed hope for humanity to delve into the matrix of a civilizational past as the means to forge an auspicious, more egalitarian future.

It is by all means a humanist mini-manifesto that goes way beyond the set up of a new security architecture and forging key changes in the current system of international relations. Its credibility is supported by the backing of two Big Powers which also happen to be civilization-states, fully sovereign and fully independent.

I have called this process for quite a while “The Eurasia Century”. That is what this fateful May 20, 2026 in Beijing, within the scope of an official visit by President Putin to China, was celebrating.

The breath, scope and ambition of the joint statement clearly overshadows other aspects of Putin’s Beijing journey, although they are quite relevant by themselves.

Starting with the sealing of the new “indispensable nation”. Exit the Exceptionalists; enter China. The old order is being evicted – in real time. And yes, this is the most consequential shift in Great Power alignment since the end of the Cold War – complete with the Empire of Chaos that sanctioned Russia to death targeting its “isolation” and economic collapse inexorably out-maneuvered by the Russia-China strategic partnership.

The 25-year Treaty of Good Neighborliness between Russia and China was massively upgraded – featuring strategic energy corridors (the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline), very close military coordination and a shared civilizational/ideological framework.

Of course there will be no substantial leaks on what Xi and Putin discussed during their two-hour-long, informal tea time. The proxy war in Ukraine and the illegal war on Iran had to be on the menu, including Putin arguably briefing Xi on Russia’s possible next moves in an increasingly direct, toxic confrontation with NATO, and both evaluating the technicalities of the Russia-China support for Iran.

So in a nutshell the New Silk Roads/BRI and its derivations such as the Northern Sea Route/Arctic Silk Road remain alive and kicking; and the de-dollarization of the global economy – a reflection of the Russia-China trade balance, now advancing exclusively on yuan and rubles – is more than alive and kicking.

As for BRICS, destabilized by the U.S. from the inside via India and the UAE, it may eventually resurrect from its coma; this process will have to be led by Lavrov and Wang Yi. And the focus must change: BRICS must develop some sort of strategic coherence among the Global Majority for the multipolar transition to really work.

Then there’s the bright future of Power of Siberia 2. China, finally, may even forget the “Escape from Malacca” obsession, in effect since the early 2000s, and back to the limelight with the American faux blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian ports.

The leadership in Beijing has always been fully aware that blocking the Strait of Malacca is essential in the American strategy of containing and suffocating China. Power of Siberia 2 offers a solution completely outside of the thalassocratic Empire of Piracy, pumping gas directly to China from the Yamal peninsula through the Altai mountains and the Mongolia steppes.

There was a lovely touch at the Great Hall of the People, amidst so much drama: a TASS-Xinhua joint exhibition, “The Unbreakable Friendship of Great Nations, the Strategic Partnership of Great Powers”, with 26 photos documenting the Putin-Xi friendship over the years, in several G20, BRICS and SCO summits, the One Belt, One Road forum, Victory Day in Moscow, and the Beijing Olympics.

Putin and Xi visited the expo with two quite special tour guides: TASS CEO Andrey Kondrashov and Xinhua CEO Fu Hua.

Compounded with the tea ceremony, call it the human, all too human, deep bond, person-to-person touch indispensable to travel the long and winding road towards a geopolitical future of equanimity and mutual respect.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Our warning at the start of the year, well before the U.S.-Iran conflict erupted, rested on one very simple theme that much of Wall Street missed, perhaps because analysts were still wearing their ‘green’ glasses and focusing on the wrong crises or actually non-existent crises.

The more immediate threat to data centers was never about climate change or soaking up the world’s resources. It was the very real threat of a data center being hit by a low-cost Shahed-style one-way attack drone, exposing the missing layer in cheap, scalable counter-drone defenses at nearly every data center worldwide.

Even we were surprised by how quickly that theme was validated. One month later, Iranian drone swarms targeted data centers across the Gulf, taking some hubs offline and forcing Wall Street, hyperscalers, insurers, and the defense community to confront an uncomfortable new reality.

Expanding on this theme, about three months into the ongoing U.S.-Iran war, counter-drone company Allen Control Systems CEO Steven Simoni warned on X that drones are in the very early stages of reshaping modern warfare and physical security, with the Russia-Ukraine war serving as the warning shot.

