On August 7, Abelardo de la Espriella — the winner of the Colombian presidential election — will assume the country’s highest office. This marks a shift away from the policies of former leftist guerrilla Gustavo Petro, who had strained relations with Washington over the past few years and moved closer to the Havana-Caracas axis.
Abelardo de la Espriella is a figure comparable to Donald Trump. He is a Colombian lawyer, businessman, and politician born on July 31, 1979, in Bogotá. He grew up in Montería — a city in the department of Córdoba, in northern Colombia — where his father ran for governor in 1997.
In 2002, he founded his firm, De La Espriella Abogados, with offices in Colombia and the United States. A litigator, the 47-year-old ran for the Colombian presidency, finishing first in the initial round of voting.
His political stance aligns with what Argentine political scientist Agustín Laje has termed the “New Right,” combining social conservatism with support for free-market economics. This made him a source of genuine dread for the Colombian Left.
That dread regarding the change — specifically the change feared by the Left represented by “Petrismo” — is now becoming a reality.
David Cote, a representative for Bogotá for the 2026-2030 term and a member of the Democratic Center (Centro Democrático) party, is certain there will be shifts in foreign policy.
“President Abelardo de la Espriella has been unequivocal in stating that he does not wish to maintain close relations with governments viewed as dictatorships, such as Cuba and Nicaragua,” Cote emphasized. “In the case of Venezuela, the analysis is more complex due to geopolitical, economic, and border-related factors. Relations with that country will also be influenced by the international context and the stance of strategic allies like the United States.”
However, according to the legislator, the general stance expressed by the president-elect is one of “defending democracy, fundamental freedoms, and human rights. In this regard, a much more critical stance toward authoritarian regimes is to be expected compared to that seen under previous governments.”
On the domestic front, the new president has pledged to combat the criminal and paramilitary structures linked to drug trafficking — structures whose ultimate destination is, to a large extent, the United States.
In a recent speech, he stated that the city of Medellín would host the “headquarters of the ‘Shield of the Americas’ — the agreement we are going to sign with the United States to fight crime and drug trafficking.”
The incoming leader asserted that the city was chosen because, in his view, “here in Medellín lies the head of the serpent of drug trafficking and organized crime,” maintaining that “most orders for the rest of the country originate” from that zone and its metropolitan area.
The “Shield of the Americas,” it will be recalled, is an initiative promoted by the administration of President Donald Trump — alongside various right-wing Latin American governments — to strengthen regional cooperation in the fight against narcotics trafficking and transnational organized crime.
Like Cote, de la Espriella advocates for bolstering security forces and implementing stricter controls regarding riots or violent blockades — tactics favored by the Colombian Left to halt the work of governments they oppose. Furthermore, the leader champions the family, the right to life, and religious freedom.
In short, this represents a 180-degree turn — one that will not please the opposition, which has become increasingly radicalized regarding gender policies, indigenismo (indigenous ideology movements), liberation theology, and statism. Yet, this is good news for Colombia’s relations with its neighbors, as well as for the prosperity and security of its upstanding citizens.
Yoe Suárez is The Washington Stand’s international affairs correspondent. He is an exiled journalist, writer, and producer who investigated in Havana about torture, political police, gangs, government black lists, and cybersurveillance. A graduate of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, he was a CBN correspondent, and has written for outlets like The Hill and Newsweek. He has appeared on Vox, Univision, and Deutsche Welle as an analyst on Cuba, security, and U.S. foreign policy.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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European intelligence agencies have discovered and disrupted Hamas terror operations in more than half a dozen countries since October 7, revealing that the terror group under siege in Gaza is still willing to export their murderous vendetta against Jews and Americans to other countries, even other continents.
Islamist terror in Europe gained fresh notoriety after Abdul Ballout, a German citizen with Lebanese heritage, attacked a Berlin Pride festival over the weekend with a van, then a machete, killing one woman and injuring 29 people. “Everything we see here points to us dealing with an Islamic terror attack,” said Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt.
But, for all their hatred of gays, radical Islamist extremists hate Jews even more, making Jews the “number one” target on the terrorists’ hit list.
In early June, Greek forces arrested an Egyptian man of Palestinian origin, referred to as “Motasem,” in the Agios Nikolaos resort in Crete. Greek authorities found chemicals, a precision scale, and other bomb-making equipment in Motasem’s apartment in Athens. The arrest came after a tip from police in Cyprus, who had apprehended two Palestinian contacts of Motasem in the Cypriot town of Larnaca.
The Motasem cell, which may have included at least two other Palestinians, was reportedly planning an attack on an Israeli cruise ship scheduled to dock in Greece in June. Motasem apparently learned how to build bombs in Malaysia, after traveling there with a collaborator in 2025.
The Motasem trail also leads north to Germany, as he reportedly lived in Germany for “an extended period.” The cradle of the Protestant Reformation seems to function as a sort of crossroads to threads of radical Islamist terrorism across Europe.
Since October 2025, German authorities have arrested nine men suspected of terrorism, both in Germany and across Europe, in cooperation with other nations, including Austria, Denmark, and Great Britain. They believe that Hamas operatives had smuggled a number of small arms through Germany to store in hidden caches for later terrorist purposes. In London, authorities arrested the son of Hamas official Bassem Naim, who was targeted in Israel’s September 2025 airstrike on Hamas leadership in Qatar.
The alleged size of the smuggled arsenal is paltry by American standards (13 pistols, a single AK-47, and 900 rounds of ammunition), but such armaments go a long way against a disarmed civilian population.
This spring, four Hamas members were sentenced to years in prison in Berlin for establishing weapons caches across Europe. On the phone of one of the terrorists, German authorities found pictures of weapons caches that went all the way back to at least April 2019, shortly after the collapse of ISIS’s territorial hold in eastern Syria.
The search for these small weapons depots led Bulgarian police to discover a buried suitcase containing weapons in a thicket near Plovdiv. Other weapons caches were found in Poland and Denmark. More weapons are believed to be buried somewhere near the Germany-Poland border; German authorities observed Hamas members crossing the border repeatedly with shovels, backpacks, and boots, but they evidently failed to find what they were looking for, and German police eventually stopped them in December 2023.
German police believe that at least some of the Hamas terrorists they apprehended were planning an attack on Jewish, Israeli, or American targets on October 7, 2025, the second anniversary of Hamas’s terror invasion.
Unfortunately, Europe is no stranger to Islamist terrorism. On July 7, 2005, four suicide bombers launched coordinated attacks on the London Underground and a double-decker bus, killing 52 and injuring more than 700. On November 13, 2015, coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris killed 130 people and injured more than 350. These are not an exclusive list, merely the most notable incidents due to their high casualty count.
Nor is Europe a stranger to Islamist terrorism directed against Jews. During the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, eight Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the Olympic Village and attacked Israeli athletes, killing two and taking nine hostage. The hostages all died in a failed rescue operation.
Yet the continued terror operations — at least the ones authorities have successfully unraveled — demonstrate that Islamist terrorists are still seeking to project their asymmetrical power into the heartland of Western nations, both before and after October 7. Even Europe’s shameful abandonment of Israel has not spared them from this Islamist threat. Europe must wake up to the reality that the Islamist world still views itself as locked in a life-or-death civilizational struggle against the West, whether Western nations struggle willingly or not.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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Liliana Castañeda is a tireless Colombian advocate. She has been seen at numerous public hearings addressing the proposed ban on conversion therapies, the “Trans Law,” specialized justice systems with a “gender perspective,” and the creation of the Ministry of Equality.
Alongside pro-life and pro-family activists Evaristo Gutiérrez and Jonathan Silva, she has championed a legislative bill — first introduced in 2023 — that seeks to ban “gender reassignment” treatments for minors.
