Authored by Alex Komani via OilPrice.com,

Norway’s crude oil export earnings surged 67.9% year-on-year in March to a record 57.4 billion kroner ($6.1 billion), primarily driven by soaring global energy prices following the outbreak of the Iran war and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil prices averaged 1,014 kroner ($107.52) per barrel in March, the highest monthly average since September 2023.

As Europe’s largest producer of oil and natural gas, the Scandinavian country exported 56.6 million barrels of crude oil in March, good for nearly 2 million barrels per day. Norway’s natural gas export revenues also climbed 19% to over 69 billion kroner as Europe sought alternative energy sources amid Middle East instability, helping the country record a trade surplus to the tune of 97.5 billion kroner, its highest level since January 2023.

Norway’s windfall oil earnings did not escape the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump:

“Europe is desperate for energy, and yet the United Kingdom refuses to open North Sea oil, one of the greatest fields in the world. Tragic!!!” he wrote in Truth Social.

“Aberdeen should be booming. Norway sells its North Sea oil to the UK at double the price. They are making a fortune,” he added.

North Sea oil and gas production is in long-term, structural decline, with over 90% of its producible resources already extracted.

However, Norway has been able to maintain high production by expanding exploration in the Arctic Barents Sea, pivoting to new, smaller discoveries in the North Sea, and investing heavily in the Norwegian Sea.

The Barents Sea is widely regarded as one of the most promising, yet under-explored, oil and gas frontiers on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, with roughly 80% of its remaining hydrocarbon resources yet to be tapped.

Meanwhile, the Norwegian Sea is an increasingly attractive area of interest, with roughly 50% of its remaining oil and gas resources yet to be discovered.

About one-third of the estimated resources in the Norwegian Sea are located in unopened areas, including off Lofoten and Vesterålen as well as around Jan Mayen.

Last week, JPMorgan – which correctly noted that headlines tend to focus on the fact of damage not the scale – was the first itemize the damage from the war in Iran, finding more than 60 energy infrastructure assets in the Gulf have been affected by drone and missile strikes, with roughly 50 sustaining different degrees of damage. 

What about the actual dollar value of the inflicted damage?

According to Rystad, repair and restoration costs for energy-linked infrastructure as a result of war in the Middle East could hit $58 billion, with the total for oil and gas facilities potentially up to $50 billion. 

Three weeks after the energy consultancy published an initial estimate of $25 billion in repair costs across Gulf energy infrastructure, the scope of damage has expanded materially. The continuation of military strikes drove up the number of impacted assets across the region before largely subsiding following an 8 April ceasefire between the US and Iran. This pushed the estimate for the average in potential total repair and restoration spending to $46 billion – representing the midway point in the range of $34 billion to $58 billion – across oil and gas infrastructure, inclusive of an average of $5 billion across industrial, power and desalination assets. The ceasefire, combined with stalled negotiations and renewed escalation risk, continues to shape the operating environment, alongside risks of disruption and potential blockades affecting shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. 

Divergent recovery timelines 

This broader damage footprint is changing how the recovery will unfold. Capital availability is not the primary constraint; instead, access to equipment, contractors and logistics is emerging as the key limiting factor. Recovery timelines are beginning to diverge across assets and countries, reflecting differences in domestic execution capacity and supply chain access. At the same time, repair activity is likely to displace new project execution, as operators prioritize restoring existing production over advancing greenfield developments. 

Early recovery trends already reflect this divergence. Some facilities where damage was contained and contractor capacity was already present have resumed operations within weeks, particularly where work is limited to surface equipment and modular repairs. By contrast, facilities requiring reconstruction of core process units or that are dependent on long-lead equipment remain in early assessment stages, with timelines extending into years. 

Rystad Energy has assessed the damage across impacted energy-linked facilities and estimates total repair and restoration costs in the range of $34 billion to $58 billion. 

The lower end of the range assumes that, for facilities where the extent of damage is not yet fully clear, impacts are limited in scope, allowing for modular repairs supported by existing spare equipment and shorter procurement cycles. The upper end reflects scenarios where structural damage is confirmed across major facilities, requiring full replacement of critical systems, reliance on long-lead equipment and the inclusion of conflict-related premiums on engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) execution, including contractor mobilization and war-risk insurance, alongside delays linked to contractor deployment, constrained logistics and in some cases restricted access to international supply chains.

