Trump is heading for a jail cell. Maybe

Judge Merchan wants 42 days to decide what sentence to give Donald Trump, convicted of 34 charges of business fraud. In the intervening time he will call for a full report on Trump's mental state. But 42 days to make up his mind? I wonder if Judge Merchan realises that July 11 when Trump's sentence is to be announced, is just a few days before the Republican national convention is due to meet in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to crown Trump as the nominee for the White Office. Will he dare sentence Trump to a prison sentence at such a crucial time for the Republican party and for Trump? As a judge he would argue that his duties are not supposed to take into account anything other than the judicial process. But if he sends Trump to prison, it will be the most sensational judgement in the history of American justice. That'S probably why the judge has delayed his decsion for 42 days because he needs time to contemplate his historic contribution to the Trump story. He may well decide that after being convicted of all 34 charges, Trump should be taught a lesson with a year or 18 months in prison. Then what the hell is going to happen?

Russian military targets inside Russia should be fair game

For more than two years the US has held back on giving permission to Ukraine to use any of its American-supplied longer-range weapons to hit targets inside Russia. Joe Biden said from the beginning that while he was happy to send billions of dollars of arms to Kyiv he didn't want to escalate the war and provoke Moscow into using unconventional weapons to strike at Ukraine, ie nuclear or chemical systems. This has been Biden's greatest fear, that Putin might resort to nukes if Russia itself came under attack. But the fact is Ukraine is already hitting bases in Russia, using long-range drones and missiles, although admittedly domestically-produced weapons and not ones sent by the Pentagon. Ukraine has also used the US ATACMS rocket system to hit Russian targets in Moscow-annexed Crimea. So back in Moscow I imagine Putin is thinking the war has alredy escalated. Would it be such a major step if Washington declared that from now on Russia territory (military targets only) is fair game. After all, in war, if one side launches bombs and missiles, the other side should be entitled to do the same. Keeping the counter-offensive attacks strictly within the boundaries of Ukraine makes little sense and gives a huge advantage to Moscow. If Ukraine started really hammering targets inside Russia with longer-range missiles and rockets supplied by the US, that just might force Putin to seriously consider bargaining for peace. I suspect that at some point this year, Biden will change his mind and will give carte blanche to Kyiv to do what they want and what they consider necessary to stop the Russian rockets and missiles from flying over the border into Ukrainian cities. And that would mean striking at every airbase and missile-launching site across the border. The UK and other European countries have already authorised Kyiv to use their longer-range weapons to hit Russian targets over the border and it would be a huge boost to Zelensky if the Us did the same.

The Trump jury is out

The seven men and five women on the Trump jury have an historic time ahead of them. Whatever they decide it will be historic, although a guilty fnding would obviously be more dramatically historic than an acquittal. This is going to weigh on their minds. Even though the judge will expect them to come to their decision based on the evidence alone, it wll be almost impossible. The defendant is Donald Trump for heaven's sake, you can't get a bigger elephant in the room than The Donald. So each member of the jury panel will not only be thinking about the evidence but the reality of deciding whether the former president and now Republican nominee for the presidency can actually be found guilty. There will be some on the jury, probably the foreman and others with strong views who will try their best to persuade the rest that they shouldn't think of the defendant as Trump but merely as the defendant. Again, that will be impossible. However, if the evidence is as good as the prosecution hopes it is, then they will have little choice but to convict Trump, possibly on all 34 charges. But Trump's lawyers have painted the prosecution's main witness, Michael Cohen, as a serial liar, and that description may be enough to cause doubt in the jury's mind. Doubt means an acquittal. And jury members worried about being known for ever for finding the former president guilty might be privately relieved.

Will Trump pick Nikki Haley for vice president?

Donald Trump said he would not be asking Nikki Haley to be his vice presidential running mate. But I predict he will think again. She may not want it of course but if Trump asks her formally I can't see her turning it down. Haley has a large support base and if she takes on the role of running-mate, there will be plenty of voters who might think it's a dream ticket. None of the other potential candidates for the job match her qualities. But Trump is enjoying keeping his thoughts to himself and probably won't announce his decision for another month or so. But Haley has taken the first step towards being welcomed back into the Trump fold with her announcement that she will vote for him. Having a woman as his running-mate will also put Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on the spot. Haley I suspect would outshine Harris on almost any subject. But Trump being Trump he will probably not forgive Haley for daring to stand against him for the Republican party nomination. So he is more likely to give her some less prominent role. The way things are heading, Trump is going to win in November whether he has Haley at his side or not.

Israel facing more criticism over airstrikes

Israel gets good intelligence that two leaders of Hamas are in a certain area in the town of Rafah in southern Gaza and they launch an instant airstrike. This has happened many times before in the eight-month war in Gaza. The intelligence was right. Two Hamas commanders were killed. But they were hiding in a Palestinian refugee camp. So Israel also killed about 45 civilians, many of them it seems burnt to death when their tented camps caught fire. War is never precise, it's never so minutely targeted that only the bad guys get killed. Yet it seems extraordinary when the Israel Defence Forces (IDF)have come under such scrutiny around the world that they should launch such a strike from the air when the chances of civilian casualties must have been unacceptably high. Israel is losing the public relations and propaganda battle. Could the two identified Hamas commanders not have been taken out by an Israeli special forces unit or was that deemed by IDF chiefs to be too risky? Bombing from the air onto a refugee camp was never going to be free of risk for civilians. Under the international rules of war, civilians must not be targeted and every effort must be made to avoid killing or injuring innocent people. The IDF is carrying out an investigation to see what went wrong. But it's petty clear what happened. They had a short period when the intelligence was ripe for action and the IDF launched an attack before the Hamas indivduals could escape. It was a gamble that went fatally wrong. Not for the first time in this war.

