[PJMedia] As Tucker Carlson, the worthy recipient of StopAntisemitism’s 2025 “Antisemite of the Year” award, sucks up public attention, I want to recognize the non-Jews whose words and actions this year defended Jews and Israel.
The List — details at the link:
President Donald Trump
British author Douglas Murray
Victor Davis Hanson
…whose cancer surgery went well, we learnt yesterday (thank you, Mercutio!)
Mentioned briefly also Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee
Hugh Hewitt
Sen. John Fetterman
We pay attention to the very loud nasty, vicious, and evil voices in our midst, but sometimes it’s important to take note of how many more mostly quiet good, kind, and generous voices there are.
What Mercutio posted in comments yesterday:
Please find an update from my dear friend and colleague, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson. He remains in our prayers:
"I wanted to share a brief health update. I recently underwent surgery to remove a cancerous tumor and am now recovering. I’m doing well and…
AIPAC is 100% funded by patriotic American citizens who see the value of a strong alliance with the only democracy in the Middle East. They're deluded, but Jew-haters always are. In the Book of Genesis it literally says those who support Israel are blessed while those who oppose her are cursed.
These people are cursed, sadly. Lost souls. Victims of demagogues, Qatari funding of loud voices, and today, AI slop. We should pity them. May they find the path to righteousness, because they didn't start out like this.
Pathetic. Are there as many as a full dozen of them, including the person filming the video? No interest from passers-by, no interest from the AIPAC building, no interest from the police or other authorities. Are they all that’s left after Nick Fuentes’ huge audience of groypers was outed as almost entirely paid commenters from abroad?
Posted by: Jairong+Scourge+of+the+Gepids2435 ||
01/05/2026 00:00 ||
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[JNS] Tucker Carlson is a master of disingenuousness, to put it generously. That’s why the only viewers still charmed by his trademark deer-in-the-headlights act are those on the right who champion the conspiracy theorists and antisemites to whom he regularly provides a platform.
Some of his interviewees are overt Jew-haters; others covert ones who pretend that their only beef is with "Israeli policy." You know, just like a huge swath of the Democratic Party that they loathe.
Tucker’s neat trick, no longer so tidy, is to react to critics—fellow supporters of President Donald Trump with a whole different take on foreign policy—by engaging in not-so-plausible deniability where his true feelings about Jews and the Jewish state are concerned. One method is to refer to the Tribe as "neocons."
Never mind that the isolationists in the MAGA camp purposely abuse the term or are willfully ignorant about its origin. Neoconservatism was the name given to a movement of liberal intellectuals who opposed the tenets of the New Left—the "woke" of the 1960s and ’70s—and shifted allegiance to the Republican Party.
Ironically, they were the "Make America Great Again" crowd of that period, and instrumental in Ronald Reagan’s 1980 victory over Jimmy Carter. Many, but by no means all, were Jews.
That defeating one’s enemies has become a dirty concept for the likes of Tucker and his echo chamber—who use the failures of Iraq and Afghanistan to accuse backers of U.S. intervention in the Middle East of "war-mongering"—is suspicious, to say the least.
It’s one thing to conclude that spreading democracy among Islamist regimes is problematic, if not impossible. It’s something else entirely to attribute the mistake to "neocon" trigger-happiness. Unless, of course, the aim is to blame Israel for "dragging" the United States into battles on behalf of the Jews.
Posted by: Jairong+Scourge+of+the+Gepids2435 ||
01/05/2026 00:00 ||
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#1
Mark Levin is sort of the Mel Kuiper Jr of politics for me. He may be right but I am still turning the channel. Some people can watch Levin and Hannity have a discussion. I couldn't do that unless I was duct taped to a chair.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/05/2026 6:03 Comments ||
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#2
Hannity has always tried to make himself into the next Rush Limbaugh, a task that he is simply incapable of doing.
Hannity doesn't have the brain power, nor the class.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
01/05/2026 8:28 Comments ||
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[YouTube] It's amazing how much damage that man did in a single term.
The History Guy: On January 2, 1980, the era of detent ended and the "forever war " began. And nothing has been the same since.
#1
For many years I considered him to be the worst president. I learned more history and gained more respect for the terribleness of a Woodrow Wilson and FDR. Then Obama- Biden happened. At least he is still top 5.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
01/05/2026 5:58 Comments ||
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#2
They still have a long way to go to be worse than Jefferson Davis. True, he was only president of part, so you can scale the badness accordingly.
