Trump’s move sent shockwaves through European capitals, which want a central role in peace talks because any settlement in Ukraine, hit by a full-scale Russian invasion three years ago, will have ramifications for their own security. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned that the Ukraine conflict must not end with a “dictated peace”.

French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Thursday warned that NATO faces a moment of reckoning as the US and Russia set in motion negotiations to end the Ukraine war. "It's a crucial moment of truth," said Lecornu. "People call it the most important, the strongest military alliance in history. That's historically true – but the question is, will it still be true 10 or 15 years from now."

“It can be a political response. It can be a legal response,” he continued. “I want to analyze this calmly after this election campaign. The fact that someone from outside Europe intervenes in a national election campaign in this way is new.”

As Germany drowns under the strain of mass immigration and cultural disharmony, Musk has publicly expressed his support for the AFD and even made an appearance at their conference via video link. “I think it could decide the entire fate of Europe, maybe the entire fate of the world,” Musk said during his address. “That is the significance of this election. So that’s why it’s very important to talk to your friends and family and convince them to consider voting for AfD.”

The leaders also discussed a possible Ukraine settlement. Donald Trump spoke in favour of stopping the hostilities as soon as possible and solving the crisis peacefully. In turn, Vladimir Putin pointed out it was necessary to eliminate the root causes of the conflict and agreed with Donald Trump in that a sustainable settlement could only be reached via peaceful negotiations.

Additionally, the President of Russia expressed support for one of the US President’s key arguments, which was that it was time for both countries to work together. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump agreed to maintain personal contact in the future, involving in particular in-person meetings.

So it’s no shock to read that a recent survey commissioned by Channel 4 found that 52 per cent of Britons aged 13 to 27 have lost faith in democracy and would welcome a dictator - a strong leader ‘who does not have to bother with parliament and elections’. A third of my generation believe ‘the UK would be a better place if the Army was in charge’. Drug use, shoplifting and defrauding the state go unpunished. Millions of economically burdensome migrants from places and cultures vastly different from our own are invited in, housed and fed at our expense - and we are attacked and slurred as bigots if we complain.

Supposedly neutral institutions such as the Civil Service, the judiciary, the NGOs, the BBC, schools and universities and corporations and their HR departments all have the same worldview: an unmistakable left-wing agenda. From mass immigration to net zero and trans dogma, these institutions walk in ideological lockstep. That is not a meaningful democracy. And that is why so many of us are looking elsewhere.

Britain is crying out for leadership that can steer the country to safety. Gen Z’s demands are not unreasonable: fairer taxes, affordable homes, cheaper energy and an end to unlimited immigration. We ask that everyone contributes their fair share and that crime is properly punished. We want to trust our neighbours, and talk to them in our own language. We want a sense of identity and belonging.

Which is why, I believe, we now need decisive action: a leader who would declare a state of emergency in response to illegal migration. Yes, there would be outrage from some quarters - and many would squeal about the ‘death of democracy’. But young people in particular recognise that political leaders of all parties have made an abysmal mess of running things. No wonder so many believe it’s time for a radical alternative. It sounds drastic - because it is drastic. But otherwise we all face the continued rule of grey, miserable politicians with grey, miserable ideas, dragging us towards disaster.

Speaking at a press conference in Budapest on Wednesday alongside Alice Weidel of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, Orban expressed doubt about the ability of the current leadership in Brussels to effectively defend the bloc’s interests in economic disputes with Washington.

He went on to suggest that the EU’s two largest economies, Germany and France, should take the initiative. “There’s no mercy for the weak,” warned Orban, urging the EU to proactively present its own proposals to Washington regarding import tariffs.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated on Tuesday that the "tariffs would not go unanswered,” and would “trigger firm and proportionate countermeasures” from the bloc. Additionally, Trump has proposed implementing “reciprocal tariffs” that would match the duties that other countries impose on American exports. In December, Trump warned Brussels that if it did not increase its purchases of American oil and gas, he would impose additional levies on goods from the EU.

“We are taking steps to protect Americans, American citizens, and Angel Moms like the mom standing right behind me,” Bondi stated in reference to Angel Mom Tammy Nobles, whose daughter was brutally raped and murdered by an illegal alien. Nobles told the story of her 20-year-old daughter, who was “viciously strangled” and raped in Maryland by an El Salvadorian MS-13 gang member, who “left her on the floor like trash,” says Nobles, after Health and Human Services allowed him into the country.

This comes after Pam Bondi filed a lawsuit against the State of Illinois, Cook County, and the City of Chicago over their sanctuary laws.

"Violent criminals, gang members, drug traffickers, human smugglers, will no longer terrorize the American people, and that is why we are here today," she said. "You will be held accountable if you do not follow federal law. It's over, it ends, and we're coming after you." Bondi has also ordered the DOJ to stop all federal funding of sanctuary cities as well as the prosecution of any jurisdiction impeding immigration enforcement.