Iran and Qatar bear brunt 

At a country level, this cost distribution begins to diverge more clearly, both in scale and across asset types. Iran accounts for the highest number of impacted facilities and the widest spread across asset types, with repair costs potentially reaching up to $19 billion under a high-damage scenario. Major disruptions are concentrated in the South Pars onshore gas processing facilities at Asaluyeh, along with the adjacent Pars Special Economic Energy Zone and Mahshahr petrochemical complex, removing significant gas processing and downstream petrochemical capacity. Additional impacts across key refineries, fuel storage depots in the Tehran region and export infrastructure at Lavan and Siri Island have further constrained domestic fuel distribution and reduced export flexibility, increasing reliance on fewer operational outlets. 

The impact in Iran therefore extends across the value chain, with simultaneous disruption to processing, refining, storage, and exports. Restoration timelines are structurally longer than elsewhere in the Gulf, not only due to the scale and dispersion of damage, but also because access to Western EPC contractors, original equipment manufacturers and process technologies remains restricted, narrowing execution options and extending procurement cycles. 

Qatar presents a different profile, where the impact is more concentrated but significantly deeper in terms of technical complexity. Damage is centered on Ras Laffan Industrial City, where multiple liquefied natural gas (LNG) trains have been affected alongside disruption at the Pearl gas-to-liquids facility. This is now intersecting with QatarEnergy’s ongoing North Field expansion program, including the latest award to a consortium led by Technip Energies, with contractors already active across multiple phases. 

With these projects already under execution or in early construction, there is a clear overlap between expansion work and repair activity within the same industrial cluster. Both draw on similar pools of engineering teams, fabrication yards and site crews, even if not always the same contractors. If some of this capacity is redirected towards repair activity, it could lead to delays of a few months in ongoing expansion projects, especially where timelines are already tight. The impact is more likely to show up as slower progress on execution rather than any formal change in project schedules. 

E&C takes largest share of costs 

Rystad Energy estimates facility repair and restoration costs for impacted oil and gas facilities could cost about $46 billion. At the facility level, engineering and construction accounts for the largest share of total expected outlay, followed by equipment and materials. This is consistent with the dominance of downstream and integrated assets in the damage profile, where repair activity involves rebuilding structural components, reinstating process units and re-integrating complex systems.

The sequencing of spending is equally important. Engineering and assessment activity progresses relatively quickly, but the overall timeline is largely governed by procurement and fabrication of critical equipment. While construction and installation can proceed in parallel once materials are available, delays in equipment delivery continue to define the critical path across most major assets. As a result, recovery timelines are less dependent on on-site execution and more on how quickly operators can secure access to constrained supply chains. 

What is emerging is less a reconstruction program and more a competition for access – access to equipment, contractors and logistics capacity. Those that move early will secure capacity and shorten timelines, while others may face delays that extend well beyond the physical scope of damage. The pace of recovery will therefore be defined less by the scale of impact and more by access to constrained supply chains. 

Via Remix News,

In a new poll from YouGov, the Alternative for Germany (AfD0 party jumped to 27 percent, now four points ahead of the rival Christian Democrats (CDU), in a sign that the AfD continues to distance itself as the most popular party in Germany.

AfD co-leader Alice Weidel was quick to publish the poll results on X, writing:

“4 percentage points ahead of the Union, 4 out of 5 citizens dissatisfied with Merz: We no longer have time for undemocratic firewalls. The political turnaround must happen now.”

4 Prozentpunkte Abstand zur Union, 4 von 5 Bürgern unzufrieden mit Merz: Wir haben keine Zeit mehr für undemokratische Brandmauern. Die politische Wende muß jetzt erfolgen. pic.twitter.com/rWe3sm04RU

— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) April 15, 2026

The governing parties that make up the federal government are seeing their fortunes quickly fall.

The CDU/CSU fell by three percentage points to 23 percent, which was the lowest figure measured by YouGov since December 2021.