Posted by: James the lesser ||
01/05/2026 22:11 Comments ||
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A useful perspective — I hadn’t thought of any of this.
[Jpost] While Venezuela was not an Iranian proxy in the Syrian or Hezbollah mold, it functioned as an enabler, providing funds that helped sustain Iran’s proxies.
For Israel, the significance of Washington’s weekend arrest of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and his wife goes well beyond the shiver it likely sent down spines in Tehran.
Yes, the spectacle of a US-led operation removing a defiant anti-American autocrat will inevitably sharpen anxieties among Iran’s leaders about their own vulnerabilities, especially at a time when protests are roiling the country.
But further meaning is found elsewhere, in the dismantling of yet another supporting pillar in the global network Iran painstakingly constructed to finance, shield, and sustain its war against Israel. Venezuela was never an Iranian proxy in the way Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, or Bashar al-Assad’s Syria were.
Caracas was not directly under Tehran’s thumb and operational command, nor did it host Iranian forces on the scale seen in the Middle East. Yet, through Hezbollah, Venezuela became something no less important to the ayatollahs – a critical offshore hub that generated cash, laundered funds, moved operatives, and enabled Iran to project power far from the Mideast.
Maduro’s arrest comes on the heels of a series of blows to Iran’s regional position. Israel battered Hamas in Gaza, decapitated Hezbollah in Lebanon, and degraded Houthi capabilities in Yemen. Also, Assad's regime fell in Syria. Taken together, these developments illustrate Iran’s declining power.
Tehran’s problem today is not restricted to the protests in the streets or the pummeling it absorbed in June, but also the unraveling of far-flung support systems it spent years and billions of dollars putting together abroad.
Investigations by US law enforcement agencies and think tanks such as the Atlantic Council over the last few years have shown that Hezbollah did not operate in Venezuela as a dormant terror cell awaiting activation; rather, it functioned as a crime-terror enterprise intermeshed in the Venezuelan economy and protected by the government.
'GLOBAL GOALS'
Hezbollah trafficked cocaine from Venezuela, laundered money, transferred weapons, and helped the Islamic Republic evade US sanctions. Already in 2018, the US Justice Department concluded that Hezbollah rivaled the major Latin American cartels in scale and sophistication. But there was one glaring difference: Revenue generated in South America did not stay there; it was sent to Lebanon, where it helped pay for the terrorist organization’s military buildup.
Beyond being a reliable source of income for Hezbollah – Iran’s senior proxy – Venezuela offered something else as well: a protected air and maritime bridge linking Tehran, Damascus, and Caracas. This allowed the transfer of Iranian personnel, dual-use goods, fuel, and cash. In other words, Venezuela under actively helped Iran pursue its global goals.
While Venezuela was not an Iranian proxy in the Syrian or Hezbollah mold, it functioned as an enabler, providing funds that helped sustain Iran’s proxies. In that sense, it was very much part of Iran’s world.
Just how much a part of that world became clearer on Sunday when Vice President Delcy Rodríguez said in a television address that the US attack had “Zionist undertones.”This claim of “Zionist” involvement was not evidence of Israeli involvement; it was, however, evidence of how closely the regime identified itself with Iran’s worldview. It was a claim aimed both inward and outward.
Inward, it was aimed at supporters of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, who turned Israel into an imperialist villain, steeped in traditional antisemitic tropes, with which to rally supporters. Outward, it was directed at the region, where anti-Zionist messaging has long served as a convenient rallying cry, since Latin America’s political culture still contains reflexive sympathy for anti-American narratives into which Israel is often effortlessly folded.
Rodríguez brought up Israel not because it was involved in the US operation, but because it fit Theran’s ideological template adopted by Venezuela: domestic failures explained through foreign conspiracy, with “Zionism” serving as the all-purpose, go-to scapegoat.
The arrest of Maduro is significant for Israel because it removes yet another important piece from the puzzle that Iran has been putting together for years. Not a piece of the puzzle within striking distance of Israel, but one that played an important supporting role for those who are within that striking distance.
Israel’s struggle with Iran over the years has been about nuclear capability, ballistic missiles, and deterrence. Less attention has been paid to the quieter contest over access, financing, and safe havens.
Venezuela was part of that quieter front – never decisive on its own, but valuable to Iran precisely because it was distant and often overlooked. If, with Maduro’s arrest, Venezuela is removed from Tehran’s orbit, then the Islamic Republic’s options will narrow further, and this precisely at a time when it is coming under considerable strain from within.
