9 Jan, 2026 21:32

UAE cuts grants for studying in UK over extremism fears – media

The Emirates has restricted funding for students wishing to study in Britain over Muslim Brotherhood influence on campuses (Why does the UK allow the Muslim Brotherhood in their countries or schools? So they are letting their citizens being propagandized. That makes sense since the UK want to rule the world again.

The United Arab Emirates has opted to restrict students from enrolling at UK universities over radicalization fears, cutting its educational grants program, according to British media reports.

The Gulf country believes students there are targeted by Islamist groups while on British campuses, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood, The Times reported, citing sources with direct knowledge of the move. The transnational Islamist organization is recognized as a terrorist group in the UAE.

The UAE said it will no longer provide lavish educational grants, which cover tuition, accommodation, and other expenses for students wishing to study in the UK. It is not imposing a blanket ban on studying in the country, and those willing to pay for their education are still free to do so.

Last June, the Emirati higher education ministry published a list of universities for which scholarship grants would be approved, with no British institutions mentioned. The omission was not an oversight, and the latest move had been under consideration for some time, a source familiar with the discussions told Finan

The transnational Islamist organization is recognized as a terrorist group in the UAE.

The UAE said it will no longer provide lavish educational grants, which cover tuition, accommodation, and other expenses for students wishing to study in the UK.It is not imposing a blanket ban on studying in the country, and those willing to pay for their education are still free to do so.

Last June, the Emirati higher education ministry published a list of universities for which scholarship grants would be approved, with no British institutions mentioned. The omission was not an oversight, and the latest move had been under consideration for some time, a source familiar with the discussions told Financial Times.

“[The UAE] don’t want their kids to be radicalized on campus,” the source stated.

The Emirates took action against the Muslim Brotherhood, a loosely organized international Islamist network that originally emerged in Egypt in the 1920s, following the 2011 so-called ‘Arab Spring’. The series of uprisings driven by Islamists toppled multiple governments across the Middle East and North Africa, plunging several nations, including Syria and Libya, into years of bloody civil war.

The UAE outlawed the organization domestically and has been pushing for international recognition of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. The group has already been outlawed in Russia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and several other nations.

Late last year, US President Donald Trump designated several Muslim Brotherhood offshoots and affiliated individuals as terrorists, yet stopped short of labeling the organization itself as such. France has been considering a similar move, with a government report released last May explicitly stating the country’s authorities positively established “the anti-Republican and subversive nature of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

https://www.rt.com/news/630771-uae-uk-education-grants/

10 Jan, 2026 23:57

Trump declares ‘emergency’ to protect Venezuelan oil funds held by US

The president said the US wants control over Caracas’ petroleum production and trade

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order blocking courts and creditors from laying claim to Venezuelan oil sales revenue held in US Treasury accounts.

The White House said on Friday that the move constitutes a “national emergency” aimed at preserving the funds to “advance US foreign policy objectives” in the region.

Trump said US companies would gain access to oil production in Venezuela, whose president, Nicolas Maduro, was abducted along with his wife during a US commando raid on a compound in Caracas last week. Venezuela condemned the operation as a gross violation of its sovereignty.

The order “blocks any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process” against Venezuelan oil and diluent sales revenue held by the Treasury, the White House said. It added that losing control over the funds would “empower malign actors like Iran and Hezbollah” and “directly jeopardize US objectives.”

Trump, who met with US oil executives on Friday, said the companies would invest at least $100 billion in Venezuela’s oil production. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said earlier that Washington plans to sell Venezuelan oil “indefinitely.”

Exxon CEO Darren Woods said, however, that socialist-run Venezuela was “uninvestable” without comprehensive reforms in its energy sector.

US oil companies have longstanding claims dating back to the 2000s nationalization of oil production under Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez. Trump cited the “unfair” nationalization as one of the reasons behind the raid against Maduro.