Simoni pointed out that in just four years, drones have become responsible for roughly 80% of casualties in that war, surpassing traditional battlefield systems such as artillery, aircraft, helicopters, rockets, and landmines. The result is that low-cost drones are becoming the dominant weapons platform on the modern battlefield.

“But an acute threat, because instead of the effect of these new fires being widespread and chaotic (which actually gives defenders a chance), they will be ultra-targeted and precise. Think more like, specific structural points of infrastructure from skyscrapers to nuclear power plants and particular faces from leaders to dissidents being recognized and targeted,” he said.

Simoni added, “Another example: think about the capex that is going to be just datacenter buildout across the world over the next ten years. Imagine what kind of insurance (and the insurer’s) reinsurance is involved in protecting all of that compute, all of that data, and all of those people. It’s enormous.”

“Drones, among other things, will be part of the threat model facing their physical security, their power infrastructure, and their personnel. All of that investment will be at risk, in part, from drones,” he continued, adding, “The problem is so enormous, it’s bigger than you think, and it’s going to get more global and more acute.”

Which way, Western man? pic.twitter.com/PwkL4xT6bF

— Quantum Daddy (@LegalPrimes) May 13, 2026

He cited a video from the Naval Podcast and told his followers, “Everyone should watch this.”

Naval Podcast states in the video that drone warfare will fundamentally change the structure of violence in society – and therefore how militaries and entire states are architected. It said the historical parallels are similar to the rise of the modern state, in which a rifle enabled a former peasant to take down a feudal knight on the battlefield.

New:

The Logic of Violence
A podcast film pic.twitter.com/HsRZqFeEUt

— Naval Podcast (@navalpodcast) May 12, 2026

Being one step ahead, we see a boom in the counter drone defense space – not with million-dollar interceptor missiles – but cheap, scalable solutions:

• Micro AI Sentry Guns May Be Next Layer Of Defense For Data Centers Against Kamikaze Drones

• Interceptor-Drone Arms-Race Emerges

• U.S. Deploys Ukrainian Acoustic Sensors, Interceptor Drones At Prince Sultan Air Base

And just wait until micro jet engines become standard on suicide drones …

Jet-powered drones are becoming a new phase of modern warfare.

The article below highlights the growing Czech-Ukrainian partnership in the development and production of compact turbojet engines for next-generation UAV and defense platforms, with PBS expanding its manufacturing… pic.twitter.com/lWly7lhw8f

— PBS GROUP (@PBS_GRP) May 21, 2026

Welcome to 2030s warfare. The world only gets more dangerous from here as the innovation curve for ground robots, autonomous drone swarms, AI kill chains, and eventually humanoid soldiers accelerates.

Authored by Bettina Arndt via DailySceptic.org,

The warning signs have been there for decades.

Back in 1983, American author Barbara Ehrenreich wrote a powerful book — The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment — arguing that a male revolt was underway. Since the 1950s, she suggested, men had begun rebelling against the breadwinner ethic, inspired by Playboy culture, the counterculture and a desire for personal freedom. They were rejecting the cultural ideology that had shamed them into tying the knot and becoming a good provider, lest they be seen as immature, irresponsible and less than a real man.

Ehrenreich understood that marriage was the mechanism by which society harnessed male productivity. Remove the shame and the yoke comes off.

Forty years on, the yoke has disappeared. In April 2026, the American male labour force participation rate hit its lowest level since records began in the 1940s, according to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics. One in three American men — roughly 33% — were not working or actively looking for work. The overall male participation rate for men aged 16 and over stood at just 67%, down from 73.5% two decades ago and from 87% in the postwar years when Ehrenreich’s story begins.

The trend is not confined to America. Similar declines — though less dramatic than in the United States — have occurred in the UK, Australia and Canada.

The marriage collapse runs in lockstep with the workforce data. According to US Census Bureau data, married-couple households made up 71% of all US households in 1970; today it’s just 47%. As University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox documents in his 2024 book Get Married, the marriage rate has fallen 65% in the last half century.

Ehrenreich had made the argument that marriage and productivity were inseparable — that the same mechanism which got men to the altar got them to work. The data suggest she was right.