'PIECE BY PIECE'
Venezuela’s next step – what it will become – is uncertain. But what seems certain is that after this US intervention, the days when it provided Iran with a protected foothold in the Western Hemisphere are quickly coming to a close. And for Israel, that is reason enough to smile.
But words in a recent interview from Venezuela’s most prominent opposition figure, Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado, give Israel an even greater reason to grin. She has been explicit in describing Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas as foreign forces that penetrated Venezuela under Maduro’s rule. In her telling, Venezuela was not merely misgoverned; it was commandeered by external actors whose interests ran directly counter to those of a sovereign country.
She accompanied that framework with warm words toward Israel, rarely heard from Caracas in decades. Asked in a November Israel Hayom interview directly whether a post-Maduro Venezuela would restore relations with Israel and move its embassy to Jerusalem, Machado replied: “Certainly. Venezuela will be Israel’s closest ally in Latin America.” She said that cooperation with Israel would be part of the broader Venezuelan struggle against the “crime and terror” that had characterized the country under Maduro.
For Israel, those words matter less because they guarantee policy outcomes and more because they mark a conceptual break with the worldview that has defined Venezuela since Chávez severed ties with Jerusalem in 2009. Under Chávez and Maduro, hostility toward Israel was a badge of ideological belonging to an anti-American, anti-Western camp aligned with Tehran. Machado’s language signals a rejection of that framework altogether.
For years, Iran sought to demonstrate that its reach was global and its options limitless. Today, the picture looks different. Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen – and now Venezuela – tell a story not of expansion, but of contraction.
Maduro’s fall does not overhaul Israel’s strategic reality overnight, nor does it end the war
Israel is fighting against Iran’s proxies. But it does represent another incremental setback in Iran’s global posture – a reminder that Iran’s power was built patiently, piece by piece, and is now being dismantled the same way.
Posted by: Skidmark ||
01/05/2026 09:09 ||
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#1
How do you knock down a brick wall?
One brick at a time.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
01/05/2026 16:22 Comments ||
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#2
In the coming days we'll find out if Maduro was a figurehead or not.
[YouTube] President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela was taken to New York City on Saturday to face federal drug charges, hours after the U.S. military seized him and his wife, Cilia Flores, in a strike on Caracas.
David E. Sanger, our national security correspondent, describes the implications of President Trump’s decision to attack and his declaration that the U.S. planned to “run” Venezuela. The country’s interim leader has demanded Maduro’s return.
#1
It's a bit more complex and far-reaching than crude oil. The US has plenty of oil without tapping Venezuelan resources. Nick Maduro and wife Cilia are timely keys to the involvement and intentions of Russian, China, and their proxies Cuba and Iran in Latin America. As in the game of chess, gaining and maintaining control of the center of the board is a winning strategy. Understanding the previous strategies of an opponent is also crucial. Lastly and as always, history can teach us a thing or two.
AI Summary
To understand Cuba's involvement in Angola, consider the following points:
Cuba supported Angola during its civil war (1975-1991), sending troops and military advisors.
The Cuban intervention aimed to counteract South African forces and support the MPLA government.
Cuban troops played a crucial role in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in the late 1980s.
The involvement solidified Cuba's influence in Africa and showcased its commitment to anti-imperialist struggles.
After the war, Cuba continued to provide medical and educational assistance to Angola.
The relationship between Cuba and Angola remains strong, with ongoing cooperation in various sectors.
The migration, whatever the method, of the Maduro's to the US represents a critical turning point for the region and one which should be applauded. Nothing good has taken place in Southern Africa since Cuban involvement. Nothing good was bound to happen in the US Southern Command. Just my penny farthing's worth.
President Trump has warned that if authorities in Venezuela fail to cooperate, the United States would carry out a second strike on Venezuela, noting that any decision to deploy ground troops there would depend on how the situation develops and how Venezuela responds.
He's also meanwhile said the idea of launching an operation involving Colombia "sounds good" to him in comments Sunday, describing the country as being in serious trouble and claiming it is currently led by "a sick man" - and even suggested he won't remain long in power.
From a DDG search (AI answer):
"President Trump has predicted that Cuba is "ready to fall" due to its reliance on Venezuelan oil, which has been cut off following the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro. This situation has created an existential crisis for Cuba, as it faces economic collapse without its primary source of income."