Delcy Rodriguez, a close Maduro ally sworn in as acting president in his absence, saidthe oil-rich country was open to “beneficial” projects with any nation, including the US. Venezuelan officials said, however, that they would not allow the US to “steal” its resources. (They fail to understand the US and Oil companies are helping the country to get the oil out of the ground, it’s not valuable if it doesn’t come out of the ground,)

https://www.rt.com/news/630794-trump-national-emergency-venezuelan-oil/

10 Jan, 2026 17:04

US to secure $800bn in Ukraine reconstruction contracts – The Telegraph

The agreement is reportedly based on a rare earths deal granting American investors preferential access to future mining projects

Washington and Kiev are preparing to sign an $800 billion agreement to rebuild Ukraine, The Telegraph has reported. The deal is scheduled to be sealed at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos later this month, Western sources told the newspaper.

The agreement is reportedly structured around the rare earth minerals deal clinched by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and US President Donald Trump last year. The accord grants Washington preferential access to the resources; however, the security guarantees long sought by Kiev are not included.

At the time, Trump promoted the agreement as a way to recover what he described as the massive financial aid provided to Kiev by the previous administration. Earlier this week, he reiterated that a deal on rare earth metals was a condition for the White House to continue its efforts to peacefully resolve the Ukraine conflict.

“I said that if we want to move forward, we need rare earth metals,” Trump told Fox News on Thursday. “We want our money back.”

Officials told The Telegraph that the “prosperity” plan envisages attracting around $800 billion over ten years through a combination of loans, grants and private-sector investment.

The newspaper noted that US envoy Steve Witkoff called the agreement a crucial part of the overall ceasefire package he has been negotiating for the past few months. The top state official reportedly said that the world’s largest investment group, BlackRock, would participate in the program.

Trump repeatedly criticized unconditional aid to Kiev in the past, calling Zelensky “the greatest salesman on earth.” Last year, he said his predecessor, Joe Biden, had “fleeced” America by committing $350 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

He has since argued that the US is now profiting from the conflict by sending Ukraine weapons which are being paid for by Washington’s European NATO partners. Moscow has repeatedly condemned Western arms deliveries to Kiev, arguing that they prolong the fighting without altering its outcome.

https://www.rt.com/russia/630786-us-ukraine-reconstruction-deal/

Why was the Vatican so keen to get Venezuela's narcodictator Maduro off scot-free?

Some kind of Richelieu-ian Realpolitik here is not a good look for a Church that claims to care about human dignity.

Monica Showalter | January 10, 2026Long Article, only first page

Some things I can't understand.Such as the bizarre stance of the

Vatican taking the lead to 'save' Venezuelan drug-lord dictator, Nicolas Maduro from the long arm of U.S. law.

That would be the same dictator who dealt lethal illegal drugs that killed millions of Americans, which was the basis for the spectacular military raid on Jan. 3. which was undoubtedly a just action.

But what ought to be of even more concern to the Vatican were his death squads against dissidents, the torture chambers, the terrorists operating bases handed over to Hezb'allah, and the impoverishment of 90% of the citizenry, driving a third of them into exile.So much for the Vatican's pontifications about 'human dignity.'

According to the Washington Post: VATICAN CITY — On Christmas Eve, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, second-in-command to the pope and a longtime diplomatic mediator, urgently summoned Brian Burch, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, to press for details on America’s plans in Venezuela, according to government documents obtained by The Washington Post.

Would the United States target only drug traffickers, he asked, or was the Trump administration really after regime change?Nicolás Maduro had to go, Parolin conceded, according to the documents, but he urged the U.S. to offer him a way out.

For days, the influential Italian cardinal had been seeking access to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the documents show, desperate to head off bloodshed and destabilization in Venezuela. In his conversation with Burch, a Trump ally, Parolin said Russia was ready to grant asylum to Maduro and pleaded with the Americans for patience in nudging the strongman toward that offer.

“What was proposed to [Maduro] was that he would go away and he would be able to enjoy his money,” said a person familiar with the Russian offer. “Part of that ask was that [President Vladimir] Putin would guarantee security.”

