J. Van Coin

Belgium’s publicly funded youth radio station, Studio Brussel (VRT), featured a sketch in which its breakfast presenters smashed various items on air, including a statue of Our Lady and Jesus. I asked if they were concerned it would cause offence, and if they would do the same to a symbol of Islam or Judaism.

BREAKING PRESIDENT TRUMP: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 We had very good and productive conversations regarding a complete and total resolution of hostilities in the Middle East. Military strikes postponed for 5 days.

Nobody is talking about what’s actually happening in the Persian Gulf right now. 3,200 commercial ships are trapped. Not military vessels. Civilian crews. Carrying oil, grain, electronics, medicine. Crews are running out of drinking water. One ship contacted the local port authority and begged for permission to dock just to resupply They were denied. For context — the Suez Canal crisis in 2021 trapped 400 ships and disrupted global supply chains for months. This is eight times that. The cameras are pointed at missile interceptions and oil price charts. Nobody is showing you the civilian sailor who can’t get drinking water in a war zone he never signed up for. If these ships are abandoned the environmental catastrophe alone — thousands of tons of fuel and chemicals sitting unmanned — would be generational. This is not a shipping disruption. This is a humanitarian crisis. And it started three weeks ago on a feeling. Never stop connecting the dots.

I am sure many of you have noticed this.