Lots of article about this, mostly echoing the above statement.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Mark Leshkevich
[REGNUM] One hundred years ago, on January 4, 1926, a decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (VTsIK) signed by Mikhail Kalinin was published:
"To form the Far Eastern Territory, with its center in the city of Khabarovsk, from the provinces of Zabaikalskaya, Amurskaya, Primorskaya (including the northern part of Sakhalin Island), and Kamchatka."
Behind the bureaucratic document signed by the future all-Union elder lies an important fact.
The decree confirmed that in 1926, Moscow had finally consolidated its authority over the area from Dauria to the Bering Strait. Following the Russian Civil War, the Pacific coast remained part of our country, not becoming a sphere of influence for neighboring powers. And our neighbors had always retained this opportunity to acquire the resources of the Far East.
Perhaps the only country that, with the expectation of staying put for the long haul, managed to seriously organize an intervention in Russia, which was torn apart by civil war, was the Japanese Empire. Tokyo saw both an interest and an opportunity to recoup losses from the Russo-Japanese War (at the end of which, the empire "only" gained southern Sakhalin) and to profit from the continent.
In April 1918, Japanese and British forces landed in the port of Vladivostok "for the protection of subjects and property." More precisely, the Japanese, along with a small number of British, landed.
By the end of the year, there were 73,000 Japanese and 9,000 Americans stationed in Primorye and the Amur region. Add to this the 55,000 Czechoslovaks, but they were less subjects than instruments in the hands of serious players.
Britain and other interested parties were more preoccupied with affairs in other parts of the disintegrating empire - in the Transcaucasus, in the South and North of Russia, in Siberia.
"OUR FRIENDS ARE THE JAPANESE"
The Entente (which included Japan) de jure recognized the authority of Admiral Kolchak's Omsk government over the Far East. But de facto, Tokyo worked with its own proxy forces, primarily the army of Ataman Grigory Semyonov, who had a more than tenuous relationship with the admiral and considered Transbaikal to be his fiefdom.
The occupation was carried out with all due formality. A document survives, according to which Vladivostok and the surrounding areas were placed "under the temporary protection of the Allied Powers" for protection from "Austro-German spies" (remember, World War I was still ongoing), while Russian authorities were permitted to act "within the limits of local affairs." Japan acted as the Allied Power.
Thus, Emperor Yoshihito's loyal subjects presented their Mikado with gold, coal, timber, and fish from the Far East, as well as warehouses, railway junctions, and an ocean port for transporting these riches. The Japanese army also occupied the potentially valuable northern Sakhalin, where Russian engineers had been searching for oil reserves since the late 19th century.
The memorandum of the Japanese government of December 16, 1920 is indicative:
On the subordination of the fisheries in the lower reaches of the Amur, in the Amur estuary, to the Japanese administration and on the inclusion of the fisheries of Northern Sakhalin in the jurisdiction of Southern Sakhalin (the Japanese prefecture of Karafuto).
The figures for the economic effect are also given there: in 1918–1920, Japanese fishermen annually received products in Russian waters worth an average of 24.6 million yen—12.3 million dollars at the time (or 197.4 million dollars in 2025).
For settlements on Russian territory, banknotes for 30 million yen were printed with the inscriptions in Russian: “Imperial Japanese Government” and “1 Iyen in Japanese currency.”
Kolchak's generals could only publicly express "deep concern" about what the Japanese were doing in Primorye, as well as Semyonov in "his" Transbaikalia and Amur Region.
“Do our Japanese friends really follow the motto ‘divide et impera’ (divide and rule)?” the head of the Omsk military ministry, General Alexei Budberg, was indignant.
Behind the scenes, other conversations were taking place. Kolchak's Prime Minister, Pyotr Vologodsky, recorded the officers' mood in his diary: "It would be better to cede to Japan what she is seeking—Sakhalin, Kamchatka, fishing, the East China Road."
DEMOCRACY NAMED AFTER LENIN
However, while Hara Takashi's cabinet was calculating the benefits of fishing in Russian waters in Tokyo in 1920, significant changes were taking place in Siberia.
In January, the Red Army, having broken Kolchak's front, captured Western Siberia, while the Whites retreated eastward. In February, the supreme ruler Kolchak and his last prime minister, Viktor Pepeliaev, were executed in Irkutsk by order of the local revolutionary committee (acting on direct orders from Vladimir Lenin ).
By March 1920, the territories along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Lake Baikal were under Red Army control. This, however, did not mean the collapse of "White" or "Green" resistance. But a large-scale clash of armies was no longer on the cards. Transbaikalia, the Amur region, and the Far East were a different matter.
