Zarutska’s murder split open the story America tells itself, revealing a justice system in ruins and a press built on selective empathy
The shocking murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte, NC train has become a flashpoint for debate about race and public safety in the US – and also about the role of the media in shaping progressive narratives and employing double standards.
RT takes a look at what happened and how the narrative over this brutal murder is shaping up.
What exactly happened, minute by minute
~9:45 pm, August 22, 2025. Zarutska boards the Lynx Blue Line light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina to go home from work. She is still wearing her pizzeria uniform and appears calm as surveillance video shows her entering the train car and choosing a seat. Just behind her, Decarlos Brown Jr. is already seated. The footage shows no interaction between the two. Zarutska sits, scrolling on her phone.
~9:50 pm. Roughly four minutes after the train departs, Brown pulls out a pocketknife, unfolds it, pauses, then stands up and fatally stabs Zarutska three times in the neck. She freezes, looking wide-eyed and panicked at the people around her. Bystanders turn or move away and do not approach. Then she collapses sideways, bleeding heavily onto the floor shortly thereafter.
Seconds after the attack. Brown walks away. As he proceeds down the aisle past confused passengers, blood appears to drip from the knife in his hand. He pulls off his hooded sweatshirt, bunches it up in one hand, and continues toward the far door.
~9:52 pm. Approximately two minutes after the stabbing, at least one passenger breaks from frozen shock and rushes toward Zarutska to try to help. Moments later, more people gather around in a futile attempt to render aid.
Train stops at next station. Brown exits. A folding knife is found near the platform. Police arrive and arrest him, matching clothing descriptions given by 911 callers. He has a laceration on his hand.
Aftermath. Inside the carriage, blood spreads out in large pools around Zarutska. She is declared dead at the scene. Brown was also taken to the hospital with a hand injury, released after treatment, and then formally charged with first-degree murder. He is later charged with committing an act causing death on a mass transportation system – a federal crime that carries a maximum punishment of life in prison or the death penalty. The federal case will proceed alongside his state first-degree murder charge.
What we know about the killer
Decarlos Brown Jr., 34, has a long criminal record dating back to 2011, and had of late been homeless. Arrest records show charges including armed robbery, breaking and entering, kidnapping, assault, firearm possession by a felon, and parole violations. Prison records show Brown spent six years in prison, followed by a year of probation.
When he was 22, Brown was charged in at least four separate cases that included shoplifting, larceny, breaking and entering and felony conspiracy. Less than a year later, Brown pulled a gun on a man at an apartment complex in Charlotte and robbed him.
His family asserts – a claim supported by some court documents – that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was “hearing voices.” He claims that the government had inserted “material” into his body that controlled him.
Screenshot from social media
In 2022, he attacked his sister Tracey Brown but the latter eventually chose not to pursue the charges, claiming to be unwilling to press forward in a case against her own brother. He was also kicked out of his house by his own mother for his violent tendencies. Brown’s mother said her son should not have been freed after his most recent arrest in January.
Brown’s proclivity for crime is shared by several close family members. His older brother, Stacey Dejon Brown, was convicted in 2012 of second-degree murder, armed robbery, assault, and breaking and entering, and is currently serving a prison sentence. Their father also has multiple convictions for violent crime.
Why was this repeat offender still on the streets?
The question of why a man with 14 arrests and three felony convictions was still on the streets has been one of the central points of contention in the case.
Many legal experts believe that Brown’s case is part of a criminal justice system trend toward “progressive prosecution,” whereby prosecutors in many US cities decline to pursue charges in lower-level cases that would still have previously entailed time behind bars. Republicans, including President Donald Trump, point to the trend of Democrat-led cities taking a soft touch with criminals and emphasizing rehabilitation over public safety.
Kenneth Corey, a former department chief for the New York City Police who now teaches at the University of Chicago Crime Lab’s Policing Leadership Academy, said that federal prosecutors’ offices often tell police and local officials they simply lack the financial resources to try more cases of felons in possession of a firearm. The issue of strained resources for fighting crime has not interfered with the more than $130 billion spent on funding Zarutska’s home country of Ukraine.
In 2014, Brown was initially charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm, which can be used by federal prosecutors to pull cases into the federal system, where penalties can be more severe. However, prosecutors did not take the case, and the state charge was dropped in exchange for a guilty plea on a charge of robbery using a deadly weapon.
In January 2025, another opportunity was missed to take Brown off the streets when Charlotte-Mecklenburg police arrested him for misusing the 911 service amid delusional claims about a “man-made material” controlling his body. Court records show he was released on a “written promise to appear” in court rather than held on cash bail.
He never showed up to his court date. It took more than six months for a court to order a mental evaluation after Brown told officers that he had been given a human-made substance that controlled when he ate, talked or walked.