Although she has been able to present arguments grounded in neuropsychology (a field in which she holds a master’s degree), over time she has also successfully garnered support from universities, lawyers, physicians, and politicians — such as Senator Lorena Ríos.
At the Congress of the Republic, Castañeda serves as a legislative advisor on issues ranging from opposition to the gender agenda to the legalization of recreational cannabis use and assisted suicide. She is a formidable scourge against wokeism. This was clearly demonstrated during her appearances in the documentary “Colombia: Fábrica de Niños Trans” (Colombia: Factory for Trans Children), a film that exposes a macabre industry.
Here is my interview with Liliana.
What is the current landscape regarding gender transition in children in Colombia, as of the premiere of the documentary “Colombia: Fábrica de Niños Trans?”
Unfortunately, we do not have exact figures. In Colombia, the various clinics that have administered medical “gender affirmation” treatments have not made public any detailed information regarding how many minors have undergone these types of procedures.
However, it did come to light — following a judicial inquiry — that the Valle del Lili Foundation reported having administered these treatments to 80 minors nationwide by the year 2025.
You mentioned your involvement in drafting a legislative bill that calls for a ban on “gender reassignment” treatments for children.
Yes. The first time we formally introduced the bill, I developed the entire scientific rationale behind it. Later, I received support from a physician. For three consecutive years now, we have been fighting to ensure that — at the very least — a first debate takes place, yet it has not been possible; the opposition has been very strong.
What we have managed to achieve is to participate in several public hearings. God allowed me to be one of the first people to speak before the Congress of the Republic regarding mental health aspects of these treatments — specifically focusing on neuroscience and neuropsychology — during my first intervention in 2023.
Also present that day was the pediatrician and endocrinologist Mario Angulo, though he was there to advocate for gender “affirmation” treatments for minors. He is the most prominent figure defending that position. On that occasion, we found ourselves facing off with opposing viewpoints right there in the room.
The documentary “Colombia: Fábrica de Niños Trans” — produced by the Mexican YouTuber Samuel Adrián, in which you appear as one of the interviewees — has sent shockwaves through the Colombian public agenda. What are the most significant allegations or revelations it exposes to the general public?
The documentary revealed how the first gender clinic for minors in Colombia — the Valle del Lili Foundation in Cali — was performing gender transition procedures without informed consent and without comprehensive psychological and psychiatric evaluations.
Furthermore, it exposed the fact that they neither investigated the underlying causes that led various children and adolescents to develop gender dysphoria, nor did they adequately treat the associated disorders and traumas.
At the center of the documentary is Laura, the young woman who was the very first case treated by the clinic in question shortly after it opened in 2017.
Yes. While she was still a minor, she was subjected to cross-sex hormone therapy using testosterone, followed by puberty blockers. Later on, once she turned 18, they even managed to convince her to undergo a double mastectomy.
As time went by, Laura realized that the root cause of her gender dysphoria was linked to the sexual abuse she had suffered when she was just five years old. However, the clinic never addressed that trauma, nor did it focus treatment on helping her heal psychologically and come to terms with her biological sex.
Today, at 23, Laura lives with deep regret over the interventions she underwent, and she suffers every day from the physical and emotional consequences they left her with. One of these is that she will never be able to breastfeed.
For all these reasons — including medical malpractice — she filed a lawsuit against the Fundación Valle del Lili clinic.
What have been the most notable repercussions following the release of the documentary?
Most importantly, this week — in the wake of the documentary’s impact — intense public pressure emerged, leading the Valle del Lili Foundation to completely shut down its gender transition unit for minors and to terminate its affiliation with Dr. Mario Angulo.
We celebrate this outcome with profound joy, alongside the millions of Colombians and Latinos who have joined our cause. It has been a deeply significant moment because, after years of fighting to protect children, we are finally seeing the fruits of our efforts. It marks the first time that a halt has been put to medical practices deemed inappropriate for minors.
And on the other side of things, what kind of pressure are the filmmakers currently facing?
Following the premiere on November 26 of last year, the director, Samuel Adrián, came under pressure not to release the documentary.
Dr. Mario Angulo — who treated Laura and dozens of other minors — felt aggrieved by the publication of statements he had recorded for the documentary. In those statements, he himself admitted that the pharmacological treatments administered by the clinic caused sterility and bone-related issues in minors.
For this reason, he filed a legal complaint against Samuel Adrián. Although his initial appeals were rejected on two separate occasions, a judge issued a sanction against Samuel in a third instance, which included a prison sentence and a fine.
Currently, there is an active arrest warrant for Samuel in Colombia, based on the determination that the doctor’s “reputation” and “good name” were violated.
The reputation of the doctor who was rendering minors infertile?
Yoe Suárez is The Washington Stand’s international affairs correspondent. He is an exiled journalist, writer, and producer who investigated in Havana about torture, political police, gangs, government black lists, and cybersurveillance. A graduate of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, he was a CBN correspondent, and has written for outlets like The Hill and Newsweek. He has appeared on Vox, Univision, and Deutsche Welle as an analyst on Cuba, security, and U.S. foreign policy.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing Tuesday seeking a “no-limits” endorsement of his energy ambitions — but left with little more than handshakes and a sharp reminder that even the closest partnerships have strict boundaries. While Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping put on a high-profile show of unity for the international community, the long-anticipated Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline remained bogged down. The project, a $15 billion lifeline to replace Russia’s failed European revenue, saw no signatures or start date. Instead, the Kremlin was forced to scramble in defense of a trip that appears to be an underwhelming fizzle.
The 1,600-mile pipeline would carry over 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, direct from Russian fields to Chinese stovetops. Battered by sanctions following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Russian economy simply needs this deal to go through. Yet China continues to play hardball, demanding “domestic discount prices” of Moscow that have been resisted for half a decade. China has implemented rigid limits on how much energy can be purchased from any single nation, and Russia has reached that threshold, reports suggest.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attempted to soothe questions over the lack of progress, claiming the leaders reached “basic parameters of understanding” pertaining to the pipeline. However, the final 10,000-word joint statement failed to mention PoS-2 by name, instead emphasizing vague promises to “deepen comprehensive relations.”
While Putin fell short of securing his gas deal, President Donald Trump announced that China is now looking toward the West to fill its tanks.
“They’ve agreed they want to buy oil from the United States; they’re going to go to Texas, we’re going to start sending Chinese ships to Texas and to Louisiana and to Alaska,” Trump stated last Thursday. After his own meeting with Xi, Trump remarked on America’s “unlimited energy,” noting that at this date the U.S. out-produces both Saudia Arabia and Russia.
This rhetoric is already becoming reality. Tankers filled with American liquified natural gas are underway from Louisiana toward China and are expected to arrive by mid-June. These represent the first direct shipments of fuel to China in Trump’s second term, indicating a potential shift in global resource patterns that would likely leave Russia out in the cold.
New revelations, in addition to the energy issue, are now casting doubt upon China’s claims of neutrality in the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Reports surfaced Tuesday that approximately 200 Russian troops attended “secret training exercises” in China in late 2025. This training reportedly consisted of drone warfare, specifically laser targeting artillery and the use of electronic weapons to disable enemy drones.
“By training Russian military personnel at [an] operational and tactical level … China is far more directly involved in the war,” several intelligence agencies told Reuters. While Beijing firmly dismisses these claims, photos have been leaked of uniformed Russian soldiers in Chinese military classrooms.