The SPD figure is at 13 percent, which fell one point from 14 percent.

Meanwhile, the Greens and the Left each gained one point, jumping to 14 percent and 10 percent respectively.

According to the poll, more and more Germans are dissatisfied, totaling 79 percent, with the work of the federal government led by Friedrich Merz. In comparison, in June 2025, this value was only at 55 percent.

Most threatening for Merz, CDU voters are increasingly turning on his government, with only 34 percent saying they are satisfied, falling from 48 percent in March.

Other polls have shown AfD at the top, but with a narrower margin, averaging between 25 and 26 percent of the vote.

Despite the AfD leading, the CDU has vowed to never form a coalition with the party.

If the AfD’s values hold into the next national election, it may become increasingly difficult to form a coalition without the party’s support.

Read more here…

Russia and Ukraine have continued trading blows on key oil and energy sites, with the latest being a drone attack targeting Russia’s Tuapse Oil refinery, which unleashed a fire so large it can be picked up by satellites in space.

The refinery is owned by Rosneft and has suffered major attack before, in a March 2025 Ukrainian operation. Local authorities have declared a state of emergency, after schools and residential buildings suffered damage, and all classes have been canceled.

According to the Amsterdam-based Moscow Times, “NASA satellite imagery on Thursday showed a plume of smoke extending around 200 kilometers (125 miles) into the Black Sea from Tuapse, which is located 80 kilometers (50 miles) northwest of the resort city of Sochi.”

Krasnodar region Governor Venyamin Kondratyev confirmed that a woman and a teenage girl were killed in the attack on the northeastern Black Sea port town, with several more injured.

Russia’s Defense Ministry announced the military had downed 207 drones overnight across multiple regions – listing off Belgorod, Kursk, Bryansk and the Krasnodar region, and the Black and Azov seas.

This is a somewhat ‘normal’ night in the now more than 4-year long brutal war. These daily and nightly cross-border attacks have largely slipped from mainstream headline coverage, however, given their frequency – to the point of being ‘routine’ (a grim reality).

Often even when refineries or major infrastructure is hit in either country, the event barely gets coverage in Western media at this point.

The ongoing Russian aerial assault of Ukraine continues to be more deadly. Ukrainian officials say that overnight attacks there killed 14 people in the capital area as well as Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Newer footage recorded by Russian civilians shows the size of the fires at the Rosneft Tuapse oil refinery. pic.twitter.com/dmhyvbVQZ4

— Combat Footage (@Comba8Footage) April 16, 2026

At least 700 drones and missiles were launched by Moscow forces overnight, which is a significant and high figure, even after all these years of aerial bombardment.

Currently the globe’s attention is largely focused on the Iran war and the Hormuz Strait blockade, and with that efforts to reach a political and peace settlement in Ukraine have faded as well.

Via Remix News,

A 19-year-old Afghan national has been arrested and charged following a series of brutal sexual attacks on goats and sheep in Pennes-Mirabeau, a municipality in Bouches-du-Rhône, near Marseille.

The suspect was taken into custody by the anti-crime brigade (BAC) on the night of April 9-10, 2026, after local sheep and goat owners alerted police.

Since early 2026, several owners had discovered their animals injured, with incidents reported in both February and March.

The animals had their legs tied and showed clear signs of rape, according to French newspaper La Provence.

After multiple similar episodes, the owners installed motion-sensor cameras on their properties in an attempt to identify the perpetrator.

The footage revealed the silhouette of a young man visiting their livestock at night, and the images were handed over to police, who were eventually able to identify a matching suspect.

The man appeared before a judge on Saturday, April 11, who ordered his placement in pre-trial detention. He was set to appear in court on Monday, April 13.

He faces up to three years in prison and a €45,000 fine for acts of cruelty toward domesticated animals.

The case has drawn the attention of the Animal Protection Association (SPA), which announced it would pursue civil action in the matter.

“[We] are going to take this barbarian to court,” the SPA declared.

“Thank you to the national police for their essential intervention.”

Previous cases

Last year in Germany, a shocking case has emerged from the beautiful town of Oberneufnach in Bavaria, which involved a 52-year-old Turkish asylum seeker allegedly breaking into a stable and sexually abusing ponies.

