Enigma

On this day in 1835, one of Europe’s worst monsters, King Leopold II of Belgium🇧🇪, was born. During his rule, he declared Congo as his personal colonial possession and proceeded to commit horrific genocide upon the Congolese people. 8-10 million Congolese died during ‘personal rule’, with violence as a mechanism of organising production. Through mercenaries, prisons, forced starvation, and executions, Leopold II turned Congo into a concentration camp, using Congolese as the labour to extract vast profits from the rubber quotas imposed on the population. The profits were used to build Belgium’s grand buildings and landmarks, while Congolese were exterminated systematically through forced labour, mass killings, and famine. While the metropole of Belgium’s empire flourished, while Congo became an extraction machine. Workers who failed to meet the quotas were mutilated, having their hands cut off. These workers included children. Villages were punished collectively. Women were held hostage until men delivered rubber. Failure meant mutilation, flogging, or execution. Terror was the incentive structure. Pain replaced wages. The Congolese people never saw the profits, only the oppression of being used as slave labour. Belgium has still not offered a formal apology to the Congolese people for the genocidal atrocities committed against them… Because doing so would acknowledge a fundamental truth; that European capitalism was not born from ‘innovation’, ‘free trade’, or ‘liberal values’, but through barbaric destruction of global south nations and the looting of their resources for profit.

Why isn't the rescued American pilot being interviewed on every single news channel and hailed as a hero? Is it because he doesn't exist?

JUST IN: Mark Rutte announces NATO is “willing to play a role” in a possible Strait of Hormuz mission.

Iranian broadcast across VHF channel 15 to all ships in the region: "If any vessels try to transit the Strait without permission they will be destroyed. Out."

CPC General Secretary Xi Jinping met with KMT Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun. General Secretary Xi pointed out that a meeting between CPC and KMT leaders after 10 years is of great significance for developing relations between the two political parties and across the Taiwan Strait. No matter how the international landscape and cross-Strait situation may evolve, the underlying trend toward the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation will not change, and the irresistible momentum for the Chinese on both sides of the Strait to come together will not change. We are prepared to work with the KMT and other political parties, groups, and people from all walks of life in Taiwan on the common political foundation of upholding the 1992 Consensus and opposing “Taiwan independence”, and strengthen exchanges and dialogue to seek peace for the two sides of the Strait, advance the well-being of our compatriots, and strive for the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. We will keep the future of cross-Strait relations firmly in the hands of the Chinese people.

Mall of Iran in Tehran, Iran. Does this look better or worse than a US mall?

In Germany, 300 criminal cases have been opened against people who "insulted" Chancellor Friedrich Merz on the internet.

🚨 BACKFIRE: Top Oversight Democrat Robert Garcia says Melania Trump’s speech DESTROYED Trump Epstein “hoax” narrative by acknowledging survivors and their stories. 
"She’s completely taking a very different position than her husband." 
The “hoax” lie is officially dead.

Ayatollah Pedro Sánchez🇪🇸