As the “Axis of Tyranny” maintains its rapport, it becomes increasingly clear that Putin may be becoming the overly needy member of the relationship. As China explores various energy options due to regional instability, Xi can now drive a harder bargain than ever before. Although Xi described the relationship as being at a “historic high,” the apparent lack of a gas line deal suggests that, for Beijing at least, friendship only goes as far as the bottom line. If the Russians fail to fulfill the pricing and contract concession Xi has fixed, the pipeline project will fall apart.
“China and Russia are cooperating more closely militarily, economically, and diplomatically, but their interests are not identical,” says Lt. Col (Ret.) Robert Maginnis, senior fellow for National Security at Family Research Council. “China’s leaders are thinking decades ahead. Putin is focused on surviving the current war and preserving his hold on power.”
Maginnis continued, “Russia urgently needs China to offset the collapse of its European energy markets, while Beijing is content to wait, negotiate from a position of strength, and deepen Moscow’s dependence on China’s economy. Xi understands that time is working in Beijing’s favor.” Frankly, he said, “The China-Russia relationship is best understood as a strategic alignment built on shared interests rather than genuine trust.”
Trump’s visit, he notes, “appears to have widened China’s diplomatic room to maneuver, while Putin left Beijing looking more dependent on Xi than ever before.” The bottom line, Maginnis concluded, “is straightforward: China and Russia remain aligned against the United States and the Western-led order, but this is no partnership of equals.” As Maginnis contends, “Russia is increasingly the junior partner.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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In the United Kingdom, municipal and local elections are handing a major victory to the nation’s leading populist, anti-immigration party. Following district council elections Thursday, the reigning left-wing Labour Party has been soundly rejected by local voters, losing a staggering 1,045 council seats and control of 23 councils at the time of this writing. The increasingly unpopular Conservative Party also lost more than 460 council seats. The big winner of the election has been Reform U.K., led by Brexit engineer Nigel Farage, which picked up 1,196 new council seats and now has control over 10 district councils. Previously, Reform only held two council seats.
“What you can see already is there is an historic shift in British politics that is taking place,” Farage said of the election results in a video statement. “I think the best is yet to come. I’m looking forward … to us wiping out Labour in areas they’ve dominated for over a century,” the member of parliament (MP) for Clacton continued. “What we’re beginning to see is that politics is no longer about the old arguments of Right and Left; it’s about people who value patriotic ideas, believe in this country, and want to see things turn around.”
While Reform made significant inroads in locales previously dominated by Labour, including Sunderland, the immigration-control party also made gains in previously Conservative-held territories, such as Newcastle-under-Lyme, Suffolk, and the crucial Essex, which hosts the parliamentary seats of a number of Conservative Party officials, including Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch.
Originally co-founded by Farage as the Brexit Party in 2018, Reform evolved to focus on broader issues following the success of Brexit (the push to withdraw the U.K. from the European Union) in 2019 and 2020. Late in 2020, Farage and then-Reform Leader Richard Tice campaigned heavily against the COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions implemented by Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who resigned in disgrace in 2022 following revelations that he and other Conservative Party elites had violated their own lockdown rules and that Johnson had turned a blind eye to a series of sex scandals within his own party.
Farage positioned Reform as an alternative to the Conservative Party, which he faulted for allowing mass immigration — and, in particular, illegal immigration — despite pledging to curtail immigration. “Is there a Conservative Party? I haven’t spotted it — all I can see is two big social democratic parties,” Farage said in 2024, claiming that there is “no difference” between the immigration policies of either Labour or the Conservatives. Pointing to the more-than-a-decade in power squandered by the Conservatives, he insisted, “They have destroyed themselves.”
Between 2025 and 2026, more than 20 sitting MPs, mostly from the Conservative Party, defected and joined Reform. One of the most prominent was Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary, who was removed from the post after stringent criticism of the Conservative Party’s lax immigration policy and allegations that British police treated right-wing protestors more harshly than Muslim rapists and anti-Israel “mobs.”
Reform’s top policy is immigration control. “Illegal immigration is out of control because politicians choose not to enforce the law, and let foreign courts rob British citizens of a border. A Reform government will stop the boats by immediately leaving the” European Convention on Human Rights and “restoring full control of our borders, intercepting and detaining all illegal arrivals, and deporting them. There will be no loopholes, no delays, and no endless appeals,” the party’s website states. “We will also end Britain being treated as a global welfare system. No more free housing. No more benefits. No more taxpayer-funded incentives for illegal migration. An end to NGOs facilitating illegal migration. Detention and deportation will be the only outcome,” the party’s website continues. “Britain is a welcoming country. But it must be a country with borders, laws, and consequences.”
The party also aims to establish a national border security force “with the legal authority, manpower, and technology to stop illegal entry by land, sea, and air,” and to withdraw from all international treaties and agreements which would impose immigration standards on the U.K. Reform also proposes a five-year plan to identify, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants, including the formation of a U.K. Deportation Command. Another policy plank would eliminate the indefinite leave to remain (ILR) policy implemented under Johnson and the Conservatives, which allowed millions of foreigners on temporary work visas to overstay their visas without consequence and enroll in welfare programs.
Other Reform policies include terminating climate change-related programs and regulations, easing taxes for farmers, reshoring British manufacturing, boosting falling birth rates and providing for British families, significantly cutting foreign aid, and “defend[ing] and protect[ing] British culture and traditions,” including free speech and religious liberty. The Reform website notes that the U.K. “is built upon Christian values. Those will be protected and celebrated.”
In the face of Labour’s stunning defeat, calls have increased for Labour Party Leader and Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign, with many from within his own party anticipating a bloodbath in the next parliamentary election under Starmer’s leadership. The prime minister, however, has refused to step aside, suggesting that his resignation would “plunge the country into chaos,” although he admitted that the election results are “very tough” for Labour. “The voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved,” he said. “I was elected to meet those challenges, and I’m not going to walk away from those challenges…”
Votes for council elections are expected to continue to be counted in the coming days. The U.K.’s next general election, which will determine the makeup of Parliament’s lower chamber, the House of Commons, is scheduled to be held on or before August 15, 2029. Currently, Labour dominates Parliament with 403 seats, followed by the Conservatives with 116 seats. Farage is one of eight Reform members currently in Parliament.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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President Donald Trump’s administration is ramping up global efforts to track and prevent leftist terrorism following the April attempt on his life in Washington, State Department officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The U.S. government now treats left-wing political violence as a global problem requiring a transnational response rather than isolated incidents, according to State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott and two other department officials. The gunman arrested at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in an alleged attempt to kill Trump reflects rising insurrectionist trends from the left that the West must take seriously, the administration believes.
NEW: The @StateDept is moving to designate four European Antifa-affiliated groups as foreign terrorist organizations.
“From the United States to Germany to Spain, left-wing terrorists have targeted democratically elected political leaders in an attempt to undermine the will of the people, destabilize societies, and intimidate members of the public,” Pigott told the DCNF. “The State Department is actively tracking the rise in far-left political violence and is committed to identifying and disrupting terrorist networks that wage terror campaigns in service of a revolutionary political project.”
A State Department official familiar with the operations pointed to several recent incidents to establish the problem: masked attackers beating a German right-wing politician in 2019, an Italian anarchist group mailing a bomb to a defense contractor in 2022, a leftist anarchist caught preparing bombs to kill 50 people in the United Kingdom in 2023 and other cases. Most recently in Europe, French authorities charged alleged adherents of a leftist group with beating a right-wing activist to death in a February brawl.
The European Union found 21 attacks linked to leftist ideology in 2024, rivaling 24 attacks from jihadists, the State Department official noted. The fact that leftist extermists increasingly make common cause with “pro-Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood, and Iranian-aligned groups” makes matters worse for the West, the official said.