Why on Earth would the Vatican have an interest in seeing this ogre 'enjoy his money,' which, without a doubt, was ill-gotten? Wouldn't jail be better for him, along the lines of, as the lefties like to say, 'if you want peace, work for justice'? At least he could 'repent' in jail.It's positively Richelieu-like, Machiavellian, some kind of Realpolitik from the curia, a battle of power politics and interests instead of a shepherding of the flock.

Parolin paid lip service to getting Maduro out of there, but only after the big pressure campaign began from Trump, meaning, he saw the ouster as inevitable and sought to retrieve some scraps for the brutal leftist thug, frantically contacting Trump officials for information that was none of his business.

The vague claims about avoiding chaos and violence make no sense– the violence of socialism was already there on Venezuela's people, and Trump's embrace of Delcy Rodriguez over the actual democratic winners of the 2024 election certainly was a means of preventing more of it, though it's working out imperfectly.

Why all the desperate diplomatic effort to save Maduro from the consequences of his actions, after the Vatican had been utterly silent about Maduro's nakedly stolen election in 2024, the mass protests crying out for democracy and justice that followed, the thousands of mass 'avalancha' protests carried out for years and years, and the impoverishment and exile of nearly every Venezuelan by Maduro's regime, which is ultimately premised on an inhuman, atheistic ideology combined with a huge round of drug dealing as a means of waging war on the West?

Why the silence over the near-thousand of Maduro's political prisoners? We know they holler about political prisoners in other places, and certainly direct a lot of 'human dignity' complaints to President Trump. Nothing at all about this:

Even the religions don't match up. Venezuela is a historically Catholic country with a huge base of Catholics for the Church to consider. But Maduro is not one of them.He and his wife and their successor, Delcy Rodriguez, all practice an eastern cult religion called Sai Baba, the New York Times reports,

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/01/why_was_the_vatican_so_keen_to_get_venezuela_s_narcodictator_maduro_off_scot_free.html

(every true Catholic has left the Vatican devils, but they still practice)

Leftist women get, if possible, crazier, and I love Naomi Wolf’s theory about why

This one-time Democrat has delivered one of the most scathing indictments I’ve ever seen of the entire leftist cultural infrastructure.

Andrea Widburg | January 10, 2026

Back in 2020, during the George Floyd riots, most Americans first became aware that Democrat women are very troubled. I mean, we’d already heard about “Karens,” a phrase to describe scolding, self-righteous white women. (There is no equivalent phrase for scolding, self-righteous black women, or other minority women, but they’re out there, too.)However, it was during the riots that we suddenly saw women who were no longer merely obnoxious.

Instead, they were crazed harpies, screaming at the top of their lungs, their faces contorted with rage, and often engaging in physical violence. Hysteria seemed too mild a term to describe their outbursts, all of which were in service to the most extreme forms of leftist ideology.

Although it seemed almost impossible to imagine, these women got worse during the pro-Hamas proteststhat followed Hamas’s genocidal attack on Israel. To advance a misogynistic political-religious movement that uses rape as a weapon of war, Democrat women engaged in shrill, highly emotional protests on college campuses across America.

Now,in 2026, because the impossible is never a barrier for leftism, these women have somehow managed to become even more emotionally incontinent. There is, of course, the example of Renee Good and her “wife,” Rebecca, who thought that the rules couldn’t possibly apply to them, something that ended up with Renee being both Good and dead.

• There was also the woman agonized by the “privileged” shame of her “white tears”:

• It’s not just the “woman on the streets.” We also have Seattle’s Mayor:

• And Mamdani’s housing advisor:

Nor are white women the only examples. As Philadelphia County Sheriff Rochelle Bilal shows, the madness crosses racial lines:

(This statement was so off-the-charts that the Philadelphia Police Department had to issue a formal statement distinguishing itself from Bilal’s ranting. Additionally, she’s had other problems.)