What Ehrenreich did not fully reckon with — and could not have foreseen in 1983 — was that the inducements for tying the knot would collapse. The shame mechanism has disappeared, yes. But the incentive has simultaneously imploded. The product on offer has changed beyond recognition. If you want to understand why men are voting with their feet, you need to look not just at what marriage now costs them — and the costs are severe — but at what it delivers. Increasingly, what it delivers is a pretty dud deal.

The modern woman: a prospectus:

• They are the most miserable, anxious and insecure cohort in living memory — hardly great marriage material.

• Most married women go off sex — and the husband who objects is seen as the problem.

• Many women don’t actually like men very much. The more educated she is, the higher the contempt.

• They’ve gone full throttle Left — and three quarters of college-educated women won’t even date a man who votes differently.

• They’ve rigged the education system and colonised corporate and institutional life, turning universities and workplaces into man-repellent factories.

• Yet their hypergamy is still running hot. Despite outnumbering men in education and careers, they still demand a tall, equally high-status unicorn.

• The modern female threat-detection system is hyperactive. Almost any male behaviour — silence, opinions, jokes, breathing — gets flagged as a red flag.

• They’re extremely well-versed in the lucrative economics of divorce, including a well-timed false allegation to eliminate tedious shared parenting.

What rational man reads this list and thinks: yes, that’s exactly what’s been missing from my life?

To examine more carefully what is going on here, let’s start by looking at the latest addition to this sorry reckoning. I’m referring to the finding published in the New Statesman last month that many young women don’t like men.

A Merlin Strategy poll of young Britons aged 18 to 30 found three times more young women than young men held a negative view of the opposite sex. Only about 50% of women had a positive view of men compared to 72% of men feeling positive about women. For women under 25, it was even starker: only around one-third (35%) reported a positive view of men. This applies particularly to professional and managerial young women of whom just 36% hold a positive view of men, compared with 61% of working-class women.

The contempt for men is hardly surprising – that’s what they have been taught. Mary Harrington, a British journalist and cultural critic who writes on Substack, frequently criticises what she calls the “femosphere” — the online feminist spaces where women bond through shared grievances about men.

“The online feminist scene often feels like one long group therapy session for women to compare notes on how awful men are,” she writes, suggesting this makes men the universal scapegoat, where ordinary male behaviour is routinely framed as toxic or oppressive, while women’s collective resentment is rewarded and amplified. “Casual, low-level male-bashing has become the background hum of progressive online culture.”

Not only does this toxic climate encourage women to be wary of men, but growing up in a hate-fuelled online sewer takes a toll on their mental health.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt has long been warning that the toxic world of social media would lead to a rise in mental health problems, particularly in girls and young women.

“Since the early 2010s, young people across the developed world are becoming more anxious, depressed and lonely. The increases were even greater in young women,” he said.

Recent large-scale surveys (Ipsos 202-–2026 across 31 countries, Gallup 2025) are showing Gen Z women currently report the highest recorded levels of anxiety, persistent sadness, hopelessness and depression of any female generation at the same age.

Not much fun for their partners. Last year Psychology Today had a stark warning for men about these women as marriage prospects.

The saying ‘happy wife, happy life’ may have some validity, but the lesser-known saying ‘anxious wife, miserable life’ has research-approved validation. … The more neurotic the spouse is, the less happy the relationship — but women’s neuroticism seems to carry more weight in the overall marital happiness equation.

Then there’s the intriguing issue of married women turning off the tap, leaving sex-starved husbands as the norm. For as long as anyone can remember, men were shamed into showing up economically. Society has absolutely nothing to say to women who stop showing up sexually. One obligation was enforced by church, law and community for centuries. The other is now abrogated on the grounds of bodily autonomy.

So here we have the portrait of the modern woman as marriage prospect: miserable, anxious, politically radicalised, contemptuous of men, often sexually rejecting and trained to see menace in ordinary male behaviour. And yet the puzzled chorus from commentators, economists and policymakers continues: why won’t men commit? Why won’t they work?

The approved explanations are dutifully trotted out. The economic story: men have been displaced by automation and globalisation. The health story: opioids, disability, mental illness. The educational story: men are falling behind women in universities and therefore in the job market. The cultural story, favoured by progressive commentators: toxic masculinity is preventing men from adapting to a modern service economy. All of these contain a grain of truth. But they do not account for what is really going on.  The obvious explanation — the one staring out of every data table — is intentionally ignored.