Trump’s State Department has pursued greater collaboration with other countries to counter the threat, the official told the DCNF. State Department leaders convened with foreign partners to improve data-sharing with the U.S. and prompted them to use tools similar to the department’s “Rewards for Justice” program to seek information from the public, the official said.
The State Department will also strategize with allies to counter terror networks such as Antifa at a May workshop in the Netherlands and host an international Washington summit on “The Resurgence of Political Terrorism” in July, according to the employee.
“This kind of targeted political violence is not unique to the United States but is a global phenomenon and a preferred tactic of radical far-left and anarchist networks,” a State Department counterterrorism expert said, referring to the D.C. shooting.
“These networks inspire and recruit violent actors to not only intimidate, maim, or kill high-profile individuals but to interrupt supply chains, sabotage critical infrastructure, and otherwise exhaust law enforcement capacity through criminal and terrorist acts,” the analyst said. “Such actions all serve the same purpose: to break down law and order, undermine the foundations of Western societies, and incite insurrection against elected governments.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
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The Trump administration continues to reshape the Middle East, as the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced Tuesday that, after 59 years, it would leave the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), effective May 1. The Wall Street Journal editors assessed the move as “another foreign policy victory for American fossil-fuel energy,” while Fox Business called it “good news for the world in the long run.” The UAE’s decision will certainly have global ramifications, both economic and political; for the U.S., it likely entails a deepening relationship fraught with hazards.
OPEC is an international consortium of oil-exporting nations that sets maximum production quotas for its members in an attempt to limit international supply and thereby keep world oil prices (and therefore oil profits) high. It is, effectively, a cartel of governments instead of businesses — a group of nations that cooperate more or less as an oil-producing monopoly.
OPEC currently boasts five founding members (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela) and seven full members (Algeria, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Nigeria, and the UAE). Ecuador and Indonesia have left the organization multiple times. Qatar withdrew its membership in 2019, and Angola withdrew its membership in 2024.
In 2016, OPEC signed an agreement with 10 other oil-producing nations (Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan, and Sudan) to create what is essentially a larger production cartel known as OPEC+. Together, OPEC and OPEC+ control 59% of the world’s oil supply.
The UAE has long been one of OPEC’s top oil producers, ranking somewhere in the range of second- to fourth-largest producer, depending on various factors. Before Iran shut down Gulf oil traffic on February 28, the UAE was producing some 3.6 million barrels of oil per day, or approximately 3% of the global supply.
Alongside Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s top producer, the UAE also has the most flexibility to increase or slow production, enabling OPEC to manipulate global markets in classic cartel behavior. Thus, the UAE’s decision to exit OPEC deals a significant blow to the organization’s ability to control world oil prices.
Economic Implications
More importantly, the UAE’s decision to leave OPEC will likely lead to a worldwide decline in oil prices, at least in the medium- to long-term. “Having invested heavily in expanding energy production capacity in recent years, the bigger picture is that the UAE has been itching to pump more oil,” reports Capital Economics. Freed from the quotas set by OPEC, the UAE may expand production from 3.6 million barrels per day to at least 5 million barrels per day by 2027, a 40% increase for the country and more than 1% increase for all global oil production.
According to the unchanging principles of supply and demand, an increase in the supply of oil will lead to a corresponding decrease in the price, until the market reaches a new equilibrium. This is also what we would expect when a major producer stops cooperating with a cartel; the result is increased competition in the market, leading to more production and lower prices.
There are two major caveats. First, the two preceding paragraphs assumed that all other factors would remain unchanged when the UAE expands its oil production. Of course, the real world is more dynamic, and other oil producers would likely respond to such a dramatic increase in Emirati supply. Of most relevance, the remaining OPEC nations could agree to cut production further to offset (or partially offset) the UAE’s increased production, in order to maintain roughly the same price for oil.
The incentive for OPEC countries to do so is that some have inefficient oil industries that can only turn a significant profit at higher prices. The disincentive for OPEC countries to do so is that they would cede further market share and produce less oil on which to make a profit. The largest burden for production cuts would likely fall on Saudi Arabia, which would likely look unfavorably on ceding market share to it peninsular rival. Thus, the discomfort of OPEC nations would likely work out to the benefit of the rest of the world, which would then be able to obtain energy at lower prices.
The second caveat concerns the Iran war. Iran’s illegal closure of the Strait of Hormuz cut off approximately 20% of world oil production from global markets, causing a sharp increase in world oil prices. The UAE is able to transport some oil over land to a pipeline terminus on the Gulf of Oman, but its ability to increase capacity is largely nullified while the Strait of Hormuz remains more-or-less closed. Thus, any benefit to world oil prices from an increase in UAE production would only take effect sometime after the conclusion of the Iran war.
Geopolitical Implications
The UAE’s departure from OPEC also has geopolitical implications, as it moves one of the most prosperous Gulf oil states away from a largely anti-American alliance towards a much more America-friendly posture.
Most Americans likely know little about OPEC except that it has often maintained an uneasy relationship with the United States. Most famously, Arab members of OPEC embargoed the U.S. during the 1973 Arab-Israel war, leading to the 1973-74 oil crisis, which featured gas lines, sky-high prices, and a nationwide reduction of speed limits to 55 mph. Having core members like Venezuela, Iraq, and Iran — longtime adversaries of the U.S. — certainly has not helped.
However, the UAE is currently furious with Iran, which has likely informed its decision to withdraw from OPEC. Not only is Iran blockading the bulk of Emirati oil production from reaching markets — both damaging the nation’s budget and undermining the whole premise of OPEC — but Iran has also responded to American bombardment by firing hundreds of missiles and drones at the UAE, causing significant damage in the country that is not part of the war.
When the UAE already believed that OPEC no longer worked in their favor, such major affronts by one of its founding members surely hastened the Emirati exit.
The UAE also has a strained relationship with Saudi Arabia over both its OPEC quota and geopolitical influence. The UAE’s greatest security concern is for reliable food imports, which makes sense given the arid desert in which its burgeoning urban centers sit. To secure its food sources, the UAE has invested some $47 billion in agriculture, ports, and security installations across 12 East African nations.
This campaign of regional influence puts the UAE at odds with Saudi Arabia, particularly in Yemen, where the former allies against the Iran-backed Houthis now back different factions in that nation’s ongoing civil war. The UAE wants a foothold in Yemen to secure its maritime network, while Saudi Arabia views the nation as an important buffer state.
On December 30, 2025, Saudi Arabia launched airstrikes against the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) at the Port of Mukalla, halting the STC’s rapid territorial gains and leading to the group’s total dissolution on January 9, 2026. If, say, the U.K. (or Pakistan) had bombed American tribal allies in Afghanistan in 2003, the U.S. would have been pretty upset, too.
Emirati officials claim that their disagreements with Saudi Arabia were not the reason for their leaving OPEC, but they certainly soured the relationship.
No, the UAE’s best reasons for leaving OPEC is that they felt like they were always getting the short end of the stick. Due to internal instability, numerous other members received exemptions to pump oil beyond their quotas — Libya, Venezuela, and even Iran. Nations like Iraq had no exemption but exceeded their quota anyways. Despite the grace shown toward other members, the UAE lobbied unsuccessfully to win a larger quota for itself, despite heavy investment in expanding its infrastructure.
Meanwhile, OPEC became less relevant as a global cartel as other competitors expanded their own oil production. Most notably, the U.S. increased its oil production from 5.4 million barrels per day in January 2010 to 13.2 million barrels per day in January 2026. Brazil, Canada, and Guyana also increased their oil production, and American oil pioneers are now exploring deposits in Argentina. The UAE wants in on the global trend toward expanded oil production, and the constraints of OPEC held it back. So, it cut itself loose.