Something is very wrong, and my old high school classmate,Naomi Wolf, one-time advisor to Vice President Al Gore, has a theory:

You know what? I think Naomi has a point.Women go crazy when they don’t have the ballast of strong, sane, manly men to anchor them. And the left, of course, has assiduously worked to destroy American men.(And they will never change)

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/01/leftist_women_get_if_possible_crazier_and_i_love_naomi_wolf_s_theory_about_why.html

question:Why do Police Depts, Fire Depts etc select big fat black loud mouth women that could never do the job of the police or firemen?The DEI is just for humiliation.

Trump’s Cabinet picks are knocking it out of the parkWith one exception, these guys are all-stars.

Earick Ward | January 10, 2026

Donald Trump learned some valuable lessons from his first term. Trump 45’s Cabinet picks were a who’s who of swamp creatures. His Cabinet picks this go-around are (mostly) all-stars.

Susie Wiles (except for her Vanity Fair misstep) has been a solid chief of staff. Some restraint appears to be softening some of Trump’s Bronx instincts.

J.D. Vance has been a solid communicator of the MAGA agenda and has taken some of the burden off Donald Trump to have to defend each and every action taken by the administration. He perfectly chastised the “press corps” yesterday regarding their “narrative shaping” around the ICE shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Marco Rubio has been a shining star, handling “all of his duties” with aplomb, whether working the Russia-Ukraine peace talks, the Israel-Gaza peace talks, or most recently our action in extricating Nicolás Maduro into custody to stand trial in New York City. Most pertinently, and showing maturity that he did not seem to possess a few years ago, he's smartly framed his work in service to the president’s goals and objectives. This humility has certainly garnered favor with the president and the American people.

After a potentially career-ending blunder at the outset with his Signal mishandling, Pete Hegseth has proven the leader needed to advance Donald Trump’s military objectives in service to his strategy to re-establish American dominance abroad, and more importantly in our hemisphere. Hegseth has set a tone (lethality) and has empowered his generals to work cooperatively toward a common set of objectives. Complex execution of myriad moving parts is difficult to pull off, particularly as they involve complex systems within a hierarchical structure. The bombing of Iranian nuclear sites was perfectly executed. The targeting of “drug boats” and interdiction of “ghost ships” in the Caribbean has been stellar. The attack on Venezuela’s infrastructure, capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife, and exit two and a half hours later was executed perfectly.

Kristi Noem has effectively done what Donald Trump has asked her to do, what he ran on: securing the southern border and deporting criminal illegal aliens. Although this task has been complicated by “domestic terrorism” perpetrated by radical leftists, and incited by state and local Democrat leadership, her track record so far has been one of success.

Economically, Scott Bessent, Howard Lutnick, and Kevin Hassett have maneuvered through a very tenuous re-ordering of our trade relationships with allies and adversaries.

Honorable mentions go to Stephen Miller, Kash Patel, Tulsi Gabbard, Karoline Leavitt, Tom Homan, RFK Jr., and assistant attorney general Harmeet Dhillon.The only failing grade that I would offer is for Attorney General Pam Bondi.

What’s notable in the successes of Trump 47 is his seeming leadership style — respectful empowerment. If you’ve hired qualified people to manage complex operations, engage them in helping craft your and their objectives, give them the tools to perform their tasks with authority and accountability, and support them unequivocally (as long as they’re getting the job done).

Donald Trump is still the man, but his (yuge) ego does not seem to get in the way of letting his all-stars shine. Great things, they say, can be accomplished when people aren’t concerned about who gets the credit.

Hire and appoint great people, based on merit. Set objectives. Empower your team to empower the people to get the job done. Stand beside them when there’s incoming flak, and allow them to shine when they’ve achieved what you set out to achieve.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2026/01/trump_s_cabinet_picks_are_knocking_it_out_of_the_park.html

finally someone says it out loud.

>>24104998

I love our President Trump, the best of all time.