It is unclear whether this assessment ever took place.
The decision to release Brown in January reportedly came from magistrate Teresa Stokes, who was appointed in 2023 by Clerk of Superior Court Elisa Chinn-Gary. The latter describes herself as a “Racial Equity Organizer“ and “Diversity & Inclusion Consultant.“
Republican lawmakers have publicly demanded Judge Stokes’ removal, citing the January release of Brown. Stokes has since come under national scrutiny over her qualifications.
North Carolina Magistrate Judge Teresa Stoke
A magistrate in North Carolina is not required to have a law degree, and Judge Stokes is not a member of the State Bar. In fact, she built her resume not inside a courtroom but in working with community mental health services and recovery programs. She co-owns a sober sports bar.
Mecklenburg County’s courts have long faced complaints of political patronage and opaque appointments. Magistrates are not elected, rarely face public scrutiny, and are approved by the superior court judge for the district – in this case a woman named Carla Archie, herself celebrated for her work with the Urban League and other DEI causes. She was once head of the North Carolina Education Lottery’s supplier diversity program and co-chair of the diversity and inclusion committee in the legal department at Wells Fargo.
How a firestorm on X finally forced the media’s hand
The footage was made public on Friday, September 5, by the Charlotte Area Transit System and quickly began trending on social media. However, it was not picked up by a single major outlet. By Sunday, September 8, the lack of media attention was itself becoming a story. Elon Musk reposted a tweet by Russian-British journalist Konstantin Kisin expressing disgust with the stonewall silence.
Konstantin Kisin, social media
The following day, Musk chimed in again, noting that the New York Times had still not even addressed the story.
Social media post showing search results for Iryna Zarutska on the website of the New York Times.
When the NYT finally did, it called it an “accelerant” of arguments against Democratic policies and devoted most the article to framing the case as a right-wing narrative. The report also made reference to the fact that “in North Carolina….newspapers in the Jim Crow era often egregiously exaggerated stories about Black criminality.” The Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation in the US South, were abolished in the mid-1960s.
Screenshot of a New York Times article addressing the murder of Iryna Zarutska
Politico published an article that provided no footage of the incident, didn’t mention the respective races of those involved, and featured only a single photograph – of Donald Trump.
Screenshot of a Politico article addressing the murder of Iryna Zarutska.
CNN’s Van Jones, meanwhile, appeared to empathize with the killer, saying he was a “hurting” man.
Conservative commentators have called attention to the perceived sluggishness of corporate media to shed light on a case that doesn’t advance what are seen as liberal narratives. Robby Soave, writing in The Hill, penned an op-ed titled ‘Media finally notices brutal Iryna Zarutska murder, blames MAGA for caring’, in which he argued that the tone of the coverage was “[annoyance] that conservatives are pointing out that people are being murdered.”
This, Soave and others pointed out, is in stark contrast to the extensive coverage black victims of violence at the hands of whites has received.
‘I got that white girl’?
Security footage with audio has emerged appearing to show Brown muttering several times “I got that white girl” as he walks up and down the train car. This audio, which has not been officially confirmed by the authorities, has been entirely absent from mainstream coverage of the incident.
The North Carolina chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations has called for hate crimes charged to be brought against Brown for allegedly “commenting on her race and gender after brutally attacking her.”
RT was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the audio.
Is this the right’s George Floyd moment?
Zarutska’s murder has becoming a lightning rod on the right, even as it has been somewhat eclipsed by the killing of Charlie Kirk. The perception of double standards and selective concern about victims depending on identity has been a sore point for years, especially in light of what has been widely seen as the excesses of the post-George Floyd era.
For conservatives, the Zarutska killing brings together several issues that had been simmering for years: what they see as ineffective and lax policing, ideologically charged city prosecutors, and a lack of media interest in crimes that undermine progressive narratives.
Some commentators believe this tragedy has started to loosen taboos about discussing the disparities in interracial crime. A Fox News program in the wake of the Zarutska killing highlighted the disproportionate rates of black-on-white violent crime.
Image from a Fox News broadcast
Simon Cottee, writing in Unherd, called the uproar over the Zarutska killing the “direct and wholly predictable consequence of years of institutionalised identity politics that vilified whites or whiteness in any form while simultaneously sacralising blacks or blackness.”
Meanwhile, Silicon Valley CEO Eoghan McCabe, founder of Intercom, announced he would provide $500,000 to artists willing to paint Zarutska’s image in highly visible urban areas. Elon Musk has offered a million. Merchandise paying honor to the young woman is already for sale.