The decision continues a reshuffling of geopolitics in the Middle East, which sees the UAE increasingly turn away from its immediate neighbors and toward the United States.
Unlike some other Middle Eastern nations, the UAE’s affinity toward the U.S. also includes an affinity toward Israel. The UAE was one of four Muslim-majority nations to normalize relations with Israel during the first Trump administration’s push for the Abraham Accords. In December 2025, the UAE was revealed to be the undisclosed buyer in a $2.3 billion arms deal with an Israeli manufacturer. This week, further reports revealed that Israel lent the UAE an Iron Dome air defense system and troops to operate it early in the Iran war.
The UAE and Israel have also cooperated on Somaliland, a former British colony that seceded from the rest of Somalia in 1991 and maintains its own autonomous government. Israel became the first nation to recognize Somaliland as an independent country on December 26, 2025, and the UAE helped prepare the first state visit. The UAE maintains a port and military base in Somaliland as part of its footprint to defend its interests in Eastern Africa.
There are limitations to the UAE’s political realignment. Although it is departing OPEC, the UAE remains a member of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), which also includes Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Tunisia. It also remains part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
But the UAE’s departure from OPEC, following seven years after the departure of fellow Gulf oil state Qatar, could induce other cartel members to reconsider their own commitment to the organization and start a domino-like chain reaction. “If the U.A.E. exit is a portent, the OPEC cartel may eventually break up on its own under the weight of competition,” said The Wall Street Journal editors.
While the UAE’s departure from OPEC is a positive development in that it likely increases American influence, American policy makers should also remember to handle the relationship with care. For all of its friendship toward the U.S. and Israel and opposition to political Islam, the UAE is no model Western nation. It maintains apostasy and blasphemy laws, both of which it has enforced in the past 10 years, as Family Research Council has documented.
The UAE is also not above sponsoring ruthless separatist groups when it believes they serve its interests. For instance, in the ongoing Sudanese civil war, the UAE provided support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a separatist militia that committed atrocities last year during the sack of El Fasher.
Thus, just because the UAE is migrating toward the U.S. does not mean it has become a good actor. It remains exactly the sort of nation you would expect to find ruled by oil-rich Muslim sheiks on the Persian Gulf. Yet there are both political and economic benefits to the U.S. from its decision to depart OPEC. Most immediately, once the war concludes, the increased competition (and likely volume) of global oil production should result in lower oil prices worldwide.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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“I saw scenes that would have brought any other human being to their knees.” — General practitioner, Tehran
When the missiles started raining down on Iran Saturday, there was a sense of urgency for people to get to safety, yes, but there was also another overriding emotion for many: relief. The show of force by the U.S. and Israel was the violent answer to countless prayers offered up since January, when leaders massacred thousands of innocents to stop the wave of anti-regime protests gripping the country. Most of the nation had started to worry that the bloodbath would go unpunished by the world. They were wrong.
No one will ever know the true depth of suffering the country endured under the cover of Iran’s communications blackout, but the testimonies that have started to emerge from the brave men and women on the ground are starting to put the horrifying pieces of those weeks together — pieces, some say, of “one of the worst mass killings in contemporary world history.”
Worried that no one would believe the nightmare unfolding across Iran’s provinces earlier this year, a medical worker in Rasht risked his life to smuggle information out of the country and to The New York Times. After working four days in the trauma center, he went home and “instead of sleeping, he began compiling 11 gigabytes of X-rays, CT scans, and medical records, later sending them to us on an encrypted messaging app,” Roxana Saberi and Fatemeh write in their sobering piece. “They want to sweep it under the rug,” he cautioned them.
When the regime cut off the internet, covering their crimes in a blanket of darkness, most of the world had no idea the true scale of evil that had been unleashed on the Iranian people in the bloody crackdown that followed, the Times notes. “But the doctors and nurses did.”
In a powerful collection of eye-witness accounts from hospitals and emergency rooms across 14 cities, a common theme of horror emerges — one that makes this past weekend’s attacks feel like the justice Iran has been waiting for.
One by one, the doctors talked about the “extreme distress, including nightmares, flashbacks, grief, anger, and anxiety” they’d experienced from the grisly scenes they can’t unsee. Some confess they’ve become suicidal. “As a doctor,” one said, “I could not come to terms with the fact that so many warlike injuries were inflicted on my own people on the streets of my own city.”
The same pain echoed across the medical landscape. “Our hospital is a small facility,” a general practitioner from Isfahan described. “We had never had trauma patients before. We were not prepared to handle this number of injured people. Handle them? Even the cleaning staff could not collect the blood from the hospital floor — it was that much. I was walking through blood. I still smell blood in my nose.”
The inability to keep up with the savagery was a common theme. “The hospital corridors were full of bloodied people. All the hallways and walls were covered in blood,” a medical worker from Shiraz remembers. “I saw exposure of the brain and abdominal organs, amputation and dismemberment, multiple knife and machete blows, pellet wounds, and bullet entry and exit sites.” The number of injured was so high, others pointed out, that they tried calling every doctor and nurse they knew to come help, but it was no use. “About 15 minutes later, the phones were cut off. There were almost no orderlies or assistants, no IV fluids, no IV starter packs, and no IV poles. No one expected this volume, and it took a long time until supplies were made available,” a trauma doctor lamented.
The sheer number of patients — “from a nine-year-old child to a 70-year-old man” — a nurse from the Tehran province said, was overwhelming. “A single eye surgeon might perform 10 major surgeries like this in their entire career,” an ophthalmologist told the reporters, “but we performed thousands of surgeries of this kind. Another issue was the severity of the injuries — mostly intended to blind. We had many cases involving both eyes.” One man was beaten so severely that his eyes had come out of their sockets.
An ER doctor grieved the number of patients who died just because the phones were cut off. “We had no access to surgical or anesthesia support.” And they continued to be shocked by the waves of gruesome injuries flooding their hallways. “A shotgun is for hunting animals — it has logic in that context. It is not an anti-riot weapon. And even if it were, it would be for shooting at the legs, not the face and head,” an ophthalmologist insisted. “I saw shots to the head and neck, shots from behind, shots to the genitals, injuries from being shot from about one meter away, and severe stab wound injuries,” one nurse from Tehran recounted. “Many people had their arms or legs amputated, many suffered spinal cord injuries or paralysis, many also went blind.”
These were the kinds of wounds that one surgical worker said they would have expected to witness “in a face-to-face war with a foreign enemy — not during domestic protests.” The memories that replay in their minds are of the hundreds of children who died agonizing deaths. “A breastfeeding mother was holding her baby when security forces opened fire on their car,” a doctor from South Tehran told Saberi and Jamalpour. “They arrived at the hospital in that same vehicle, riddled with bullets. The bullet passed through the baby’s hand and into the mother’s chest.”
There was a pattern, others shudder, of children being shot in the head — a fact that Tehran’s hospital workers confirmed. “The number of children killed by sniper fire or heavy machine gun fire was high,” a doctor in the province said sorrowfully. “These scenes replay in front of my mind maybe eight or nine times a day, and I see them all, both when I’m awake and when I sleep,” a Rasht staffer admits.
“I feel like it was a nightmare or a dream,” one ER doctor agonized. “The worst scene was keeping the bodies in one room. Hours later, their mobile phones would ring, and we would cry outside the room.”
But it wasn’t as if the hospitals and trauma centers were safe. “Many of the doctors and nurses told us they went to great lengths to prevent the Iranian authorities from identifying their patients as protesters — for example, by falsifying their medical records, erasing security camera footage or treating them in private homes. They were worried their patients could be abducted or even killed,” the reporters explained. “Doing so put the medical workers themselves in danger. Many reported that they or their co-workers had been threatened, interrogated or summoned to appear before the authorities. Several said they had colleagues who had been detained.”