The group is neither an alliance nor a bloc, and it is not against the United States; many of its members have good relations with the US. But it does seek to end the American-led unipolar world and replace it with a world with many poles and many nations with equal voices. Indonesia joining BRICS is significant both because another country joined BRICS and, specifically, because Indonesia joined BRICS.

Indonesia is the fourth largest country and the seventh largest economy in the world. Three of the four largest countries in the world are now members of BRICS, which now represents half the population of the world and 41.4% of GDP.

At its fifteenth annual summit in 2023, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Ethiopia joined BRICS. Now Indonesia has joined, and “more than 30 more states are showing interest in participating in” BRICS. The continued expansion of BRICS is a loud expression of an increasingly confident and vocal global majority’s support for multipolarity and dissatisfaction with American hegemony.

“I would hope that someday this church would see the possibility of changing that word because it is a stumbling block for so many who want to be here,” he said in a sermon posted on X this week, noting that he was “raised a strict fundamentalist Baptist.” “It is a stumbling block for people to do interfaith work — how do we explain that word with Muslims and to Jews and to Hindus?” asked the reverend, who has been married to another man since 2006.

The minister explained that many people who come to his church first check the website to see what the church is about, and many have found the word “Savior” to be problematic, because they “don’t believe that everyone has to accept Jesus as personal Lord and Savior like the fundamentalists say.”

A growing number of individuals around the world have rejected their human identity, claiming instead that they feel more comfortable being thought of as cats, dogs, horses. There is even one woman who indeed appears to have self-identified as llama.

Online, thousands of young people calling themselves 'therians' or 'furries', gather to share tips on 'trotting', feeding, and suggestions on how to persuade their school or workplace to let them use a litter tray rather than a human toilet.

The term therian refers to people who identify as non-human animals on a deep level and engage in behaviours associated with their animal identity. They differ from furries, who see their animal persona as a character - with or without a sexual element - while therians innately feel animal characteristics.

That Britain — the Britain of Churchill, of moral clarity, of unshakable defiance in the face of evil — is needed once more. The images emerging from Israel should be enough to rouse even the most indifferent among us. Men and women, dragged from captivity after 490 days in Hamas’ dungeons, their bodies skeletal, their eyes hollow, their survival a miracle and an indictment all at once.

And yet, where is Britain? Where is the nation that once prided itself on standing against barbarism? Where is the outrage? Where is the action? For months, this government has spoken of balance, of de-escalation, of the need for peace. But what peace can exist when hostages are still rotting in the tunnels of Gaza?

There is an illusion — one that Britain, along with the wider West, has clung to for far too long — that Hamas is merely another player in a political conflict, that with the right incentives, the right words, the right diplomatic mechanisms, it can be reasoned with.

This is the great lie of modern foreign policy.

Hamas is not a government.

Hamas is not a resistance movement.

Hamas is not a liberation force.

It is a terrorist empire built on the bones of its victims, sustained by an industry of deceit, and protected by the very institutions that claim to champion human rights.

It is an empire that kidnapped a grandmother and slaughters babies, that rapes women and burns people alive, that hides behind children while launching rockets at civilians — and then dares to speak the language of victimhood. And that empire is laughing at Britain and the rest of the West for a very simple reason. Because we let them.

Then the music changed. Over the weekend, the jihadis released three Israeli men who were so emaciated that they evoked widespread comparisons to Holocaust survivors. Propaganda points were lost: previously, the terror group had carefully crafted the impression that the hostages had been well cared-for, forcing them to smile and wave and presenting them with grotesque mementos of their time in captivity.

Until that point, the devil had been grinning from ear to ear. The handover ceremonies, which aped the bureaucratic trappings of a legitimate state, were built around a signing ritual against a backdrop of chilling jihadi slogans. Shamefully, they were given legitimacy by the Red Cross, which sent its officials to take part despite the fact that the humiliation of hostages is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Hamas must have struggled to believe their luck. Yes, the way in which some hostages were made to run the gauntlet of the mob allowed the mask to slip. Overall, however, the idiots of the world – who, let’s face it, comprise the vast majority – were now inclined to look more favourably upon the jihadis.

The sight of those gaunt, hollow-eyed men being paraded like animals by cowardly terrorists in hoods undid all that. Then the testimonies came: Ohad Ben-Ami, 56, Eli Sharabi, 52, and 34-year-old Or Levy had been hung upside down, burned, gagged to the point of suffocation and starved, all the while being taunted and mocked. They had to learn to walk again before their release, they said.

Suddenly, the veneer had split and the dark face of evil came leering through. On social media, the idiots, or some of them at least, began to finally realise what Israel had been facing all this time. They began to wonder whether perhaps those who expressed sympathy for Hamas might have been getting it wrong. It achieved, to the chagrin of the jihadis, “cut-through”. Even the United Nations called the pictures “deeply distressing”.