Could Trump be spending his last weekend as a free man?

Will Donald Trump be sitting in a jail cell by the end of the week? It would seem to be a very remote possibility. But what if he is convicted of the 34 business fraud charges against him AND the judge rules he has continued to be in contempt of court for violating the gagging order on public comments attacking him (the judge) and members of the prosecution. Trump hasn't really stopped attacking the whole judicial system whenever he gets a chance even after being fined twice; and if there is one thing which judges hate more than anything it's a defendant who ignores and disrespects the court and all its works. So, even if the judge in this case, Juan Merchan, considers a large fine to be the most appropriate sentence for fraud convictions, might he contemplate a tougher sentence if he throws in a contempt of court penalty as well? Could that lead to a prison cell for the former president? Again, it's unlikely. But judges are very individual human beings and if Judge Merchan were to feel a spot of jail time might do Trump a lot of good to remind him that he is not above the law, then he just might. I suspect that Trump himself is thinking these sort of thoughts right now as he tries to celebrate the holiday weekend in memory of veterans. He will no doubt come to the conclusion that Judge Merchan wouldn't dare. But this is the trial of the century so far and the judge will want to seize his moment to ensure that Trump is not given special treatment of any kind just because he spent four years as the boss in the White House. We could be less than a week away from knowing the answer.

Joe Biden and Bibi Netanyahu's relationship breakdown

After the atrocities committed by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, President Biden offered his total and unflinching support for retribution against the terrorist-designated rulers of the Gaza Strip. Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, vowed to annihilate every member of Hamas and to gain the release of the 252 Israeli and foreign hostages abducted and taken into Gaza. Biden agreed that these objectives were right and proper. So, too, did the UK government and other like-minded nations, appalled by the images and reports of slaughter, rape and brutality by the Hamas interlopers. Nearly eight months later, that policy of unflinching support for Israel has gone through several stages of doubt, alarm, dismay and anger. What went so badly wrong? Did the Biden administration underestimate or misinterpret what Netanyahu and the extreme right-wing members of his cabinet had in mind? As a faithful and longstanding ally to Israel, did Biden unrealistically trust Netanyahu to perform what many Middle East specialists saw as an impossible mission: to remove every trace of Hamas in Gaza by military force without inflicting suffering on the Palestinian people. In other words, not a war as such but a clinical dismantling of the Hamas leadership and organisational structure in Gaza. The Pentagon sent a high-ranking urban warfare veteran to spell out how he thought it could be done and warned of the risks of high civilian casualties. Israel took all the advice from its allies but what followed over the following months looked to the outside world neither clinical nor precision-guided. The manner in which the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) bombed and shelled their way into the multitude of Hamas hideouts, all located within or beneath the densely populated civilian population began very rapidly to undermine the Washington/Tel Aviv relationship, upon which the survival of Israel has depended for decades. Moreover, the back-and-forth by Biden’s top national security officials, urging Netanyahu to start planning for a post-war Gaza and to accept the reality that Hamas in some form would probably survive met with stubborn rejection. “American officials and others are having the same difficulty that [Benny] Gantz and [Yoav] Gallant [part of the three-man war cabinet along with Netanyahu] are having which is understanding what Bibi’s strategic endgame is,” said a veteran US defence source with long experience of Middle East politics. “Ultimately, Biden and Bibi are operating on very different political calculations. Bibi’s is political survival after his disastrous management of Israeli security was revealed by 10/7 [the October 7 Hamas assault on Israel] and Biden is trying to navigate US election-year politics and a party deeply divided over support for Israel,” the source said. “When one looks back over the history of US-Israel relations during Middle East wars it is not surprising that they would hit a bumpy patch but that it has taken so long to emerge,” the US source said. Conscious of his own vulnerability as Israel’s leader, Netanyahu has told his recent Washington visitors that he had no other option but to pursue the top military leadership of Hamas, and to destroy the remaining four out of an original 24 combat battalions still operating in Gaza. The IDF have killed around 14,000 Hamas fighters, according to Israeli figures. This would mean that of the 35,000 Palestinian deaths reported by the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza but disputed by Tel Aviv, since the war began, 40 per cent were members of the terror group. Netanyahu has been trying to get this message across, but the reality is that as the Palestinian civilian casualty figures rose exponentially and television broadcasters highlighted the terrible scenes of women and children injured and dying in Gaza, the impact was generating increasing alarm in Washington. Pro-Palestinian protests, denouncing America’s continuing arming of Israel, proliferated in the US, adding to Biden’s discomfort in election year. The US president started issuing red lines to Netanyahu. Israel, he said, must not do to the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, what it had done to Gaza City and to Khan Younis, also in the south, where destruction and civilian deaths – known in the military as “collateral damage”- had been judged in Washington to be wildly disproportionate. Even though the principal Hamas leaders in Gaza – Yahya Sinwar and Mohamed Deif - were at one point thought to be in bunkers beneath Rafah, Biden told Netanyahu an all-out attack on the city would be unacceptable and would have consequences for future arms shipments to Israel. This warning was duly followed up with a suspended delivery of 1,800 of American 2,000lb air-launched bombs and 1,700 500lb bombs which had caused such devastation in northern and central Gaza, and in Khan Younis. “We are especially focused on the end-use of the 2,000lb bombs and the impact they could have in dense urban settings as we have seen in other parts of Gaza,” said Major-General Pat Ryder, Pentagon press spokesman. “We have not made a final determination on how to proceed with this shipment,” he said. Netanyahu did take due notice when the Pentagon delivery of heavy bombs was halted, on Biden’s instructions. Rafah has come under attack but so far not on the scale and shock-and-awe gravity of strikes in the earlier stages of the war elsewhere in Gaza; and the vast majority of the 1.2 million Palestinian refugees in the city have moved out to a supposedly safer area to escape the Israeli airstrikes, following leaflet warnings and telephone calls made by the IDF. While Washington may have breathed a sigh of relief, there has been rising irritation about Netanyahu’s refusal to think beyond the bombs, to start planning for a meaningful political future for Gaza, in which the Palestinians would have independent control over their own destiny. The so-called two-state solution -Israel for the Jewish people and Palestine for the Palestinian people – first negotiated as part of the Oslo Accords in the 1990s (and subsequently aborted) has been persistently promoted by the Biden administration. However, the likelihood of that concept emerging from the current war has become progressively unrealisable because of Netanyahu’s total opposition. It is a major reason why Biden and his national security team have become so frustrated by the Israeli leader’s actions and his perceived obstructive approach to anything that looks and sounds like giving Palestinians their independence and sovereignty. Netanyahu wants not just the elimination of Hamas. He wants any future Gaza to be demilitarised so that no attack of any kind can ever again be aunched against Israel from the territory. And that means, in his view, a strong Israeli presence on the Gaza-Egypt border, maintaining security control over all land west of Jordan, including the occupied West Bank and Gaza territories. So, for months, relations between Washington and Tel Aviv have been deteriorating. But they are not beyond repair. When the British chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that arrest warrants would be applied for Netanyahu and for Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defence minister, as well as for the three top Hamas leaders, accusing them jointly of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Biden denounced the decision as “outrageous”. The unequivocal condemnation by Biden must have been a good moment for Netanyahu. But it won’t have removed the underlying tension and strain that continue to put the political, diplomatic and personal relations between Washington and Tel Aviv in jeopardy.