Some got threatening texts from anonymous numbers they didn’t recognize. In Shiraz, medical staff said later, “Several plainclothes agents in the emergency department were threatening to kill the injured and the doctors.” One was arrested after talking to the Times, his family informed the outlet.
It was very clear that “security forces were trying to identify the wounded,” an anonymous source in Rasht said. “For those who had a bank card or any form of identification, they would take a photo of it and write down the information in the notebook. For those who had no ID, they would photograph their faces with a professional camera, likely to use later to arrest them.” Eventually, people just vanished. “I witnessed bodies disappearing at the hospital,” one general practitioner reported.
Together, all of these doctors and nurses broke their silence and risked their lives to plead for one thing — help. “They are asking the world not to look away.”
Fortunately for Iran, the Trump administration did not. Finally, the haunting images and stories these people carry with them from these terror-filled weeks and years are being avenged. This is the reckoning the country’s tyrants deserve, the witnesses of Iran’s brutality argue. “I don’t want them to get away with this. I want them to be punished. I don’t want all the blood to go unanswered,” one ER doctor argued passionately. A nurse agreed. “Every night, I fall asleep hoping for the freedom of Iran.” It was and is, she insisted, “the hope of those killed, wounded, or detained.”
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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President Donald Trump has found a new source of leverage against Iran’s Islamist regime — the Iranian people themselves. Protests that began nine days ago have now spread to 26 of Iran’s 31 provinces, as economic unrest catalyzed widespread dissatisfaction with the regime to the brink of open revolt. As is its habit, the repressive regime is now turning its weapons upon its own subjects, earning a stern warning from President Trump. “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their [the protesters’] rescue,” the president said on social media. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
The protest began with shopkeepers and bazaar merchants closing their doors in response to dire economic conditions. Since Iran’s war with Israel, its rial currency has lost 60% of its value, dropping at one point to a record low of 1.445 million to the dollar. Iran’s annual inflation rate reached 42.2% in December, with food prices up 72%. Meanwhile, Iran’s central bank registered a decline in gross GDP of 0.6% (0.8% excluding oil) for the six months beginning in late March 2025.
Residents of the oil-rich country have also suffered power outages and now face rising fuel prices; the central government puts more focus on building missiles, enriching uranium, and keeping its own coffers full than on the plight of its own people. The Iranian regime has even neglected to procure a stable water supply for the capital metropolis.
But what began as protests over economic conditions quickly grew into a more general challenge to the unbending regime. Footage emerging on social media showed protestors chanting “freedom” and “death to the dictator,” as well as calling for a return of Reza Pahlavi, son and heir of the late shah who was booted from power in 1979.
At first, the Iranian mullahs attempted to placate the protestors’ concerns, acknowledging “the pressure on people’s livelihoods” and promising reform. Mohammad Reza Farzin, Iran’s chief central banker, resigned last Monday as the fall guy for the ongoing inflation.
But the protests kept spreading and the popular hatred for their government began to cross the line into open rebellion. In one attack, demonstrators breached a police station affiliated with Iran’s Republican Guard Corps (IRGC) and burned several police cars. In another, they threw stones at police officers and regime-aligned militia members, resulting in one death and a dozen injuries among the government-aligned forces.
Soon, the Iranian regime had reverted to its more typical tactics of suppressing dissent through brutal force. Across protests at 22 locations in 78 cities, the Iranian regime has allegedly killed at least 20 demonstrators and arrested 990, according to data compiled by the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRAI) on Monday.
But the crackdown predated the protests. Since its catastrophic war with Israel in the summer of 2025, the Iranian regime says it has arrested 21,000 “suspects,” and international watchdogs have documented between 1,500-2,000 executions. “The only strategy the regime knows is repression,” said professor Saeid Golkar.
After sweeping out the shah to popular approval, Iran’s Islamist regime has faced increasing popular opposition in recent decades. In 2009, protests in the “Green Movement” challenged former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed reelection. “Day of Rage” protests lasted for a year during the 2011 Arab Spring. High food prices spurred protests in 2017 and 2018, gas prices sparked riots in 2019, and the deadly enforcement of Islamic morality laws initiated protests in 2022.
In response to the 2022 protests, the Islamist regime quelled the protests by killing more than 500 people, suggesting the current repression could become even more deadly.
Yet some signs suggest the result of the current protests could be different. Over the past two years, Iran has suffered one humiliating setback after another, from the devastation of its terrorist proxies, to the collapse of the allied Assad regime in Syria, to Iran’s own defeat by Israel and the United States. As a result, Iran’s military might has been hollowed out, both physically and morally, prompting more protestors to boldly shake the already-shaking regime.
Additionally, Iran continues to face pressure from both Trump and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, who have both expressed solidarity with the protestors. “We’re watching it very closely,” Trump told reporters. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.”
Furthermore, one underreported aspect of the Iranian protests is the rapid growth of Christianity within the country, FRC’s Senior Fellow for International Religious Freedom Lela Gilbert told The Washington Stand. Despite a lack of official statistics, a 2021 report suggested Christianity was the fastest-growing religion in the country. In 2024, an Iranian court sentenced five Christian converts to 25 years in prison for abandoning Islam.
“Despite anti-Christian persecution and crackdowns, numerous reports of Iranian converts to Christianity continue. These appear on social media and through personal contacts,” Gilbert explained. “There are stunning stories of increasing numbers of new believers, even in the face of potentially harsh reactions and abuse by disapproving authorities. Yet, despite these concerns, and alongside personal attacks from families and friends, these new believers remain faithful and amazingly outspoken.”
Christianity constitutes a kingdom “not of this world” (John 18:36), and it rarely presents a direct challenge to the governing authorities that exist (Romans 13:1). However, the spread of Christianity also promotes ideas of human dignity and individual freedom, working these through a society like yeast leavening dough (Matthew 13:33). This has made Christianity one of the most powerful forces for toppling despotism in history.
Former President Barack Obama later reflected that he made a mistake not to do more to encourage the Green protests in 2009. Under a President Trump flush with victory, the United States could do many things short of military action —which is probably not off the table — to aid Iranian protestors against the regime. The Wall Street Journal lists several possible options: “restoring internet access when the regime cuts it off, unmasking regime thugs,” enforcing accountability for human rights abuses, and tightening enforcement of existing oil sanctions.
Would these actions be enough? Only the one “who brings princes to nothing” (Isaiah 40:23) knows for certain. But a certain former Venezuelan dictator might advise Ayatollah Ali Khamenei not to underestimate President Trump. According to The Times, a British paper, Khamenei has already worked out an “escape plan” whereby he and 20 close associates would flee to Russia with about $95 billion in assets. Such is not the plan of a man confident is his regime’s longevity.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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Once in power, Fidel Castro pushed Chávez to join the São Paulo Forum, a political organization founded by Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva and Castro in 1990 and used it to finance the rise of leftist parties and movements in Latin America.
Now, even in the decline of Chavismo, Havana has been supporting Venezuela by sending military counterintelligence personnel to reinforce the security of the current dictator Nicolás Maduro and helping to evacuate personnel from the Venezuelan embassy in Spain.
And it is even doing so now on U.S. territory. As former Chavista general Hugo Carvajal confessed a few days ago, Havana has been among the operators with spies infiltrated in American institutions, who have laundered money in Miami, New York, and Texas, and who coordinate operations to influence strategic decisions in Washington.
These organizations always find a way to interconnect their agendas and actions, in tributes to Fidel Castro alongside Ernesto Soberon Guzman, Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations, or representatives of The People’s Forum.