The man, who is from a refugee shelter in the nearby town of Anhofen, was arrested after he was caught on surveillance video.

The man broke into the horse farm at 6:45 p.m. while the family was having dinner. They heard the dog barking and then looked on surveillance monitors, where they saw the man in the stable with his pants down on top of one of the animals.

The boyfriend then ran to the stables to chase down the man, but he had already fled the scene. He continued his pursuit of the suspect though and eventually caught him. Police arrived and placed the man under arrest.

In 2023, a 27-year-old suspect was arrested after he was caught on a surveillance camera raping a pony at a stable south of Hamburg. The 18-year-old pony, which is named “Carrie,” was abused by the man at 1 a.m., with footage showing the man calmly walking onto the property and starting to attack the defenseless animal.

Steffi B. released the footage to German newspaper Bild, which posted stills of the perpetrator on its web publication.

The attack happened in Birkenmoor, which is in Harburg, just a few kilometers from the Hamburg city center.

Even the petting zoo at the park has not been safe. In 2017, a Syrian migrant raped a pony there in front of children.

“My babysitter was out with our son in Görlitzer Park. They witnessed the man sexually assault the pony,” one woman told Berliner Morgenpost at the time.

The babysitter took a photo of the man as he raped the pony and provided it to police. The migrant was banned from the petting zoo in response, but it is unclear if he was ever charged by police.

Read more here…

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

As of April 2026, the US and Israel are still at war with Iran. The war began on February 28 with surprise bombings that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other high-ranking officials. Since then, attacks on infrastructure have continued, leading to significant disruptions in essential services and escalating tensions in the region. Iran has attacked targets in Gulf nations and tightened its grip on the Strait of Hormuz as a result.

The conflict has damaged the economy around the world, driving inflation and supply chain disruption fears.

The war is often considered a way to protect Israel, the Gulf nations, and, ultimately, the US against a brutal, theocratic dictatorship that was looking to build nuclear weapons and was the main financier of terrorism in the world.

However, there is a common libertarian question: Do libertarian ideas support sending troops to other countries to stop tyranny?

Ludwig von Mises, writing during the fight against Nazi Germany, supported quick military action.

In Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Absolute State and Total War (1944), Mises stated that etatism, socialism, and autarky lead to absolute state control, which always leads to violence. Nazism was not an anomaly but the inevitable outcome of such policies, and compromise was unachievable.

Mises said Nazism was not only a German problem but also a threat to Western civilisations. The reader may observe strong parallels between the Iranian regime and its political and terrorist links to other totalitarian regimes, as well as its “death to America” and “annihilation of Israel” policies and its expansionist intentions toward Sunni nations.

Mises believed that if Nazism were not destroyed, the result would be total totalitarianism, reducing people to “slaves in a Nazi-run society” where the individual is rightless.

“The reality of Nazism faces everybody else with an alternative: they must smash Nazism or renounce their self-determination, i.e., their freedom and their very existence as human beings.” “If they yield, they will be slaves in a Nazi-dominated world.” Mises called on the Allies to “fight desperately until the Nazi power is completely broken.”

Mises was clearly against neutrality, saying, “In the current situation, neutrality is the same as supporting Nazism,” highlighting that a decisive victory or the ultimate defeat of Nazism were the only ways to bring back peace and liberal order.

People could only begin to construct a free society subsequent to “the total destruction of Nazism.”. We can argue that Mises believed that the government had a role in protecting civilisation from totalitarianism.

In 2026, a Mises follower would say that the Iranian regime’s theocratic totalitarianism, which includes spreading its influence and power globally, silencing dissent, fighting proxy wars, and looking for nuclear weapons to destroy Israel, is similar to Nazi etatism.

The free world might use strikes to destroy the Iranian regime’s military power and leadership in order to protect itself and avoid a larger war in the region or globally. If everyone had worked together to stop Hitler sooner, World War II might not have happened. Today, using strong force against Tehran could potentially stop a nuclear holocaust, Shiite terrorism, totalitarian expansion, or the massacre of Iranian civilian protesters.