Just a day before he himself was killed, Charlie Kirk prophetically posted a picture of a dying Zarutska, her questioning and terror-stricken eyes looking up her menacing killer, with the caption “America will never be the same.”
Still image from the video of the murder of Iryna Zarutska.
The move follows Polish claims of Moscow’s drones violating its airspace, accusations the Kremlin has dismissed
NATO has announced a new military exercise intended to deter Russia, after Poland accused Moscow of violating its airspace with drones. The Kremlin has dismissed the allegations as unfounded, while accusing the bloc of fearmongering.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte claimed the drill, dubbed the ‘Eastern Sentry’, is aimed at bolstering the bloc’s posture along its eastern flank. The maneuvers will begin in the coming days and run for an undisclosed period, officials said.
Eastern Sentry is being presented as a response to “ongoing airspace violations, including numerous Russian drones that violated Poland’s airspace on September 10,” according to a NATO statement.
Denmark will send two F-16s and an anti-air warfare frigate, France will commit three Rafale jets, and Germany will deploy four Eurofighters to the drill. Britain has also expressed its willingness to contribute.
Polish officials have claimed at least 19 separate airspace violations took place and that air defenses downed up to four drones. Local authorities also reported some damage on the ground, but no casualties.
The Russian Defense Ministry has said its drone operations are directed at Ukrainian military targets and none were aimed at Poland. The ministry added that “the maximum range of Russian drones that allegedly crossed the Polish border is less than 700 km,” adding it was ready to conduct consultations with Warsaw.
Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that “the leadership of the EU and NATO accuse Russia of provocations on a daily basis, most often declining to offer any arguments.”
Peskov also insisted that Moscow “has never threatened” anyone, including European countries. “It was not Russia that moved its military infrastructure towards Europe, but Europe – which is a part of NATO, an instrument of confrontation and not peace and stability — that has always been moving it toward our borders.”
The appointment of former Chief Justice Sushila Karki comes after anti-corruption protests that left at least 51 people dead
Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki has been appointed Nepal’s interim prime minister after widespread protests against corruption and the government’s ban on social media, which left at least 51 people dead and more than 1,300 injured.
Nepali President Ram Chandra Paudel announced the appointment on Friday after dissolving parliament and setting elections for March 2026. The decision followed negotiations between the president, representatives of the country’s ‘Generation Z’ protest movement, and the chief of the army, General Ashok Raj Sigdel, as the military effectively took control of the capital Kathmandu and enforced a curfew.
Karki, 73, is Nepal’s first woman to become interim prime minister and is widely known for her stance against corruption. Between 2016 and 2017, she served as chief justice – the only female to have held this post. In 2017, some lawmakers tried to impeach her on accusations of bias, but the attempt quickly stalled due to a public backlash and a Supreme Court intervention. Karki stepped down when she reached the mandatory age limit of 65.
Mass demonstrations erupted in early September as young Nepalis protested against politicians’ children flaunting their wealth online while the country struggled with poverty and youth unemployment above 20%.
After the government moved to ban social media networks, protests escalated, resulting in violent clashes between demonstrators and police, who reportedly used not only tear gas and water cannons, but also live ammunition to disperse the crowds. The protests culminated on Tuesday when activists set the national parliament on fire, and the country’s former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli was forced to resign.
Karki has not yet issued a statement on her appointment or outlined her immediate agenda. However, Nepal’s southern neighbor India welcomed the news.
“Heartfelt congratulations to the Honorable Sushila Karki Ji on assuming the office of prime minister of Nepal’s interim government. India is fully committed to the peace, progress, and prosperity of Nepal’s brothers and sisters,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X.
The recent SCO summit made the West pay attention – because it showed that nations can try to work around their differences for a better world
The SCO summit in Tianjin, China has caught the attention of the West as no previous summit has. The West has, in general, paid more attention to BRICS as a forum than the SCO. This is because BRICS has an intercontinental spread unlike the SCO, which is confined to the Eurasian landmass, with China, Russia, and the Central Asian states as original members, and India and Pakistan joining much later followed more recently by Belarus.
With the emerging economies as BRICS members, creation of financial institutions such as the New Development Bank and the Contingent Reserve Arrangement, the proposal for using national currencies in trade, the goal of reducing reliance on the US dollar, ideas such as developing a credit rating agency of its own etc., BRICS is seen by its own members, its partners, and even the West as a catalyst for creating a multipolar world. The US sees such a world as directed against its existing supremacy. The SCO, though not seen in this perspective before, will be seen after the Tianjin summit as part of a dynamic in favor of multipolarity.
Interestingly, the BRICS summits have not received the kind of attention so far in Western circles that the Tianjin Summit has. There are a few reasons for this.