So Putin now wants peace in Ukraine!

According to Reuters, Vladimir Putin wants a peace deal with Kyiv and for the settlement to allow Russia to keep all the territory it has seized in the war. Well, that's dead in the water, surely. Zelensky has said so many times that he will never negotiate away any part of Ukraine and he has always included Crimea when he has said that. Crimea was annexed without a fight by the Russian in 2014. So even tbhough the war has been going on for more than two years, Zelensky is sticking to his persistent mantra that Russian troops should go back across the border into their own country and leave the Ukranians alone. No room for compromise there. So, why would Putin be thinking of some sort of deal when he knows he will be laughed out of court? The answer is obvious. Putin is a wiley individual. He is testing the waters. He will have taken into account the fact that in November it is possible, if not very likely, that Donald Trump will become president again and Trump has sad he intended to end the war in Ukraine on his first day in office. So, in anticipation of another Trump administration, Putin has cunningly let it be known that he is ready for a deal and has named his price. Four unidentified Russian officials spoke to Reuters, clearly on the say-so of Putin. Trump will seize on it if he wins the election because he must be worrying about how the hell he is going to end the war on Day One of his presidency. Now he has the answer. Putin, through his emissaries to Reuters, has effectively told Trump: "This is the deal I am prepared to consider. Take it or leave it." The timing of the leak to Reuters couldn't be more helpful to Trump, and let's see if he reacts to it. If such a deal went ahead and Kyiv was forced to accept it, Trump would be able to claim that he and only he brought the war to an end. Putin probably wouldn't mind.

Nikki Haley bows to the inevitable

Admittedly Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and ex-US ambassador to the United Nations under Donald Trump, was in a tricky position. But now she has come out and said she will vote for Trump in November, although she didn't go so far as to formally endorse the former president. She really had little choice. She couldn't ignore the very large elephant in the room for ever, and she couldn't have voted for, let alone, endorse Joe Biden because that would have been viewed as a betrayal to her Republican party and a betrayal to her many loyal supporters. So she went half way and will presumably let her supporters make up their own minds what they do in the November election. I suspect a lot of them will go with Nikki Haley and vote for Trump which has to be good news for the Manhattan court defendant. Haley has been scoring high numbers in primaries despite dropping out of the presidential race, so there's a good chunk of Republicans who may well switch their loyalties to Trump, not that he needs them at this stage in the campaign because he has effectively won the Republican nomination already. But Trump loves big numbers. He has always claimed that millions more voters wanted him as president rather than Biden in 2020, and now he will have potentially significant numbers of Haley fans joining the Trump bandwagon. Biden has a lot of work on his hands to stay in the White House.