Ataman Semyonov's troops remained a viable fighting force. They could, moreover, always retreat to Mongolia or Manchuria and advance again in Transbaikalia and Dauria. It was not for nothing that the lands occupied by Semyonov were called the "Chita Cork."
Primorye had its own unique atmosphere: a coalition "zemstvo" government, including Bolsheviks, ruled in Vladivostok until the spring of 1920. Meanwhile, the White Far Eastern Army, composed of Semyonov's Cossacks and the remnants of Kappel 's Kolchak army, stood along the Ussuri railway. And all this was in the presence of a thousands-strong Japanese contingent.
Under these circumstances, Moscow adopted a plan that was later considered one of Lenin's brilliant decisions. Although in fact, the idea was proposed by experts in the region: Ivan Smirnov, chairman of the Siberian Revolutionary Committee, nicknamed the "Siberian Lenin" (executed in 1936 as a member of the left opposition), and Alexander Krasnoshchyokov, an international socialist figure and Trotsky associate who had lived in the Far East (executed in 1937).
They proposed creating a "buffer"—a Far Eastern republic dependent on the RSFSR, but de jure "bourgeois," with a parliament, a multi-party system, and the proclamation of rights and freedoms. The creation of a democratic, independent state was approved by a decision of the Central Committee of the RCP(b), and a special Far Eastern Bureau (Dalburo) of the party was created to oversee it.
Krasnoshchyokov carried the project on his shoulders, as Lenin noted, “it was almost he who organized everything.”
In April 1920, the Far Eastern Republic was officially proclaimed at a congress of workers and partisans in Verkhneudinsk, now Ulan-Ude. After the Semyonovites were driven out of Chita, the capital moved there.
Krasnoshchyokov became chairman of the government (the government in the Far Eastern Republic was something like a collective president), head of the executive branch—the Council of Ministers—and minister of foreign affairs. People's commissars in the Far Eastern Republic were called ministers, in the old-fashioned way.
In general, the republic was unique. The Bolsheviks in the People's Assembly formally shared legislative power with the Socialist Revolutionaries, the "minority peasant faction" (in Soviet Russia, these were called kulaks), and even the Cadets.
The Far Eastern Republic's economy resembled the New Economic Policy (NEP), which would only be introduced in the RSFSR in 1921. The food tax system was replaced by barter, and then by traditional taxation.
The flag of the republic—red with a blue square in the corner—resembled the flag of the Chinese Kuomintang.
The commanders of the People's Revolutionary Army (PRA) of the Far Eastern Republic, appointed by the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR, were renowned Red Army commanders— Genrikh Eikhe and later Vasily Blyukher. The PRA successfully defeated the White rebels and Semyonov's Cossacks.
At the same time, in July 1920, the republic conducted negotiations with the Japanese general Yui Mitsue at the Gongota station in Transbaikalia, in which the “Russian Eastern Borderland,” that is, the same Semyonov and his “government,” almost became a third party.
The White-Red reconciliation never came to fruition. However, under the Japanese-Far Eastern Gongotō Accords, the Far Eastern Republic pledged that "the buffer state will not make communism the foundation of its social system," declared that it would not allow the Red Army into its territory, and guaranteed "the personal inviolability of Japanese citizens and respect for their rights within its sphere of influence."
In fact, the Japanese, not without difficulty, acknowledged that neither they nor their protégés Semyonovites could any longer hold Transbaikalia by military means, and they curtailed their presence there.
TERRORIST TRYAPITSYN AND DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER LAZO
Overall, the "buffer" did help avoid a frontal clash between the Reds and the Japanese. Perhaps the only "unpleasant" incident was the Nikolaev Incident and the story of Sergei Lazo —the same man who, according to a popular Soviet-era version, was burned in a locomotive firebox by "Japanese White Guards" (!)
The two incidents are connected, but in a strange way.
In January 1920, the port town of Nikolaevsk-on-Amur, where two detachments were stationed—a Japanese force of 350 bayonets and a White Guard force of 300—besieged a 3,000-strong "conditionally Red" detachment led by anarchist Yakov Tryapitsyn. This detachment would later also be conditionally subordinated to the NRA FER. The partisans slaughtered the Whites, expropriated the property of the "bourgeoisie," and maintained neutrality with the Japanese until March.
After some conflict (it was believed that the garrison commander, Major Ishikawa, started it), 700 Japanese were killed and a hundred were taken hostage. When it became known in May that the Japanese were sending an expedition to Nikolaevsk, Yakov Tryapitsyn ordered the prisoners killed and the city destroyed.