This latter group is behind the creation and the financing of the messages on two LED screens in New York that call for an end to counter-narcotics operations off the coast of Venezuela.
According to the Cuban Observatory of Cultural Rights, The People’s Forum “works closely with socialist and radical left-wing individuals and organizations, with whom it promotes and organizes various political, economic, and social activism projects. With a budget of $15,026,419 (2019), it offers platforms and organizational structures to groups and movements that align with the Forum’s ‘values ??and mission’ and that do not promote ‘capitalism/imperialism.’ (…) However, one of the Forum’s strongest activist lines is the promotion of autocracies such as China, Iran, and Russia.”
De Los Santos does not hide his long-standing connection with Havana. In 2023, he posted on X that he had spent 10 days in Cuba “learning with its people & President Miguel Diaz-Canel.”
The radical activist, an avowed admirer of the Cuban Revolution, is now determined to try to modify public opinion regarding the Cartel of the Suns by paying for propaganda in the heart of the United States.
Havana spares no effort in empowering its venomous standard-bearers within American society, especially to influence the minds of young people. How long will it take for federal authorities to react to this?
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
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The main United Nations (UN) effort to handle aid delivery to the Gaza Strip knowingly put Hamas terrorists into key school leadership positions in the impoverished region, a watchdog organization revealed in a report published Wednesday.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which has been exposed for harboring Hamas terrorists before, knowingly employed several Hamas members in positions of leadership in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, UN Watch found in its report. UNRWA purports to be a neutral entity, but the latest report alleges the organization repeatedly failed to properly terminate multiple Hamas-affiliated leaders in its ranks, and that such actions contradict its stated mission.
“By knowingly employing Hamas terrorist leaders as school principals and teachers, and by allowing terror chiefs to head the unions that oversee thousands of their teachers, UNRWA didn’t just tolerate extremism — the Western-funded UN agency institutionalized it, turning classrooms into incubators of hate,” the report reads. “Over its 75 years of existence, UNRWA has churned out thousands of jihadi terrorists.”
UNRWA did not fire Suhail Al-Hindi from his position as a school principal and head of the Gaza Staff Union, even after he publicly appeared with Hamas terrorists for years, the report alleges. UNRWA also kept Fateh Sharif, leader of the Lebanon Teachers’ Union and a senior Hamas official, on staff in that country.
UNRWA claims to have fired Al-Hindi in 2017, but Al-Hindi himself has said he continued to receive benefits from the organization, according to the report.
“According to one Palestinian source, Al-Hindi was given a choice between ‘resignation and receiving his employee rights, or dismissal’,” the report reads. “It appears that Al-Hindi chose to resign, but that UNRWA represents it as Al-Hindi having been fired since it gave him an ultimatum. In any event, even if one accepts at face value UNRWA’s current stance that Al-Hindi was let go, this would only underscore UNRWA’s complicity with Hamas — by refusing to unequivocally state that Al-Hindi was fired at the time of the event, UNRWA prioritized Hamas’s honor and reputation over the truth.”
Al-Hindi also spoke multiple times regarding an “upcoming battle” before the October 7th massacre, when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.
“This is a clear message to the enemy: We are preparing, and Allah willing, we are on the cusp of a battle that will be the decisive battle between us and the enemy,” Al-Hindi said on July 2, 2023.
Sharif was in charge of 2,000 teachers and 39,000 students as chief of the UNRWA Lebanon Teachers’ Union, according to the report. After his death in an Israeli airstrike in 2024, Hamas eulogized him as a “Leader of the Hamas movement in Lebanon, and member of its leadership abroad.”
The UN did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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The Israeli government on Wednesday approved construction in an open tract of land east of Jerusalem, angering proponents of the two-state solution who argue the development would cut a potential Palestinian state in two. For decades, Israel left the area undeveloped due to international pressure. But increasingly anti-Semitic attitudes from nearly every nation but the U.S. convinced the world’s only majority-Jewish state that now was the time to act.
The planned settlement project would construct some 3,400 housing units in a zone label “E1,” short for “East One,” which lies east of Jerusalem, between the Israeli capital and the existing settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. Construction could begin within a year. The plan was approved by the Higher Planning Committee of the Civil Administration, a department of Israel’s Defense Ministry.
Israeli plans for an E1 settlement have been postponed for decades due to pressure from international proponents of a two-state solution. The settlement’s location would sever the most direct link between the Palestinian enclaves of Ramallah and Bethlehem, thus making any Palestinian state carved around feel disjointed and unnatural. This international pressure has come not only from Israel’s adversaries, but even from the U.S. under former administrations.
Unsurprisingly then, Israel’s approval of the plan generated widespread international criticism:
The Palestinian Authority complained that the E1 settlement “fragments … geographic and demographic unity, entrenching the division of the occupied West Bank into isolated areas and cantons that are disconnected from one another, turning them into something akin to real prisons.”
N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric condemned the plan because it “will drive a stake through the heart of the two-state solution.”
In a statement, 21 foreign secretaries (from Canada, Japan, and 19 European nations) also warned, “if implemented, it would divide a Palestinian state in two, mark a flagrant breach of international law, and critically undermine the two-state solution.”
The U.K. separately summoned Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely to register its disapproval.
For Israel, undermining a potential “two-state solution” is precisely the point. “The Palestinian state is being erased from the table not with slogans but with actions,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declared. “Every settlement, every neighborhood, every housing unit is another nail in the coffin of this dangerous idea.” Smotrich oversees settlement policy and hopes to double the settler population in Judea and Samaria. The Israeli Security Cabinet previously approved 22 other settlements in May.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also endorses the same end goal. “I said 25 years ago that we will do everything to secure our grip on the Land of Israel, to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, to prevent the attempts to uproot us from here. Thank God, what I promised, we have delivered,” he said Sunday.
Of course, the original “two-state solution” occurred after World War II, when Great Britain divided the Mandate of Palestine into what became the Kingdom of Jordan and the state of Israel. But Arabs living in the Jewish portion, supported at first by the entire Arab world, raised such a stink that international powers contemplated carving another state out of Israel’s portion, to give to the people now called “Palestinians.”
From 2006 to 2023, the Gaza Strip provided the world with a pilot project of what a potential third Palestinian state would like: brutal control by radical jihadists, who oppressed the people and simply used the land to inflict war and terror upon Israel. Hamas’s massacre on October 7 convinced the Israelis that they must never allow the creation of another terrorist-run Palestinian state. Apparently, the same crisis convinced the rest of the world to create a much larger, terrorist-run Palestinian state.
The Trump administration is the notable exception to this “rest of the world.” While Israel’s former allies like Australia and the U.K. have abandoned her to recognize a non-existent Palestinian state, the Trump administration is the friendliest Israel has seen this century. Under President Trump, the U.S. State Department has adopted — or rather restored — the historical terminology “Judea and Samaria” for the land that more recently acquired the name “West Bank.” When a press officer objected to this terminology, he was fired.
The Trump administration’s friendlier posture includes greater acceptance for Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria. When asked about E1’s approval in an interview, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee answered that a two-state solution was not a “high priority” for the administration.
From these various reactions to Israel’s approval of a settlement in E1, two premises become clear. First, both Israel and its global adversaries view this tract of land as an essential link between Palestinian enclaves, which would be necessary to the contiguity and coherence of any future Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. Second, Israel controls this tract of land so thoroughly that it can build infrastructure on it, while its critics can only complain. These premises lead to the conclusion: the creation of any future Palestinian state would involve taking land currently controlled by Israel and giving it to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which sponsors terrorism against Israel. Such a state would be like Hamas-controlled Gaza from 2006-2023, except bigger.