Iran and the back channel to the US

When the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, was killed in a helicopter crash, along with his foreign minister and other officials, the universal view was that it would make little difference in terms of Iran's relations vis a vis the US and the West, or indeed for the Iranian people themselves who would continue to suffer repression and human rights abuses whoever took over the presidency. But I wonder. A major event like the helicopter crash wiping out key members of the Tehran regime just might lead to a change in thinking. The first signs are already emerging. Within an hour or so of the disappearance of the helicopter in the mountains in northern Iran, the US received a plea for help from Tehran in tracing the wreckage. And then it came to light that two senior figures in the Biden administration and their counterpart Iranian officials had met for confidential indirect discussions in Oman (before the helicopter crash) to talk about ways of lowering tensions in the Middle East. Brett McGurk, Biden's Middle East adviser, and Abram Paley, acting US envoy for Iran, expressed Washington's views and ideas to Iranian officials under the auspices of the Omani government, with discussions in separate rooms. OK, they didn't meet to shake hands but they were in the same building with the Omanis acting as the link. As a US official put it, it wasn't the first meeting and it wouldn't be the last. So, a bit of optimism there. And just maybe, with a new president installed in Tehran, even though he will be naturally inclined to rigid conservatism, like his late predecessor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, might be thinking it's time for a more practical and pragmatic relationship with the United States.

Netanyahu sets out his plan for Gaza without mentioning the hostages

Binyamin Netanyahu was replying to the ABC News presenter George Stephanopoulos who had asked him what his strategy was in bringing the Gaza war to an end and planning a future administration of Gaza. The Israeli prime gave an extensive reply outlining what he saw as his priorities. The first two were the destruction of the Hamas organisation and the second was the demilitarisation of Gaza. He gave other issues on his list. But he completely neglected to mention the release of hostages. Stephanopoulos thnked him for his time and signed off. As the screen faded you could hear behind the blank screen the voice of Netanyahu beginning to say..... "and handing over...." But it was too late. The interview had come to an end. Extraordinary that he didn't put the release of the hostages as the first or second of his priorities, and extraordinary that Stephanopoulos didn't pick him up on the failure to mention the remaining hostages in Hamas's hands, believed to be around 130. I don't think anyone has pointed it out. But it would seem to have been a grave lapse on his part. The only news you get these days about the fate of the hostages is when the Israeli military announces that they have found the bodies of dead hostages. What the hostages have suffered in the more than seven monhs of war is too terrifying to contemplate. And it must surely be THE main priority of the Israeli government to gain their release, one way or the other.

Trump has not ruled out havig a third term

Donald Trump is clearly imagining himself sitting back in the chair in the Oval Office because he has indicated he hasn't ruled out the possibility of him standing for a third term. Under the US constitution he can only serve for two terms but so confident is he that he will beat Joe Biden in November, he has begun to spell out how he might stick around for longer than four years, quoting the example of President Franklyn D Roosevelt who served for four terms. I doubt the US Supreme Court would go along with this ambition but it shows that Trump has a dream of dominatng American politics (and the world) until he is into his late eighties. Biden should raise this during the upcoming TV debates when he will no doubt be harangued by Trump for being too old. At present all the major polls are showing Trump ahead of Biden in the key states, so I have no doubt Trump looks in his shaving mirror each morning and puts on his best presidential look. And having served one lot of four years in the White House, another eight years might seem pretty reasonable and achievable. All of this will be elevated to another level if he is acquitted of business fraud in New York next week. The US and the world and the consitution await what might well become the new Trump presidential era.

Trump's moment of truth: convicted of fraud or acquitted

It looks like the first trial of Donald Trump could be over by the end of next week. If he is aquitted of the 34 business fraud charges, then watch out for a huge nationwide boost to his chances of becoming the next president of the United States. If he is convicted of some or all of the charges, then we can expect Trump's lawyers to appeal. The damage to the Trump campaign will be marginal but it will give Joe Biden ammunition to remind voters that the Republican nominee for the White House is a convicted transgressor of the law. The judge in the case has called for final statements to be made by the prosecution and defence on Tuesday. next week which should mean a decision by the jury by the end of next week. It's impossible to know or guess what is going on in the minds of the individual jury members but it's pretty difficult to come to the conclusion that the prosecution has made a watertight case agaist the former president. There has been too much tittle-tattle and sexual innuendo, and very little clear evidence of a crime committed knowingly by Trump. The prosecution's main witness, Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer and Mr Fixit, is himself a convicted liar and has served time in prison. Will the jury really accept everything he has claimed as the truth or will they have doubts? If they have doubts, they will more than likely acquit Trump because the rest of the prosecution case seems to be based on circumstantial evidence. So it may well be that by the end of next week Trump will walk free from the Manhattan court.

Russia on war footing. For what exactly?