In July 1920, 27-year-old Tryapitsyn—by then already commander of the Okhotsk Front of the People's Republic of Armenia—was captured and convicted, essentially lynched, by the surviving Russian residents of Nikolayev. Japan benefited: to prevent similar incidents, the imperial government deployed troops to northern Sakhalin.
The Left Socialist Revolutionary and later Bolshevik Sergei Lazo, unlike the anarchist Tryapitsyn, was an intelligent man – from the Bessarabian nobility.
He had a knack for speaking beautifully. When, in the winter of 1920, the leftist coalition overthrew Kolchak's viceroy, General Sergei Rozanov, in Vladivostok, Lazo propagandized the officers from the ensign school on Russky Island, addressing them with the following words:
"No, we didn't sell our Russian souls to foreign taverns, we didn't exchange them for foreign gold and guns... We will fight with our lives for our Motherland against foreign invasion" (by foreigners, he meant the Japanese). The propaganda worked.
In the coalition Zemstvo Council that seized power in Primorye, Lazo was, by our standards, a vice-premier, and he insisted that the Far Eastern Republic should be organized not in Verkhneudinsk, but here, in Vladivostok, on the basis of the Primorsky Provisional Government.
But the politician Lazo suffered as a result of the Nikolaevsk incident, which he had nothing to do with. Nevertheless, the Japanese arrested the Bolshevik and handed him over from "pluralistic" Vladivostok to the White Cossacks. They apparently executed him. The story of his burning in a locomotive is most likely a legend: squeezing a body into a hole measuring 64 x 45 cm is problematic.
THE JAPANESE LIKE THE "BLACK BUFFER"
In the spring of 1921, when the Red Army soldiers in European Russia were finishing suppressing the Tambov Uprising, a constitution was adopted in the Far Eastern Republic at the instigation of Comrade Krasnoshchyokov, mentioning the separation of powers and a multi-party system.
However, it appears that the Japanese were no longer satisfied with coexistence with the "semi-Soviet" republic (which, moreover, enjoyed weak support in Primorye). In May 1921, the occupiers did not object when the Whites overthrew the "pink" Zemstvo Council in Vladivostok.
The penultimate White government in the former Russian Empire was established, although in Moscow it was dubbed the "black buffer." The regime was led by brothers Nikolai and Spiridon Merkulov, a first-guild merchant and lawyer. The average Soviet reader knew about them from Yulian Semyonov's book "No Password Needed," the second episode in the Isaev-Stirlitz epic.
Less well known is the background against which these upheavals took place.
In August 1921, negotiations between the Far Eastern Republic and the Empire of Japan began in the city of Dairen (the Japanese name for the port of Dalny, captured during the Russo-Japanese War; today it's Dalian, China). The issue at hand was nothing less than the withdrawal of Japanese troops from Primorye, the Nikolaevsk-on-Amur region, and northern Sakhalin. The negotiations were sluggish: the Japanese demanded that the Far Eastern Republic destroy all military fortifications on the border with Korea (a Japanese colony at the time) and near Vladivostok and scuttle what remained of the Pacific Fleet.
But the very idea of raising the troop withdrawal was no accident. The interests of the United States were behind it.
NEGOTIATIONS WITHOUT A TRUCE
The fact is that the much larger Washington Conference was taking place simultaneously with Dairen (a delegation from the Far Eastern Republic also attended, but was not admitted). In Washington, the Western powers, led by the United States and Britain, declared their goal: to curb Japan's appetites in East Asia.
At the same time, the Americans tried to prevent the renewal of the Anglo-Japanese alliance and, in general, to prevent British hegemony in the Pacific Ocean and the Far East.
The situation was reminiscent of the Russo-Japanese War and the peace concluded at Portsmouth, America. London was encouraging Japan to turn against Russia, while the United States acted as a restraining force, seeking to prevent the strengthening of Britain and Japan. Moreover, the British dominion of Canada was on the Americans' side.
In the Russian Primorye region, the interests of Japan and the United States clearly did not coincide, and the Far Eastern Republic (or rather, Moscow, which stands behind it) tried to play on these contradictions.
At the height of the Dairen and Washington negotiations, the Japanese played their trump card in bargaining with the Far Eastern Republic.
On November 30, 1921, the most combat-ready White units in Primorye—the Kappelites—launched an offensive northward. In December, the White Army captured Khabarovsk. The Far Eastern Republic's forces, predominantly partisans, retreated beyond the Amur River.