However, Murray Rothbard disagreed with this rationale. He thought that all wars fought by the government were wrong, regardless of who they were against. Rothbard wrote about the non-aggression principle (NAP) in his articles “War, Peace, and the State” and in his bigger libertarian theory of conflict. Violence, he said, is acceptable solely for the protection of individuals from specific criminals, rather than against innocent individuals or through governmental coercion. “It is acceptable to use violence against criminals to protect one’s rights to life and property; however, it is completely unacceptable to infringe upon the rights of innocent individuals.”

Rothbard said that countries can’t fight just wars because they get their money through taxes and their military forces through conscription. He also reminded us that modern weapons are so deadly that they always kill civilians. Even a “defensive” war against tyranny gives the country that becomes involved more power at home. “War is the health of the state.” “True freedom from tyranny must come from the oppressed rising up against their oppressors, not from outside forces that only put a new ruler in place.” Rothbard would probably call U.S.-Israeli strikes “aggressive state expansion” in Iran, no matter how authoritarian the government was. He could argue that wars in the Middle East never seem to end to support his claim that foreign “liberation” always leads to more oppression at home.

There are important additional elements of debate.

The protests in Iran in 2025 and 2026 showed that it was almost impossible to obtain rid of the government from the inside, as evidenced by the government’s strong response to dissent and the lack of effective opposition movements that could challenge its authority. In late December 2025, protests about the economy quickly turned into calls for regime change all over the country. Security forces killed tens of thousands of people in January 2026. The government cut off the internet for the whole country, arrested over 50,000 citizens, tortured and made thousands disappear, and accelerated executions. This brutal suppression, one of the bloodiest crackdowns in modern history, may create doubts about Rothbard’s point. When a totalitarian regime has complete control over its security forces and is willing to kill its people, peaceful or even armed internal revolution becomes virtually impossible. If the regime has expansionary policies and finances terrorism and totalitarian regimes elsewhere, it may even be more problematic, as such actions can lead to increased international instability and the potential for external conflicts that distract from internal dissent.

This division of ideas exemplifies the fundamental libertarian just war theory.

The non-aggression principle (NAP) takes the old ideas of just war—just cause, right aim, last resort, proportionality, and discrimination and improves them. You can only attack people who are a real aggressive threat.

Both views may be relevant in the Iran war, and opinions may change depending on one’s personal perception of the threat posed by the Iranian regime.

Mises’ realism may be used to highlight the regime’s aggression, threats to Israel and America, and use of terrorism and proxy militias to justify strikes aiming at the lowest possible count of civilian casualties. Critics, following Rothbard, may say that the campaign goes against just war principles because it uses state force.

Is the Iran regime a global and national security threat or just another autocracy like so many others that exist in the world? The difference in perceptions about the war is likely to come down to this question. Consider whether you believe the actions of the Iran regime, both inside and outside the nation, pose a global threat or are irrelevant. I believe we can all agree that the Iranian regime has significant differences with other dictatorships. It is undeniable that the Iranian regime has a policy of annihilating Israel, states that “death to America is not a slogan but a policy,” and is involved in terrorist activities and the financing of dictatorships from Latin America to Lebanon. The question, then, is what actions should be taken in response? The answer will come down to each person’s view of the extent of the global threat that the Iranian regime supposes.

The war in Iran is sparking numerous debates among libertarians, demonstrating that libertarianism is not a cult that imposes unified thought. What matters, ultimately, is that independence of thought and free will remain as core principles of the debate.

The U.S. Navy has quietly equipped one of its Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with a previously unseen launcher, reflecting a broader effort to counter the growing threat posed by drones in contested maritime environments, according to TWZ.

USS Carl M. Launcher mounted on Levin (DDG 120) (U.S. Navy, VIRIN: 260329-M-FP389-1205)

A U.S. Marine Corps photograph released April 8, taken March 29 at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, shows the USS Carl M. Levin fitted with the system on its aft upper deck. The multi-cell launcher, positioned between the port-side torpedo tubes and the aft Mk 41 Vertical Launch System, was not visible in imagery of the ship as recently as December 2025, TWZ reported.