Is Russia retooling and expanding its war production lines because of Ukraine or is it for another even more sinister purpose? At the start of his fifth presidential term, is Vladimir Putin planning other much grander schemes, such as future invasions of Moldova, Georgia, maybe the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania? And if he is plotting this in his head, does he seriousy think he can get away with it without incurring a conventional/nuclear war wiith Nato? My belief is that Putin has learnt a lot from the war in Ukraine and the West's response to it. Initially it was all bad news for him: Ukraine fought back and ruined his game plan which was to conquer the whole country in weeks or even days, and then Joe Bien corralled the whole of the western alliance and other partners around the world to send arms and money to Kyiv to help defend Ukraine from the Russian aggression. But now more than two years later, the picture is very different. US Congress wavered over sending more arms, Ukraine began to run out of ammunition, Russian troops advanced and Russian missiles tore into Ukraine's energy installations, and the Russian economy not only survived the mass international sanctions but adapted and flourished, thanks to countries such as India which continued to buy Russian oil. So Putin can look to the future with a degree of confidence and he might start planning other adventures, hoping/believing that the great Nato machine might actually step back from a full-scale war because of the potential catastrophic implication for the whole planet. And it's for this reason perhaps why President Macron, having thought it all through, suggested that there might come a time when Nato should send troops to Ukraine. In other words, call Putin's bluff. The idea among some European members of Nato to send military trainers would be a first step, to test the wind as it were. Dangerous and risky, yes, but Putin is getting away with too much. But as in the US war in Vietnam, military trainers were inevitaby followed by combat troops, and more combat troops, hundreds of thousands of them. That's what would happen in Ukraine. Is Nato prepared to take such a gamble, and how would Putin react? It just might bring to a halt any dreams he has of invading other countries.

Nato talking of sending trainers to Ukraine

Nato officials are beginning to talk about sending military trainers to Ukraine to help the Kyiv government fight the Russians. After President Macron's sudden conversion to the idea of sending troops to Ukraine, this new idea is likely to gain some support. Ukraine is in a desperate state and currently losing ground. But crossing the red line and getting Nato involved on the ground in Ukraine? That's a deeply risky proposal but maybe it has become inevitable. The US under Joe Biden won't budge from his adamant postion which is "no US troops" in Ukraine. But could, say, Estonia or Poland or Latvia get more involved because of their fear of what Putin might do in the event of a Ukrainian collapse? But there is one scenario here which could dramatically and significantly lead to a direct controntation with Russia. A Third World War of sorts. If certain Nato members send in troop-trainers and they have Nato logstical backing and then Russia starts to target and kill alliance military personnel, will the rest of the "defensive" organisation, including the US, have to get involved? Then it's war all the way with catastrophic consequences. Do Nato members really want that? It's what Biden has been trying to avoid from the first moment Russian troops crossed the border into Ukraine. I suspect wiser counsel will prevail in the end.

The red carpet treatment for Putin in Beijing

With the attempted assassination of the Slovakian prime minister, Robert Fico, the Israelis stepping up their attacks on Rafah in Gaza, and Ukraine struggling to stop Russian troops from advancing further into their country, the handshake between Vladimir Putin and Xi Zinping and the four-star red-carpet treatment given to the Russian president in Beijing don't exactly help to calm the troubled waters around the planet. They look like two very satisfied leaders engaged in a joint exercise to put everyone else on edge. President Xi is definitely the superior partner in the Moscow/Beijng love-in because Putin needs him more than Xi needs Putin. Nevertheless, when they come together and we hear of their growing stragetic partnership you know it doesn't bode well for the likes of the United States and the western world. They don't like us and nothing is going to change that. What is most worrying is how much help Xi is prepared to give to Putin to prosecute and win his war in Ukraine. China insists it is not giving weapons to Russia. But it is effectively boosting Russia's arms production by providing vital plant tooling and machinery and electronic component parts for key weapon systems, such as drones. They call this dual-use systems so as not to be accused of deliberately arming a country to fight an illegal war. It's an old trick. Dual-ue means it can be used for civilian or military purposes. So the packing crate might say it contains parts for agricultural machinery but actually they are also vital for tanks or armoured vehicles or fighter jets etc. Xi doesn't want to be seen to be arming Russia because China is so dependent on trade with the West for the success of its economy. So the smile he gives to the TV cameras is a dual-use smile. "Arms? What arms?"

Nikki Haley is now a power broker

One of the most fascinating ingredients in the US presidential election campaigning is the continuing loyalty being shown to Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, even though she is no longer running as a Republican candidate. She is picking up more than 22 per cent of the vote in primaries. The question is, what is she going to do with this power base? She hasn't declared for Donald Trump and if she did I think that could lead to mixed fortunes. First of all, she is getting all these votes because her supporters don't want Trump to be the next president. So if she announced that she was endorsing Trump, she would not only annoy those who have stuck loyally with her but it would also confuse millions of voters who won't know where to transfer their support. Some of them might vote for Joe Biden, so good news for him, others might look around for someone else in the Republican party or an independent. But, of course, there isn't anyone else in the Republican party because Trump has already effectively won the nomination. Could Haley abandon Trump and the Republicans and call on her supporters to vote for Biden? Well, she could but it would seem unlikely. She is a true-blood Republican and she would screw up her future presidential hopes. No one would back her for a future nomination if she had been responsible for giving Biden another four years in the White House. But, on the other hand, if she declares for neither Trump nor Biden, and all her supporters stick with her in the ballot box, she might still be responsible for helping Biden win. It's an intruigingly powerful position to be in. In the end, she might just declare for Trump in the hope and expectation of getting a top job in his administration. Because, if she stays silent and gives no advice to her loyal supporters, Trump will offer her nothing. She has less han six months to make up her mind.

