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Palestine Action activists defeat Starmer regime's attempt to criminalise them (again)

Palestine Action activists, Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner and Leona Kamio, defeat criminal charges again over incident at Elbit Systems site

New Rules

🚨🇮🇷🇺🇸Iran's Hormuz Kill Box: Why a US Blockade Could Still Become a Costly Nightmare In the narrow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has built a deadly asymmetric trap — one that could turn any American blockade into a grinding, expensive ordeal. The geography favors Tehran. The shipping channel squeezes to just 21–33 km wide, with shallow depths and an Iranian-controlled northern shore lined with mountains, tunnels, and hidden launch sites. This creates a natural “kill box” where large warships have little room to maneuver. Sea Mines: The Silent Stopper Iran still holds thousands of naval mines — contact, drifting, and advanced influence types triggered by sound, magnetism, or pressure. Fast boats, fishing vessels, quiet midget submarines or even missiles can quickly seed the lanes. Even a few mines force the US Navy into risky, time-consuming clearance operations under constant threat. Anti-Ship Missiles: Layered Overkill Mobile coastal batteries can unleash mixed salvos: 🟠Supersonic ballistic missiles like the Khalij Fars, screaming down at Mach 3–5 with maneuvering warheads. 🟠Low-flying cruise missiles (Noor, Qader, Abu Mahdi) that hug the waves to dodge radar. “Shoot-and-scoot” tactics from trucks and caves make these hard to suppress fully. The Mosquito Fleet and Underwater Ghosts Hundreds of high-speed attack boats, like Heydar-110 — armed with rockets, missiles, and machine guns — practice swarm tactics: hit hard, then vanish. Dozens of small Ghadir-class midget submarines operate quietly in shallow waters, laying mines or launching torpedoes with little warning. Add cheap kamikaze drones — like Hadid-110 or Shahed 136 — and explosive unmanned boats, and the result is relentless, low-cost pressure. The Real Strategy Iran's goal is attrition: Take advantage of the terrain and the narrow corridor of the Strait of Hormuz to evaporate any menace, drain expensive US munitions, spike insurance rates for tankers, and halt commercial traffic through sustained harassment. In the end, Tehran’s playbook is brutally effective: make passage through Hormuz too dangerous and too costly to block. The world’s most vital oil chokepoint remains a high-stakes gamble. @NewRulesGeo❗Follow us on X

New Rules

🚨🇮🇷🇹🇷Is the Iran War Accidentally Rebuilding the Ottoman Empire? The Ottomans didn't dominate the world through conquest alone. They dominated by controlling Eurasian land trade routes and large swathes of the Mediterranean. The Iran war may be positioning Turkey to rebuild that same combination. For decades, the Strait of Hormuz carried nearly 20% of global oil and LNG supply. The Iran war has created an opening for alternative routes — and Turkey sits at the intersection of several plausible ones: 🔸 Turkmen gas via Trans-Caspian into the TANAP network — through Turkey to Europe, bypassing the Gulf entirely. 🔸 The Iraq-Turkey pipeline extended to Basra — up to 1.5 million barrels daily to Mediterranean markets, outside Iranian reach. 🔸 Qatar gas via Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey — directly to European LNG terminals, entirely overland. For 400 years, the Ottoman Empire sat at the crossroads of East and West not because it conquered everything, but because everything valuable traveled through it. If these three routes are built, a significant share of energy moving from the Gulf to Europe would pass through Turkish territory. The Ottomans understood this formula: control the routes, control the trade. And they backed it with a navy that, at its height, dominated the Mediterranean. Turkey is now rebuilding that same combination. 41 warships are under simultaneous construction, and 120 ships with 15,000 personnel recently completed the Blue Homeland-2026 exercises across three seas. This growing fleet allows Turkey to project power across the Eastern Mediterranean — a region already crowded with competing energy interests. Why does that matter? The Eastern Mediterranean is becoming a gas hub in its own right. 🔸Major discoveries (Leviathan, Tamar, Aphrodite, Zohr) have turned Israel, Egypt, and Cyprus into potential suppliers for Europe. 🔸Those countries are developing offshore LNG terminals and subsea pipelines. 🔸98% of Israeli foreign trade depends on Mediterranean navigation — including its ability to export gas. Turkey now actively contests this sea. By positioning itself as both an energy corridor and a naval power in the Eastern Mediterranean, Ankara could in the long run influence who ships what, where, and under what terms. @NewRulesGeo❗Follow us on X

New Rules

🚨🇮🇷🇮🇱 HEZBOLLAH'S BLIND-SPOT DOCTRINE: EVADING ISRAELI SURVEILLANCE Hezbollah's new commander in chief, Naim Qassem, changed the whole approach to old-fashioned tactics after the killing of Hassan Nasrallah. Jihad, a Hezbollah commander, told NPR: "We're fighting an enemy that has the latest weapons, all the technology, but we are holding our ground." But the question is how? These are some of the new techniques. THE NEW TECHNIQUES 🟠 Battlefield orders are passed as handwritten notes via couriers on motorbikes. 🟠 The group uses vintage Motorola devices, radio transmitters, and old walkie-talkies — nothing imported. 🟠 After Israel's 2024 pager attack, Hezbollah imports nothing electronic. Decentralized Command Qassem adopted a structure pioneered by late commander Imad Mughniyeh. Fighters are split into semi-autonomous units that don't communicate. One shoots, another watches the road, a third wraps sandwiches. Each executes its own tasks with no understanding of the larger operation. The Ceasefire That Wasn't Israel violated the November 2024 ceasefire thousands of times, killing 100+ civilians, per the UN. Hezbollah held fire but never disarmed. When Lebanese soldiers came to confiscate weapons, the group pointed them to empty boxes and old items. The real arsenal remained untouched. Re-arming After Assad's Fall Though Qassem lamented the loss of the Syrian supply route after Assad's fall, weapons still flow. Russian-made Kornets and Konkurs continue to be smuggled through Syria. Hezbollah has re-armed with imported and domestically made weapons. Underground tunnels remain intact. @NewRulesGeo❗Follow us on X

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