On December 12, the Japanese delegation in Dairen broke off negotiations, awaiting the outcome of two events: the White offensive in the Amur region and the results of the Washington Conference.
But on December 27–28, 1921, in a battle near In Station, NRA units halted the White advance, and the hopes for an anti-Bolshevik uprising in the Amur region failed to materialize. The war entered a positional phase—as had the Dairen and Washington negotiations.
And then events happened that turned the tables.
The last major battle of the Civil War, February 5–14, 1922, near Volochayevka, ended in the rout of the White rebels. Khabarovsk was recaptured, and the NRA slowly but surely began to suppress the Whites in Primorye.
And on February 6, agreements were signed in Washington, according to which Japan really did (as it later turned out, temporarily) moderate its appetites both in terms of naval development and in terms of expansion in Manchuria and China.
In the Far East, the situation was replayed on the battlefield: it was becoming clear that the Far East would not be a sphere of influence for either Japan or the United States (which clearly had no intention of a large-scale intervention overseas), but would belong to Russia. More precisely, to Soviet Russia.
THE LAST OF THE WHITES
In July 1922, while Moscow's representatives were meeting at the Hague Conference with delegates from Great Britain, Italy, and Japan, and preparations for the proclamation of the USSR were underway in Moscow itself, another coup occurred in Vladivostok.
General Mikhail Diterikhs, one of Kolchak's ministers of war and a staunch monarchist, overthrew the Merkulov brothers and was proclaimed voivode of the Amur Zemstvo region. The line "they dispersed the voivodes" in the Red Army song "Across the Valleys and Hills" refers specifically to him. The remnants of the White armies were united into the Zemstvo Host.
At the same time, the governor approved and financed the desperate idea of 30-year-old General Anatoly Pepelyaev, the younger brother of the executed Kolchak minister, to set out on a naval expedition to the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk and raise uprisings among the Tungus and Yakuts.
The last romantic attempt to continue the struggle for a united and indivisible Russia was doomed. Dieterichs's Zemstvo army, alas, was just such a tool in the hands of the Japanese.
The Reds, pursuing pragmatic goals in the name of the triumph of the "world revolution," unwittingly acted as the gatherers of Russian lands. A new era was dawning: on October 12, 1922, the State Bank of the USSR was established, and on October 29, the Tupolev Design Bureau was founded. Between these events came Japan's decision to withdraw its contingent from Vladivostok (October 23) and the NRA's entry into this "White Guard stronghold."
General Pepeliaev's "Siberian Volunteer Squad," which had landed far to the north, did indeed continue the war in what is now Khabarovsk Krai and Yakutia, but it was a dying battle. On June 19, 1923, Pepeliaev and the remnants of his unit surrendered to the Red Army soldiers of Janis Strod. The civil war in the USSR ended.
Former General Pepeliaev was shot in 1938, later the "president" of the Far Eastern Republic Krasnoshchekov, the commander-in-chief of the People's Republic of Armenia Ieronim Uborevich, who took Vladivostok, and the Latvian rifleman Strod (all repressed in 1937).
In the same year, 1938, as the White General Pepeliaev, the Red Marshal Vasily Blucher was also shot.
Of all the main heroes of the Civil War in the Far East, only Heinrich Eikhe, the first commander-in-chief of the People's Republic of Latvia (NRA), was "lucky." In 1938, he was arrested as a Latvian counterrevolutionary, endured NKVD imprisonment in Lefortovo, and exile in the Far North. After serving 16 years in the camps, he was one of the first to be rehabilitated in 1954 and died in 1968 in Jurmala.
The Far Eastern Republic was abolished "as unnecessary" as early as November 1922. But the intervention lasted longer than the Civil War. Despite Soviet demands, the Japanese did not withdraw from Northern Sakhalin, exporting oil (up to 25,000 tons over five years) and furs.
International bargaining continued until the spring of 1925, with Moscow's favor being played by the discontent of some Japanese political circles—maintaining the occupation contingent was expensive.
But here, too, the Soviet side succeeded in exploiting Japanese-American tensions. Washington exerted pressure on its then-less-powerful competitor, and the Japanese agreed to a compromise: the withdrawal of troops from the Soviet part of Sakhalin in exchange for maintaining an oil production concession there. Fuel from the Okha field was shipped to Japan, including during World War II, until 1944.
But northern Sakhalin was ours, which was confirmed by its inclusion in the Far Eastern Territory on January 4, 1926.