Total military victory is rare

Binyamin Netanyahu wants and expects total victory over Hamas in Gaza. Vladmir Putin wants and expects total victory over Ukraine. Neither is going to fulfil this dream. Hamas has already shown it can survive the Israeli onslaught and despite all efforts to stop the arms flow into Gaza, clearly the Iran-supplied weapons are still getting through and the Israelis have not managed to destroy all the shell and missile production lines underground in Gaza. Some, probably several thousand Hamas fighters, are going to survive to fight on and cause Israel a headache for the forseeable future. Likewise, while Russian troops have made a few inroads recently, especially close to the city of Kharkiv, Putin will never conquer Ukraine in the true meaning of the word. Once all the billions of dollars worth of weapons arrive from the US, Ukrainian forces should be able to regroup and push the Russians back. So if there is to be no total victory for anyone, the only solution is for-ever war or a settlement. The tragedy at present is that neither Moscow nor Tel Aviv is interested in any form of lasting settlement because each believes that the impossible is still possible.

Putin moves his chess pieces

There's nothing like reelection to give a boost to the ego, and Vladimir Putin's ego was pretty big anyway. So, with his fifth reelection all sorted and his future set in concrete (or gold), he has been changing round his top chaps to bring a new look to his admnistration. Sergei Shoigu, his old mate, fishing partner and defence minister, has been ousted but then "promoted" to become the Secretary of the Russian Federation Security Council, not so powerful but still prestigious. He is replacing Nikolai Patrushev, a former boss of the FSB security service and a man who probably knows all of Putin's skeletons in the Kremlin cupboard. Putin will have to give him another important job to make sure he keeps all those secrets to himself. I'm sure there will be an announcement soon. Being in Putin's inner circle is all about power and money, so no one is going to lose out to make sure the Putin power base remains as solid as ever. Replacing the old-style veteran at the defence ministry with Andrei Belousov, an economist, is a smart move, seeing as how millions of roubles are being wasted in corruption and overspend and the war in Ukraine. But it's going to cause anxiety inside the defence ministry where they like the man in charge to be a military chap. Belousev's apppointment could lead to a lot of job losses, streamlining of arms departments, a shake-up of weapons production lines and a dfferent approach to the war in Ukraine. I suspect it's not good news for Kyiv or its western partners.

Hamas is now a Hydra monster

Israel thought it had swept northern Gaza of Hamas fighters and commanders and began its long-awaited attack on Rafah in the south. But now, up pops Hamas in the north, like the Hydra monster of Greek mythology with multiple heads. Chop one off and two more grow in its place. This is Hamas today and the Israelis are facing a mighty challenge to keep the Hamas heads from growing. This happened before in the seven-month war when the Israel Defence Forces had to return to Gaza City when it became clear Hamas units had moved from the south to the north to open up a new front to attack the Israelis from the rear. This is clever tactics by Hamas and will underline for the Israelis how complicated it is to destroy an enemy which has so many territorial advantages. With the Gaza Metro of underground tunnels at their disposal, Hamas can switch from one part of Gaza to another and suddenly emerge in the rear of the IDF positions and start attacking. I'm not saying the IDF can't deal with this but it means that crucial units required to take control of Rafah are having to be sent rapidly back to the north. Hamas's Hydra tactics will prolong the war and make peace a distant dream. The IDF is a significantly impressive fighting machine with dedicated soldiers but Hamas has proven to be an artful and resilient enemy, commanded by a leader, Yahya Sinwar, who knows about tactics and strategy and has spent years studying the Israeli military.He appears to know what he is doing.

Delays are saving the day for Trump

Donald Trump looks weary and angry and furious in the court in Manhattan but actually he has had a pretty good week with the news that the three other much more significant trials he is facing on multiple federal charges have all been postponed with no future date fixed. The likelihood is that none of these trials will begin before the election in November and that has to be good news for Trump. If he were to win the election he could instruct the Justice Department to scrap the trials and that will be it. What a result for him and exactly what his lawyers have been pushing for since this drama started. So, everything will now depend on the conclusion of the trial he is currently enduring. I don't think it's a done deal. Stormy Daniels held up pretty well after ferocious questioning by Trump's lawyers but all the sex tittle tattle didn't really help the prosecution case. It made the jury cringe and they might have got confused about what the trial is actually supposed to be about, business fraud. Whatever happens, if Trump is convicted he is more likely to face a fine or probation and will survive for the November election. So, all in all, Trump's prospects are improving.

Israel will try to make it not look like an invasion of Rafah

Desperate to keep the munitions and artillery shells coming from the US, Israel looks set to invade the southern Gaza town of Rafah without it looking like an invasion. In Gaza City and Khan Younis the Israel Defence Forces went in big with tanks and artillery and combat engineering machines and airstrikes. In Rafah, it seems they are going to carry out a more limited operation in some sections of the town where their intelligence indicates Hamas leaders are hiding. They need the trophy capture or killing of the leaders who orchestrated the massacres and rapes in Israel on October 7. Specifically they need to grab or kill Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades. But the IDF cannot afford to go bashing in with all guns blazing because civilians will be killed and there will be a worldwide outcry and condemnation by Washington. So it's going to be more stealthy and precise, and everything will depend on the most up-to-date intelligence. If they can find these two leaders and dismantle much of the remaining four Hamas combat brigades without destroying the town and killing civilians, they will just be able to get away with it. Anything else, and Biden will stop all offensive weapons deliveries and Israel will be on its own.

