German chancellor defies Moscow, lifts range restrictions on Ukraine weapons
Germany’s new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, says his country, as well as its allies, have lifted all range restrictions on the weapons delivered to Ukraine.
Merz has seemingly attempted to maintain diplomatic efforts as he tries to secure a ceasefire keeping Western support for Ukraine.
“We will do everything in our power to continue supporting Ukraine. This also means no longer having any range restrictions on the weapons we supply. Ukraine can now also defend itself by attacking military positions in Russia,” he posted to the social media platform X.
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In an accompanying statement Monday, Merz said that the range restrictions on weapons that have been delivered to Ukraine would include the British, the French, and America.
“That means Ukraine can also defend itself by, for example, attacking military positions in Russia,” Merz said at a forum organized by WDR public television. “Until a while ago, it couldn’t. … It can now.”
“We call this ‘long-range fire’ in jargon, also supplying Ukraine with weapons that attack military targets in the hinterland,” he added.
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Just last week, Merz made a call for Germany to defend democracy and strengthen the constitutional state amid the conflict.
“The Basic Law allows us to live in freedom, peace, and security – we are proud of that. But our freedom is being attacked from within and without like never before. Therefore, we must stand up for a strong constitutional state and defend our democracy every day,” he posted.
Merz’s statements come after Moscow hit Ukraine with more than 300 missiles and drones.
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Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, warned that lifting the range restrictions would be dangerous in a statement, saying that it runs “contrary to our efforts to reach a political settlement.”
Moscow warned the West to not lift the restrictions, claiming that doing so would make the offender a target for the Kremlin and face the threat of nuclear weapons.
Trump moves on Syria as Iran eyes ‘long game’ strategy, expert warns
President Donald Trump last week announced he would normalize U.S. relations with Syria by lifting decades-old sanctions, and he became the first American president to meet with the leader of the Middle Eastern nation in 25 years – a move that some have seen as an indirect hit on Iran.
The news was a surprising shift from Trump’s prior position in which he said in a December post that “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.”
Trump’s change of posture is a gamble that could see serious gains regarding regional stability and securing U.S. interests by deterring Iranian influence, explained Behnam Ben Taleblu, Iran expert and senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
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“This is what I call a high-risk, high-reward gamble, but one that, if achieved successfully, can actually prevent Syria from being a launching pad for more Iranian malign activity,” Ben Taleblu told Fox News Digital. “But if it fails, . . . Washington would have ended up empowering a jihadist government in Damascus [that] does not have full control over its own territory.”
The December collapse of the Bashar al-Assad regime following the takeover by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, not only signified an end to a decades-long oppressive regime, it also effectively dismantled years of Iranian investment in a major setback to its regional influence.
Trump emphasized that this sanctions relief, which he argued will give the country a chance to recover and was soon followed by an EU order to lift sanctions, is a move to encourage Syria to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel.
But Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who is also the leader of HTS, which is still a designated terrorist group under the U.S. and the UN, has not officially agreed to pursue diplomatic ties with Jerusalem – a push several Middle Eastern nations have flatly rejected amid its aggressive military operations in the Gaza Strip.
Trump also emphasized that the new Syrian government needs to suppress the rise of Islamic extremist groups, which Ben Taleblu pointed out is going to be one of the nation’s chief vulnerabilities as it looks to completely re-establish itself in the world order as trade, business and diplomacy have been reopened to Damascus.
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“Tehran traditionally responds to these sorts of things with patience. The Islamic Republic has an ideological view of the way the region should be oriented, and has put time, money, resources, blood and treasure towards that,” Ben Taleblu said.
The Iran-expert explained that Tehran is waiting for the U.S. and Israel to loosen its pressure on the regime and its proxies, “and for Washington and Jerusalem to make mistakes in the region as they try to push towards bigger-picture things – like flipping Syria or regional peace and stability.”
“And it is there that in the interim, while Washington focuses up on building up states that Tehran will focus on building up proxies and partners,” he added.
Syria is not a united nation as conflict persists across the country between varying minority groups, former regime loyalists and terrorist organizations like ISIS.
Secretary of State Macro Rubio also warned lawmakers on Tuesday that Syria could be just “weeks” away from a “potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions.”
These fractures pose a significant vulnerability for the new Syrian government.
“Whenever there is a downtrodden or dispossessed person in a war zone or in a conflict zone, that is Tehran’s angle of entry back into a conflict,” Ben Taleblu said. “This has been Iran’s strategy, sitting and waiting and looking to exploit opportunities across the entire northern tier of the Middle East, from Iraq to Syria to Lebanon.
“Exploiting disarray is a specialty of the Islamic Republic,” he warned.
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The expert explained that if the Trump administration wants to ensure that Iran is unable to exploit vulnerable populations in Syria, then it will need to press Damascus to address the sweeping concerns facing various groups across the country.
Though the president, and his constituents, notoriously opposed nation-building, which could spell trouble for the long-term security of Syria as it sits in Iran’s shadow.
“Tehran is going to be playing the long game. It’s going to be running the clock when it comes to American and Israeli patience for what the future regional order could look like,” Ben Taleblu warned.
Scientists discover gold leaking from Earth’s core in Hawaiian volcanic rocks
A German university, Göttingen University, has literally “struck gold” in recent findings from volcanic rocks.
A new study of these volcanic rocks from Hawaii, that leaked out from deep under the lithosphere, contained various precious metals.
Dr. Nils Messling of the Göttingen University’s Department of Geochemistry said in a news release they were surprised when the test results came in.
“When the first results came in, we realized that we had literally struck gold! Our data confirmed that material from the core, including gold and other precious metals, is leaking into the Earth’s mantle above,” Messling said.
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Approximately 99% of the Earth’s gold is buried deep in the Earth’s Metallic Core, far out of humankind’s reach.
The gold is currently buried about 1,800 miles deep in the core.
The discovery of this ruthenium, which was formed and locked down with gold, might be a telling sign that these volcanic rocks are coming from deep within the Earth.
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“Our findings not only show that the Earth’s core is not as isolated as previously assumed. We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material – several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock – originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth’s surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii,” said Professor Matthias Willbold in a news release.
There is a way to test for isotopes of ruthenium, especially when differences are small variations of the same element.
The isotopes of ruthenium in the Earth’s core are slightly different from those on the surface, with the difference being too small to really detect.
However, new procedures developed by researchers at the University of Göttingen have made it possible.
“Whether these processes that we observe today have also been operating in the past remains to be proven. Our findings open up an entirely new perspective on the evolution of the inner dynamics of our home planet,” Messling said in a statement.
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With these precious metals beginning to leak to the Earth’s surface, it could suggest that the supplies of gold and others important for renewable energy came from the Earth’s core.