This reasoning does not only apply to the plot of land designated “E1,” but to nearly the entirety of Judea and Samaria. Israel holds total control over the entire region, except for a number of disconnected enclaves, where about three million Palestinians live. Even in these enclaves, which Israel allows to govern themselves under loose administration by the PA, Israeli security forces regularly enter to track down terrorists. Israeli checkpoints monitor traffic on the major highways.
The point is, Israel is the state that exercises sovereign control over Judea and Samaria. International naysayers have no right to tell it how to develop or not develop any piece of real estate in the area. They certainly have no right to base such restrictions on the remote possibility that a hypothetical, future state will be created in the region, which would necessarily entail taking territory from Israel.
There is no quicker way to explode the mythology of a two-state solution than for Israelis to build communities and live in the biblical heartland they control. Israel knows it, and their international adversaries know it. Now, Israel is taking action, and no other nation has the authority to stop them.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/Israel-Approves-Settlement-East-of-Jerusalem.jpg336640Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2025-08-26 05:39:062025-08-26 06:11:04Israel Approves Settlement East of Jerusalem, Aims to Eliminate Possibility of Two-State Solution
Israel will call up around 60,000 reservists to support the army’s planned takeover of Gaza City, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Wednesday. The announcement underscores the enormous manpower requirements of holding urbanized areas of the Gaza Strip against Hamas. But, as negotiations for the return of the hostages drag on, Israel may have no other choice.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday approved a plan to occupy Gaza City, codenamed “Gideon’s Chariots II.” The first “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” refers to the Israeli offensive, begun in May, which planned to take and hold approximately 75% of the territory in the Gaza Strip. (The first offensive also involved calling up tens of thousands of reservists.)
The full assault plan involves 12 brigades, complete with infantry, armor, artillery, and combat engineers, as well as two brigades normally assigned to guard the Gaza border, whose ordinary posts will be filled with reservists. These 14 brigades will be organized into five divisions, which will each contain tens of thousands of troops.
The IDF are wasting no time with the new offensive. Even before reserve troops have been activated and deployed, the forces already in Gaza are making the first moves. “We have begun the preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack on Gaza City. IDF forces are already holding the outskirts of Gaza City,” IDF spokesman Effie Defrin announced Wednesday.
Israel planned to call these reservists in waves, with 40,000 to 50,000 activated on September 2, while others would be activated in November/December, and still more in February/March.
Even still, the deployment of these reservists is an extraordinary use of manpower for Israel. For a country of just under 10 million people, 50,000 reservists constitute a full 0.5% of the population. These reservists join tens of thousands of other reservists already in Gaza, besides the regular army. The IDF plans to extend the tour of duty for 20,000 reservists by another 30 to 40 days.
Yet, even with these extraordinary actions, Israel’s military manpower is stretched to the limit. Its manpower shortage is estimated to be between 10,000 to 12,000 soldiers. This manpower shortage has created tensions with the ultra-orthodox Haredi community within Israel, which objects to military service on religious grounds. The IDF has taken to appealing to “Jewish communities abroad” for additional recruits.
Such a large activation of Israeli reservists, amid such critical manpower shortages, signal Israel’s intention to fight its way through Gaza as thoroughly and as quickly as possible, in hopes of rescuing the remaining hostages, of whom just over 20 are still believed to be alive.
On Monday, reports surfaced that Hamas — after much arm-twisting by Egypt and Qatar — accepted terms for a 60-day ceasefire proposed by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, which would involve the release of 10 living hostages. Israel’s decision to activate 50,000 reservists only two weeks later suggests it either does not believe the ceasefire is imminent or hopes to capture all of Gaza City before it can be finalized.
The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Family Research Councilhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFamily Research Council2025-08-21 11:25:452025-08-21 12:08:21Israel Calls up 60,000 Reservists to Support Further Occupation of Gaza
The State Department put a $5 million bounty on a notorious Haitian gangster nicknamed “Barbecue” who was indicted for allegedly funneling money from the U.S. to his gang’s coffers, the agency announced Tuesday.
The federal government will pay the bounty to anyone willing to provide information that leads to Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier’s arrest in any nation. The bounty follows the Department of Justice (DOJ) issuing an accompanying Tuesday indictment against Cherizier alleging that he violated U.S. sanctions on Haiti by funneling money to his gang with the help of Bazile Richardson, a U.S. citizen.
“The Department of State is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Jimmy Cherizier, the leader of Foreign Terrorist Organization Viv Ansanm,” Senior Bureau Official Chris Landberg of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs said in a statement. “The State Department will continue to apply its tools, including rewards programs, to combat the scourge of transnational organized crime and its violence — especially to stop the worst of the worst criminal ringleaders threatening the people of our hemisphere.”
Cherizier is the leader of Viv Ansanm, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization and powerful gang alliance operating in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, according to the DOJ. The organization formed to unite the nation’s gangs to oppose the government, igniting a brutal, protracted conflict that has killed and displaced thousands of Haitians.
The leader, with the help of his confidant Richardson, allegedly solicited money transfers from Haitian nationals living in the U.S., according to the DOJ. After allegedly laundering the money through intermediaries, Chierzier would use the funds to purchase weapons and pay his gang soldiers.
Richardson was arrested July 23 in Texas, and is currently awaiting his trial, according to the DOJ.
Cherizier is believed to be responsible for multiple human rights violations in Haiti, including the La Saline Massacre in 2018, which killed 71 people and destroyed well over 400 homes in the capital. From January to March, over 250 people were killed, 66 injured and more than 3,000 residents were uprooted by gang attacks in Port-au-Prince, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, citing United Nations (UN) data.
Gangs now control over 90% of the nation’s capital, according to the UN.
“Cherizier and a U.S. associate sought to raise funds in the United States to bankroll Cherizier’s violent criminal enterprise, which is driving a security crisis in Haiti,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a statement. “The National Security Division does not tolerate criminal gang fundraising in the United States, and will continue to pursue those who enable Haiti’s violence and instability.”
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2025-08-16 08:28:342025-08-16 08:34:51Trump Admin Puts Multi-Million Dollar Bounty On Vicious Haitian Gangster Nicknamed ‘Barbecue’
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly said he would halt his war in Ukraine if Kiev gave up vast swaths of its territory in the eastern part of the country, European and Ukrainian officials told The Wall Street Journal on Friday.
Putin reportedly presented the pitch to U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday, proposing that Ukraine cede the Russian-speaking Donbas region to Moscow in exchange for a halt to the fighting, according to the WSJ. President Donald Trump has been pursuing peace in the region since the beginning of his presidency, and the war is believed to have taken hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides since the conflict began in 2022.
The Russian president reportedly told Witkoff that he would agree to cease hostilities in Ukraine if Kiev’s forces withdrew from the Donetsk region, officials briefed on the call told the WSJ. Russia currently occupies parts of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, while completely controlling the Luhansk region.
It is unclear whether or not Putin would fully withdraw from the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions in the Donbas as part of the deal, according to the WSJ. European officials also reportedly participated in three phone calls with the Trump administration throughout the week to discuss the proposal.
Trump reportedly participated in the first call on Wednesday, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President JD Vance and Witkoff, according to thw WSJ. The same participants, aside from the president, participated in a second phone call on Thursday.
In a third Friday call, Witkoff reportedly told European officials that Putin’s proposal included two phases, according to the WSJ. In the first phase, Ukraine would withdraw its troops from Donetsk, freezing the frontlines until a more permanent proposal is hashed out by Trump, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin in the second phase.
However, Ukraine would still seek a ceasefire before considering any proposal, a Ukrainian official told the WSJ.
The State Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2025-08-09 06:23:172025-08-09 06:32:06Putin Reportedly Willing To End War If He Gets Eastern Ukraine