Israel's Gaza war strategy has all been wrong from the start

Israel's stated war strategy was to destroy Hamas. Joe Biden went along with that. The UK went along with that. Many others did, too. But then it all went wrong. Instead of launching precision strikes and avoiding killing civilians, the Israel Defence Forces went hell-for-leather at hitting anything and everything where its intelligence services said Hamas fighters were hiding, never mind whether it was on the sixh floor of an apartment block or Ward C of a hospital or the basement of a mosque. They pounded it with air-launched bombs and artillery until nothing was standing and no one emerged alive. From that moment, Biden started to get worried. Which is why the US president has been warning Israel against doing the same to the town of Rafah in the south and why he has held back sending more American bombs and missiles to Tel Aviv because of his concerns about what they will do to Rafah and the more than a million Palestinians living there. Israel will argue and does argue that they had to bash everything because Hamas was everywhere, hiding within the civilian population. But in the process Israel lost Biden's support and created a worldwide pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel movement. Now Israel is trying to apply more precise strikes in Rafah to seek out the Hamas combat brigades. But Hamas is clever. Its leaders have survived by remaining underground, thwarting Israel's attempts to discover them and kill them. So, in frustration, the military action now being taken in Rafah is bound to kill civilians and destroy homes, just like the terrible scenes in Gaza City and Khan Younis. Losing Biden's undying support was Binyamin Netanyahu's gravest error.

Hamas wants the war in Gaza to end. Israel doesn't

Everything about the latest ceasefire proposal to bring relief to some of the Israeli hostages and to all the Palestinians struggling to survve in Gaza is a blatant brinkmanship game between Israel and Hamas. The terrorist-designated Hamas organisation appeared to surprise everyone, especially the Palestinian people, when they announced they would accept the latest proposal negotiated by Egypt and Qatar. But it wasn't a surprise at all. What Hamas wanted was to put Israel into a tough spot by accepting the deal at the moment when they knew the Israel Defence Forces were gearing up to invade the southern town of Rafah. They clearly hoped that by declaring they were ready for a ceasefire deal and a release of more than 30 hostages, Israel would be forced to stop the tanks rolling into Rafah. The opposite happened. And why was this? Simply, because Hamas wants to end the war in Gaza in order for a significant proportion of their fighters and leaders to stay alive and combat-ready. Israel, on the other hand, doesn't want the war to end, temporary ceasefire or not, because their mission is not yet completed, which is to destroy what remains of Hamas, including the killing or capturing of the main leaders who, miraculously, have survived the seven-month war. Two diametrically opposed strategies, which is why the slaughter and destruction in Gaza will continue, and why the Hamas ceasefire acceptance was just a ploy to stall Israel's military operation. Now the IDF tanks have entered Rafah and Palestinian families are fleeing the town and heading for what they pray will be a safe haven. The Palestinians and hostages and their families are the ones who will suffer the most.

Russia has taken next step in putting a nuclear bomb into space

Russia has launched a satellite in low Earth orbit (1,200 miles or less) which the US fears is a test-bed for a future orbiting nuclear weapon platform. The suspicious spacecraft looks to be part of Russia’s plan to deploy an anti-satellite nuclear device, according to Mallory Stewart, US assistant secretary of state for arms control, deterrence and stability.The first disclosure that Russia was developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon was confirmed by the White House in February. Moscow denied it. Stewart told a Washington think-tank that the planned weapon would not be used “to attack humans or cause structural damage on Earth”. “Instead, our analysts assess that detonation [of a nuclear weapon] in orbit would render lower Earth orbit unusable for a certain amount of time,” she said This region of space covering 100 to 1,200 miles above the Earth, is crucial for thousands of US military, civilian and commercial satellites. It could literally shut down this region of space and screw up communications for everyone. No wonder the Americans are desperately trying to dissuade Moscow from considering such a weapon which would be a blatant breach of international agreements on the use or misuse of space.

Trump WILL win in November, says loyal senator

Could there be another January 6 uprising in the making in November? Donald Trump was asked whether he would accept being defeated by Joe Biden in the November election and he basically replied, NO. Now Tim Scott, Republican senator for South Carolina and a Trump acolyte and potential vice-presidential running-mate, has stated categorically that Trump will definitely win in November. He was asked repeatedly in a television interview whether he would accept the result of the election but instead of replying "of course I will", he just said Trump would win, implying that whatever happened in November, Trump would end up in the White House. I don't know whether Scott is some sort of clairvoyant but he was so adamant about it that it almost sounded like there was a secret plot to win the White House, come what may. I hope not. But if there is to be another burst of violence and anarchy on the streets in Washington, I imagine the powers-that-be will be better prepared this time. On January 6, 2021, all the police forces available in the capital and the Secret Service were unable to cope with the outbreak of total mayhem.