Marriage was the primary incentive for sustained male economic effort. It has always been — Ehrenreich knew it in 1983, and the economists have now confirmed it. There’s an economic research paper, ‘The Declining Labour Market Prospects of Less-Educated Men, which establishes that the prospect of forming and providing for a family constitutes a critical male labour supply incentive, and that the decline of stable marriage directly removes it. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas calculated that declining marriage rates are responsible for roughly half the drop in the hours men work.

Remove the marriage and you remove the responsibility. The data have been telling us this for decades.

But here is what nobody in the mainstream conversation will say: it is not only that marriage has become too costly and too legally treacherous for men — though it has. It’s that many young women themselves have become, to put it plainly, not worth having. Half of young British women don’t trust men. More than half of educated young women view men negatively. They arrive at relationships pre-loaded with grievance, primed by algorithms that have fed them a diet of male failure and female outrage since adolescence. They are, by their own account, anxious, miserable and politically furious.

What rational man, surveying this landscape, concludes that what his life is missing is a legally booby-trapped commitment to a woman primed to be impossible to keep happy?

Ehrenreich feared in 1983 that if the shame mechanism collapsed, male productivity would follow. She was right. What she could not have anticipated was the other half of the equation — that the feminist revolution would produce not a generation of fulfilled, generous, companionable women, but one that is, by every available measure, angrier and unhappier than any before it.

The yoke is off. The men have looked at what’s on offer. And many have, with considerable rationality, decided to go and play video games instead.

As one of Australia’s first sex therapists, Bettina Arndt began her career discussing sex on television and training doctors and other professionals in sexual counselling at a time when such topics were largely taboo. Her current – and even more socially unacceptable – passion is exposing Australia’s unfair treatment of men through the relentless weaponisation of laws and policies that portray women solely as victims. Her decades of advocacy for fair treatment of men in the Family Court included serving on key government inquiries. Bettina makes YouTube videos and blogs on Substack.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused Ukraine of intentionally targeting civilians after a “terrorist” overnight drone attack on a school that left six dead and scores of young people wounded. 

At least 39 were injured and counting, amid ongoing rescue efforts after a school complex was torn apart on the multi-drone strike attack. It happened at a school dormitory in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region. Over a dozen victims are still missing, including children, reports say.

Putin blasted the mass casualty incident as a “terrorist attack by the neo-Nazi regime” while vowing swift revenge. 

“The Russian Foreign Ministry has been instructed to inform international organizations and the international community about this crime,” Putin said. “In such cases, statements from the Foreign Ministry alone would not suffice. Therefore, the Russian Defense Ministry has been ordered to submit its proposals.”

Large-scale destruction was observed at the academic building and dormitory of the Starobelsk Professional College, which teaches students aged 14 to 18. Over 80 students were at the complex at the time of the attack.

Additionally, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said those responsible needed to be brought to justice, calling it “a monstrous crime” – given the “attack on an educational institution where children and young people ⁠are present.”

“The most important thing now ​is to take measures to clear the rubble ​and provide assistance to those who are still ​trapped beneath it,” Peskov added.

Britain’s Sky News has noted that the Ukrainian government has yet to acknowledge the attack:

Severely damaged buildings could also be seen, one of which appeared to have partially collapsed, as well as fires still burning.

Ukraine has yet to comment. Its forces are fighting to try to recapture Luhansk, one of four regions Russia unilaterally claimed as its own in 2022, in what Kyiv considers an illegal land grab.

Russia’s human rights commissioner, Yana Lantratova, said 86 teenagers between the ages of 14 and 18 had been asleep inside the hostel belonging to Luhansk Pedagogical University’s Starobilsk school when Ukrainian drones attacked during the night.

Earlier this month, Russia and Ukraine observed a 3-day US-backed ceasefire for Russia’s V-Day; however, after that Russia unleashed several consecutive days of heavy aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities, especially the capital.

Last week, Ukraine ‘answered’ with a large-scale, long range drone attack on the Moscow area. Currently, these tit-for-tack strikes are ramping up, with increasingly deadly consequences for innocent bystanders on both sides.