A Japanese-language defense blog first noted the addition on social media, prompting speculation that it may be designed for counter-unmanned aerial systems missions.

USS Carl M. Levin (DDG 120) got a new Hellfire/JAGM launcher improving C-UAS capability.

はてなブログに投稿しました
米海軍DDGへのC-UAS用Hellfire/JAGM発射機搭載 – OSINFO https://t.co/R8hyf4B6L6#はてなブログ

— おるか (@hone_hone_bone_) April 8, 2026

Similar launcher configurations appeared last year aboard the USS Bainbridge and USS Winston S. Churchill for Raytheon’s Coyote counter-drone interceptors, which have been used to engage low-cost aerial threats in the Red Sea and other regions, according to TWZ.

It remains unclear whether the system installed on the Levin is intended to deploy interceptors, loitering munitions, decoys or a combination of capabilities. Navy officials did not respond to requests for comment from TWZ.

The upgrade comes as President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. Navy to impose a naval blockade on Iranian ports beginning April 13. The operation, launched after the collapse of weekend talks in Islamabad, is aimed at interdicting maritime traffic to and from Iran, including along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman, in an effort to increase economic pressure on Tehran. The blockade, applied across vessels of all nations, has contributed to volatility in global oil markets, with prices rising above $100 a barrel.

In the first 24 hours of the blockade, under direction from U.S. Central Command, no vessels succeeded in breaching the cordon, according to the Pentagon. Six merchant ships complied with instructions from U.S. forces and turned back to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman. More than 10,000 U.S. sailors, Marines and airmen, supported by more than a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft, are involved in the operation.

More than 10,000 U.S. Sailors, Marines, and Airmen along with over a dozen warships and dozens of aircraft are executing the mission to blockade ships entering and departing Iranian ports. During the first 24 hours, no ships made it past the U.S. blockade and 6 merchant vessels… pic.twitter.com/dpWAAknzQp

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) April 14, 2026

Trump has warned Iranian military ships against interfering with the blockade.

“Iran’s Navy is laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated – 158 ships. What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships,’ because we did not consider them much of a threat,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED.”

By Julianne Geiger of OilPrice.com

India’s central bank has told state-run oil refiners to stop buying dollars in the spot market and instead use a government-backed credit line.

That matters because oil is priced in dollars, and refiners are some of the biggest buyers of dollars in the country. When they all go into the market at once to pay for crude, it puts direct pressure on the rupee. That pressure has been building for weeks.

The Reserve Bank of India is now stepping in to manage the demand.

State refiners, including Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, and Bharat Petroleum Corporation, have been asked to draw dollars through a special credit facility routed via State Bank of India. Together, these companies account for about half of India’s 5.2 million barrels per day of refining capacity.

Instead of going into the open market to buy dollars on the spot—meaning immediate purchase at current exchange rates—they can either access this credit line or buy dollars at a reference rate set by the central bank—potentially adding costs to India’s oil refiners.

The goal is simple: reduce visible demand for dollars in the market.

India’s currency has been under pressure. The rupee has fallen more than 3% this year and hit a record low past 95 per dollar in March, driven by higher oil prices and foreign capital outflows. Oil imports are a major factor. India imports the bulk of its crude, and every cargo requires dollar payments.

By centralizing those flows through SBI and shifting demand off the spot market, the RBI is trying to smooth out volatility and limit sharp moves in the currency.

The measures have been in place for about two weeks. Traders say activity from oil companies in the spot market has already slowed.

The move follows additional direction from India’s government in February, which asked refiners to consider buying more crude oil cargoes from the US and Venezuela, steering clear of Russian crude.

The central bank has also sold dollars from its reserves and tightened rules around certain currency trades. The rupee has since recovered about 2%, last trading near 93.20 per dollar.

For now, the strategy is focused on managing dollar demand at the source: oil imports

Widespread reports on Thursday say the very last US military convoy has finally departed Syrian territory, with the years-long occupation of the primarily northeast oil and gas rich sector over in a ‘mission accomplished’ fashion.

