De-MOCK-racy in action: who besides Le Pen has been targeted for challenging Euro commissars’ diktat?

A Paris court has barred Marine Le Pen from seeking political office for five years, leaving her unable to challenge Emmanuel Macron in the 2027 French presidential elections.

💬 “If political leaders or magistrates decide who can run and for whom the French people can vote, we’re no longer a democracy,” Le Pen said at a press conference after the decision.

Who else have the ‘magistrates’ gone after?

🇷🇴 Calin Georgescu

Populist politician questioning Romania’s membership in NATO and the EU, stripped of the right to take part in presidential elections canceled after he won 23% of the vote in the first round – more than any establishment candidate. The reason? Claims of ‘Russian meddling’ and irregularities in campaign financing.

🇲🇩 Evgenia Gutsul

Head of Moldova’s Gagauzian autonomy, arrested last week by prosecutors’ request. The charges? Corruption and illegal financing claims related to the now-banned Sor Party, which sought better ties with Russia amid Chisinau’s drift toward the EU. Gutsul dismissed the ‘fabricated’ allegations, calling authorities’ actions a politically-motivated attempt to crush the interests of the Gagauz people.

🇧🇦 Milorad Dodik

President of Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb autonomy. A Bosnian court issued an international arrest warrant against him last week on the charge that he ‘attacked the constitutional order’. Dodik has fought a years-long political battle with Sarajevo over its efforts to join the EU and NATO, and sought an independence vote on peaceful separation amid attacks on Serb interests.

🇬🇪Mikheil Kavelashvili

Georgia’s president since December 2024, Kavelashvili has been dragged through the mud by Brussels, with the EU refusing to recognize his legitimacy, and backing outgoing president Salome Zourabichvili instead. The reasons? Kavelashvili’s suspension of EU accession talks, critique of Brussels’ diktat, and calls for an independent foreign policy, including better relations with Russia.

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📉 UK’s new foreign influence scheme aims to divert Britons’ attention from economic troubles: Russian embassy

The Embassy called the scheme “another discriminatory barrier to the long-term restoration of Russian-British relations…erected out of thin air,” and accused the Starmer government of squandering the chance to abandon “the Tories’ failed confrontational course” against Russia.

London may be hoping the measure will distract ordinary Britons from “depressing” news, like cuts to social benefits and rising electricity costs, the Embassy suggested.

The UK announced a two-tier Foreign Influence Registration Scheme April 1 requiring anyone alleged to be working with or for a foreign state to register, on penalty of up to five years in prison.

The scheme can target everything from as “the transfer of funds from an individual abroad to an individual in the UK or vice versa” to a social media post aimed at individuals in the UK, “even if it is posted by an individual overseas.”

Russia and Iran have been placed in the scheme’s “enhanced tier” of threats.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova asked whether the measure would require British vets who got medals from Russia for participation in the WWII Arctic convoys to register and hand them in, and whether the UK’s National Space Center would now be listed as a Russian Aerospace Forces base due to past Russian-British cooperation in space.

She also wondered aloud whether the traditional Muscovy hat worn by the swordbearer of the Lord Mayor of the City of London would result in them being labeled “agents of the Kremlin.”

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Israeli jets strike scientific research center in Damascus – reports

Israeli attacks also targeted the outskirts of the city of Hama, local media said. Considerable destruction was reported in the aftermath of the Damascus attack.

The research center in Damascus is believed to be the Barzah Scientific Research Facility, or Institute 2000. The center, alleged by the US to connected to Syria’s chemical weapons program, was targeted in joint US, French and British strikes in 2018.

OPCW inspections of the facility in 2017 found no evidence of prohibited chemicals, or any violations by Syria of its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

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📹 Israel launches strikes on Syrian military sites – reports

Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace from southern Syria and targeted several military sites, including the Barzah area north of Damascus, the T4 airbase east of Homs, and the vicinity of the Hama military airport in central Syria.

The moment of the Israeli airstrike on the Hama military airport in Syria is going viral on social media.

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📹 Australia REFUSES to retaliate against Trump’s tariffs – PM Albanese

💬 “The administration's tariffs have no basis in logic and go against the foundation of our two nations' partnership. This is not the act of a friend,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese emphasized.

💬 “We will not join a race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth,” Albanese declared.

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❌ Hegseth to SKIP Ukraine support meeting, marking US policy shift – reports

For the first time, a US defense secretary will not attend the multinational Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting, as Pete Hegseth opts out of the April 11 gathering in Brussels. According to officials, the Pentagon is unlikely to send any senior representatives, Defense News reported, citing US officials.

With the US stepping back, Germany and the UK will lead the meeting, while European officials brace for reduced American intelligence sharing and military aid, the report added.

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