[Rudaw] Around 6,500 people from the Kurdistan Region migrated abroad in 2025, with at least 11 losing their lives during dangerous journeys, a local refugee association said on Thursday.
"In 2025, around 6,500 people migrated from the Kurdistan Region, and 11 people bit the dust along the way," Abubakar Ali, head of the Association of Returned Refugees (ARR), told Rudaw, adding that "migration is a human phenomenon that exists worldwide."
Ali also addressed the situation of migrants colonists detained along migration routes, noting that "hundreds were imprisoned; some have since been released, while others remain in detention in Libya, Tunisia, and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions... member, but not the most reliable... He highlighted the Raparin administration in Sulaimani province as one of the hardest-hit areas.
"About 1,500 people migrated from the Raparin region," Ali said, adding that six of the 11 victims were from the area, followed by Garmyian and Zakho in Sulaimani and Duhok provinces, respectively.
Providing further details, Pishdar district Mayor Bakr Bayiz said migration from the Raparin administration rose sharply in mid-2025.
"Last year, more than 1,500 people from the Raparin area attempted to migrate," he told Rudaw on Thursday. He noted that youth migration surged starting in June, particularly in July, before declining toward the end of the year.
Bayiz attributed the decline to seasonal conditions and tighter regulations. "Migration decreases during the cold season because staying in forests and remote areas becomes difficult, and routes become more dangerous," he said. "In addition, countries have tightened their legal procedures for accepting refugees. These factors have all contributed to the decline."
The mayor said Raparin experiences higher migration attempts than any other area in the Kurdistan Region. "There is hardly a household where one or two sons have not attempted to migrate," he said.
Bayiz also warned of the growing involvement of minors. "The desire to migrate has reached a point where even youths as young as 15 are attempting to go abroad," he said.
The Kurdistan Region has witnessed repeated waves of youth emigration over the past decade, largely driven by economic hardship and the pursuit of better opportunities abroad.
Officials and civil society organizations have repeatedly warned about the growing migration trend, citing high unemployment and limited economic prospects as the primary drivers.
In late October, Iraq repatriated 40 Kurds from the Kurdistan Region who had been stranded in Libya while attempting to reach Europe. Ahmed al-Sahaf, chargé d’affaires at Iraq’s diplomatic mission in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , told Rudaw at the time that Iraqi authorities had facilitated the return of 122 Kurds from Libya since late December 2023.
The Libya—Italia route has become increasingly popular among young people from Raparin seeking to reach Europe, as stricter controls have made the Turkey—Greece crossing less viable.
The journey typically takes around eight hours, compared to up to 72 hours via Greece, but can cost as much as $17,000 per person, much of it paid to militias controlling Libya’s coastline, according to Bakr Ali, head of the Association of Returned Refugees.
[IsraelAlma] About a year after the consolidation of the new regime in Damascus, Syria continues to grapple with profound internal instability, reflecting an ongoing failure of the authorities to enforce order, ensure civilian security, and rebuild trust between the state and the diverse communities that comprise it. A series of security incidents at the end of December—including a severe terrorist attack in Homs, a suicide bombing in Aleppo, a renewed outbreak of tensions with the Alawite population in the coastal cities, and an escalation of clashes between the regime and Kurdish forces in Aleppo and the country’s northeast—are not isolated events, but rather a symptom of a fragile political and security structure.
On Friday, December 26, 2025, a terrorist attack took place at the “Ali ibn Abi Talib” Mosque in the Wadi al-Dhahab neighborhood of the city of Homs. Several explosive devices planted inside the mosque detonated during Friday prayers, killing at least eight worshippers and wounding more than 18 others. Syrian authorities described the incident as a deliberate terrorist attack against civilians and a place of worship, aimed at undermining the fabric of shared life in the city and creating an atmosphere of fear and instability.
A radical Sunni jihadist organization calling itself “Saraya Ahl al-Sunna” (also known as “Saraya Ansar al-Sunna”) claimed responsibility for the attack. The group focuses on targeting religious sites and sensitive civilian locations with the aim of fueling sectarian tensions. In its statement, the organization asserted that the attack was carried out using several explosive devices with the assistance of an additional, unidentified party, and made clear its intention to continue its activities. The group was also involved in the attack on the Mar Elias Church in the Dweilaa neighborhood of Damascus in June 2025, in which dozens of civilians were killed.
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Posted by: badanov ||
01/05/2026 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
...a 