It brings to a final close the 14-year long bloody proxy war which overthrew the Assad government and ultimately installed a pro-US/Saudi axis puppet, in the person of founding Syrian Al Qaeda Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, now known as President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

via Le Monde

Hundreds of thousand of people lost their lives in the regime change war, with the country and its economy left in a sanction-starved and conflict-demolished state of ruins.

The US-backed Syrian Foreign Ministry declared Washington had decided to “complete its military mission” in the country. “The Syrian state is today fully capable of leading counter-terrorism efforts from within, in co-operation with the international community,” it said, happy to now be back in control of the domestic oil and gas supply.

The ministry “welcomes the completed handover of military sites where United States forces were previously present in Syria to the Syrian government,” adding that “the handover of these sites was carried out … in full coordination between the Syrian and American governments.”

While Pentagon propaganda had for years touted an ‘anti-ISIS’ mission, the real purpose of the troop presence was to cut off Damascus under Assad of its sovereign natural resources, and to arm and prop up a Kurdish-Arab coalition called the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). 

All the while, the CIA supported Sunni hardline jihadists who were indistinguishable from ISIS in their ideology in the fight against the Syrian Army, and the civilian population which often largely supported the secular Ba’ath government. The broader strategy has long been to destroy the Tehran-Baghdad-Hezbollah ‘Shia axis’ – even if that meant using ISIS as a tool of regime change.

Ironically, in the process of this US handover of oil and gas facilities back to post-Assad Damascus, the Kurds were thrown under the bus. Their dream for an autonomous enclave (Rojava) once again proved illusory, and in the long term the Kurds will find themselves at the mercy of Sunni fanatics on the one hand, and Turkish state under Erdogan on the other.

The United States did not withdraw from Syria. The United States privatized Syria. The man President Trump installed as the sovereign face of the Hormuz bypass architecture was on the Specially Designated Global Terrorist list with a ten million dollar American bounty on his head… pic.twitter.com/mhmX7g2x6p

— Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ (@shanaka86) April 16, 2026

Following the US withdrawal, Jolani regime troops moved into Qasrak Base in Hasakah Governorate in north-eastern Syria on Thursday. Earlier, in February, the US exited the Shaddadi in eastern Syria and Al-Tanf on the Syria–Jordan–Iraq border.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed the completion of the process for “turning over all of our major bases in Syria.” But it also said US forces “continue to support partner-led counter-terrorism efforts.”

* * *

Repositioning troops related to ongoing anti-Iran operations…

It seems that the US has ended its ground presence in Syria, which lasted for 12 years.

The last convoy has just rolled out of the Qasrak base in northeastern Syria and is now moving toward Jordan.

We all know what that means. pic.twitter.com/kUlk0r5zsf

— Chay Bowes (@BowesChay) April 16, 2026

Authored by Richard Porter via RealClearPolitics,

Artificial intelligence has taken the wired world by storm, but the backlash came almost as fast. Progressives complain of job losses, environmentalists question the ecological impacts of huge data centers, and local activists are clamoring for assurances that household utility bills won’t skyrocket because of the centers’ voracious electricity requirements. Others simply worry that the technology will overwhelm humans’ ability to control it.

At least in part, these reactions stem from the overselling of AI.

AI is super cool, but it’s not superhuman nor is it super intelligent. AI is simply very fast processing of vast amounts of data.

Intelligence, knowledge, understanding and wisdom are all different concepts; the distinction between them elucidates the scope and limits of both human and electronic “intelligence.”

Intelligence is the ability to process information into an internally coherent framework that’s useful and adds or detracts from knowledge to the extent it is more or less accurate. Knowledge is the accumulation of information organized into coherent frames or models that help us understand. Understanding is awareness of the significance, purpose, or meaning of accumulated knowledge.

And wisdom is judgment seasoned by experience and the awareness that intelligence, knowledge, and understanding are limited, inherently flawed, and useful only to the extent they advance a worthwhile purpose.

Nearly 2,500 years ago, the Oracle of Delphi reportedly declared that no man was wiser than Socrates. Socrates claimed to be stunned by this because he was keenly aware of how much he didn’t know. But after talking to others widely acclaimed to be knowledgeable, such as the leading politicians, poets, philosophers, and artisans of his day, he discerned this Delphic wisdom: Those claiming knowledge were ignorant of their own ignorance, whereas Socrates knew he knew nothing.