Trump could go to prison for contempt

Donald Trump is literally asking for trouble. He has been warned by the judge in his trial on business fraud charges about his public comments but the former and would-be president just ignores him and carries on railing against everyone who is out to get him, including, in his view, the judge himself. Last week Justice Juan Merchan fined Trump $9,000 for failing to adhere to the court gag order which was suppoed to stop the defendant from attacking the jury members, the judge, the prosecutor and others. But Trump has made it clear he believes this is an infringement of his freedom of speech, particularly in his capacity as the Republican party nominee for the presidency. But a court order is a court order and even Trump is supposed to honour it or face a bigger fine or a short jail sentence. Maybe he is deliberately being provocative because he wants the judge to send him to prison. The true martyr, in his view, fighting for his rights. The judge is to make a further ruling next week and if Trump continues to berate him and accuse him of being impartial and biased, he may have no choice but to put him in a cell. Any other defendant would be sent to prison for such persistent contempt. Watch out for the ruling next week. It could be Trump's defining moment.

Huge manta ray spotted off California. It's an underwater drone!

An underwater drone shaped like a giant manta ray has been fully tested in trials off the coast of southern California. Images of the huge uncrewed prototype vehicle which has been designed to carry out long-range operations for the US Navy have been released by the Pentagon's advanced research agency, Darpa. Built by the US defence company, Northrop Grumman, the drone is so large that it had to be delivered to the test area in subsections. No measurements have been publicly disclosed but it looks to be the largest underwater drone developed for the navy. The research programme is officially called the manta ray project. Another company, PacMar Technologies, based in Honolulu, Hawaii, is also developing a manta ray-shaped drone. Northrop Grumman said the drone had been designed to conduct "long-duration, long-range missions in ocean environments where humans can't go". It has been fitted with energy-saving technologies which will allow the drone to remain for long periods on the ocean floor using limited power while gathering intelligence or carrying other surveillance missions. Kyle Woerner, Darpa manta ray programme manager, said the "extra large UUV (unmanned underwater vehicle) could be rapidly assembled in the field". He said the successful sea trials had shown it was ready to advance towards " real-world operations". The manta ray drone, with four small propellers, glides gracefully through the water just like it's fish namesake and has been designed to carry out multiple missions. The aim is to have an underwater drone that can operate for nearly unlimited periods and could be launched from a warship. The entire system has been designed for "easy shipment in five standard shipping containers to support expeditionary deployment," Northrop Grumman said. The US Navy is focusing much of its new-technology programmes on developing unmanned surface and underwater vessels for future operations. China, too, is developing similar systems, although there is no evidence of a manta ray-shaped drone in current research programmes. China has been developing a range of advanced underwater vehicles, including large submarine drones. Satellite photos of the naval base on Hainan in the South China Sea have revealed two extra-large unmanned underwater vehicles.

Almost the whole of Gaza will have to be rebuilt

When (if) the war in Gaza comes to an end, the reconstruction of this thin strip of densely-packed urban land will be an astronomical task. The United Nations estimates it could cost up to $40 billion. But that figure presumably doesn't take into account the additional cost of rebuilding Rafah if Israel goes ahead with launching a full-scale invasion of the town in southern Gaza. It's claimed that 75 per cent of all residential buildings in Gaza are either destroyed or damaged. Nothing like this has happened in recent history. I remember being shocked beyond words when I walked through the streets of eastern Mostar in Bosnia during the civil war in the 1990s. Not a single building had escaped the torrent of artillery shells that had been fired into the Muslim half of the town by the Bosnian Croats up in the hills overlooking Mostar. It was total destruction. Similarly, Gaza is now a landscape of rubble and empty shells of crumbling apartment blocks. It will take years to rebuild the towns and cities. But when can the reconstruction begin? The latest ceasefire plan is still in doubt and even if Hamas agrees to sign it, it would only stop the war for 40 days. I suspect Gaza reconstruction is a long way off in the future.

If elected, Trump threatens to prosecute Joe Biden

Donald Trump refers to the Bidens as a crime family. But more than that, he is now threatening to prosecute Biden for crimes if he, the Don, wins the election in November. This is a very clever ploy. He might or might not get the Justice Department to charge Biden with crimes. But what it's really about is to send a message to the Supreme Court. "See," he is telling the judges, "if you don't grant me and future presidents immunity from prosecution for alleged crimes while holding public office, then anarchy will prevail." I guess the judges will hear the message loud and clear. They showed doubts about rejecting immunity across the board when they assembled last week, and now here is a former president with his eye on the White House threatening to charge Biden. It's a cunning move by Trump and his lawyers. Who knows, if the Supreme Court were to grant him his wish to have immunity, then Trump might just feel benevolent and change his mind about prosecuting Biden if he wins the election in November. Everything Trump does has a double meaning behind it. Biden of course was investigated for holding onto classified documents when he was vice president to Obama, but the decision was taken not to prosecute him. So it's difficut to see how this could be raised again in a Trump administration. But I'm sure Trump could give Biden a very hard time and in the meantime he will expect the judges of the Supreme Court to grant him a degree of immmunity and this will be seen as a massive victory for the man who is determined to return to the White House.