For this insight, Socrates was put to death for impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens, thereby proving for all time both the foolishness of his accusers’ certainty and the wisdom of Socratic questioning.

This bears repeating today, as we enter the Age of Artificial Intelligence: it’s wise to question the “intelligence” of machines, the “knowledge” they propagate, and our understanding of the significance and limits of the technology.

AI models are amazing and useful despite being incomprehensible to most of us, but AI is not infallible. AI will expand human knowledge and understanding of the world only if and to the extent that human users are encouraged to question AI results, processes, and functions.

People make mistakes, as do the people making and training the machines. Still, people tend to trust machines more than people, especially with respect to processing information that’s harder to process. For example, tennis players have more faith in electronic line calls over human line calls, although that faith in the new technology has been shaken by errors, such as when ball marks are inconsistent with the electronic line calls.

As AI use spreads, people will increasingly rely on AI and trust its results for routine tasks (like Google searches), while most people remain more skeptical of AI results for more complex tasks and do not trust AI to act to handle certain tasks for its users without human intervention.

It’s wise to question AI’s results; errors are common even in routine searches.

Examples of AI errors, hallucinations and political bias are rife. A Northwestern University business school professor of my acquaintance recently asked ChatGPT for advice evaluating investment alternatives. ChatGPT recommended he invest in a particular fund and described in detail that fund’s returns, risks, and assets. When the professor went to invest in ChatGPT’s recommended fund, he discovered the fund did not actually exist; ChatGPT made it all up (a phenomenon commonly referred to as “AI hallucination”). 

Indeed, AI can screw up even mundane tasks: In my research for this piece, a Google AI summary ascribed quotes to Socrates that are not supported by any historical record.

Artificial intelligence – like human intelligence – is prone to error and is not always reliable, but that’s to be expected, especially in a fledgling technology. AI is artificial intelligence, not artificial knowledge, understanding, or wisdom.  AI is a processor, a very fast processor, that organizes and distills information – and organized information is easier to evaluate and use by humans than vast amounts of unorganized information.

Properly understood, AI supplements and does not replace human intelligence, knowledge, or understanding; plus, the limitations and faults within these amazing models remind us that human intelligence is limited, too. Human intelligence imperfectly organizes the imperfect data to which a human has access and frames data in a subjective, not an objective, manner.

Many of us expect the machines that humans make to have “better” intelligence than the intelligence of its human creators – more objective, more comprehensive, more insightful. This is a naïve hope. In one sense, it is “better.” AI organizes more information faster than humans can. But who do they think programmed the thing? Every AI model is regurgitating imperfect information collected, created, and input by imperfect, subjective human beings.

What to make of all this?

First, perhaps the math nerds creating AI are mistakenly training machines to handle information processing on human topics as if human topics are math problems with a specific answer.  Perhaps instead, machines should be trained to suggest questions to consider instead of answers to accept with respect to human inquiries relating to politics, economics, psychology, child rearing, crop science – the full range of arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Second, people training these machines should be explicit about the biases and perspectives being built into how the AI organizes, sorts, and frames information. (My own bias on this topic is that I believe American AI companies should be building AI with quintessentially American framing.) 

Third, AI creators should consider the political, regulatory, and legal risks of “overselling” what AI is and what it can do. For example, should AI creators anticipate a duty to warn users of shortcomings with AI’s results and/or disclaimers of warranties?

Fourth, AI creators need to consider improving the quality of data upon which the systems are being trained, recognizing that many online data sources intentionally mislead to advance political agendas. Perfectly “unbiased” information is impossible to obtain, but some information is more accurate and less biased than other information; trainers should exercise better judgement about data.

The creation of AI large language models is an incredible feat of engineering. It’s quite useful, and will soon be essential, but it is still a product of human invention. As such, we need to recognize that AI is ultimately just the latest, greatest – but still imperfect – implement invented and used by homo sapiens to make life better for homo sapiens.

Richard Porter is a member of the Board of Directors of the Alfa Institute, a platform for ideas, policy proposals and new technology integration pertaining to artificial intelligence

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