This SCO summit was used by China as another coming out party, just as it used the Olympics in 2008 to announce to the world its rise as an economic power. This time it used the SCO summit to exhibit its emergence as a military power. China organized a massive military parade with an impressive display of a vast array of new advanced weaponry.
This was, to begin with, a message to the US about an altered balance of power in the western Pacific – a message of deterrence. The US received the message, with Trump remarking that China expected him to watch the parade, which he said he did, and called the display impressive. It remains to be seen whether this show of Chinese power will put pressure on the US to accommodate China’s regional interests or spur it to boost its own military capacities to counter China’s growing power. One wonders what Trump has in mind in renaming the US Department of Defense as the Department of War.
Obviously, the message was directed at Taiwan also, to the effect that China is strong enough to thwart militarily any move for independence by the island, notwithstanding America’s strong military deployments in the region. The display also sent a message to the countries in the region at large that, endowed with formidable military power China will not abandon its territorial claims in the South and East China Seas. This will no doubt affect the course of discussions on a code of conduct in the South China Sea in line with China’s territorial claims.
Modi’s participation in the summit after a serious downturn in US-India relations was also a reason why the summit generated unprecedented interest in US media and political circles. As far as India is concerned, Modi’s participation was not linked to Trump’s gratuitous targeting of India, though the timing was such that it was interpreted as a message to the US that India had wider political options in the exercise of its strategic autonomy. The US has in the last couple decades seen India as a partner in countering China’s expansionism in the Indo-Pacific region, with the Quad as part of this US geopolitical strategy in Asia. For US observers therefore, India and China drawing closer thwarts this strategy and weakens the US hand in dealing with China.
India has a more nuanced view of the Quad and the Indo-Pacific concept. China puts military pressure on India directly on the border and indirectly through its neighbors. The Quad and the Indo-Pacific concept allows India to put some pressure on China in return. But just as the US has massive trade ties with China and seeks engagement with it to avoid a military conflict in the western Pacific, India too has an interest in engaging China as a direct neighbor in order to limit the dangers of a direct conflict and also take cognizance of sizeable bilateral trade ties.
Modi’s decision to visit China after seven years was viewed on both sides as a significant political move. Foreign Minister Wang Yi had visited India in advance and reached some understandings in his talks with India’s national security adviser and its external affairs minister. For India, it was the logical next step to further explore lowering of tensions with China using a second Modi-Xi meeting in Tianjin. Their first meeting at Kazan last year followed a long gap on account of the military standoff between the two countries in eastern Ladakh in 2020. The Kazan summit produced some limited but positive results. The Modi-Xi dialogue at Tianjin, which lasted an hour, has improved the atmosphere in India-China ties even though it was not expected to achieve any major breakthroughs immediately. The goal is to ensure peace and tranquility on the border through adapted border arrangements as a pre-requisite for a progressive normalization of ties.
The summit provided an opportunity for a face-to-face dialogue between the Indian prime minister and President Putin before his announced visit to India in December this year. India has made it clear to the US that it will not bow down to Trump’s pressure to cease buying oil from Russia. Modi thus came to the meeting with Putin with a strong friendly hand, having demonstrated that India attached great importance to its ties with Russia in its larger national interest and was ready to pay a price for it.
No wonder the Modi-Putin interaction at Tianjin was exceptionally warm. Modi travelled with Putin in his personal car and, with their entourages waiting in the lobby, the private 45-minute conversation they had in the car made a striking political and media impact. One can assume that Putin briefed Modi in detail about his meeting with Trump in Alaska and on where the Ukraine conflict peace efforts stood at the moment, not to mention what the two sides should seek to achieve during the annual India-Russia summit in December. This interaction in the car was followed by delegation-level talks, which underlined the importance both sides attach to their mutual engagement.
That after the conversation in the car, the two leaders walked hand in hand towards Xi Jinping, with Modi extending a hand to the Chinese president and the three together having a relaxed exchange, was bound to cause some sensation in US political, think-tank, and media circles. Russia and China getting together is one thing, but Russia, India, and China getting together could not but be viewed as a greater failure of US policy. Many have blamed Trump for possibly “losing” India by petulantly alienating and bludgeoning it with a 50% tariff, in addition to many insulting remarks made by him and his senior advisers against India.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had also spoken recently about reviving the Russia-India-China dialogue. The image of the three leaders together in a friendly atmosphere was bound to trigger apprehensions in some US circles, especially anti-Trump ones, that the US risked consolidating a powerful geopolitical and economic front against itself.
The SCO summit provided a platform for Modi to interact with other Asian leaders, including the president of Iran. The SCO was created to address the issues of terrorism, extremism, and separatism, which are threats faced by virtually all its members. For India these are threats of enduring concern, and were highlighted in Modi’s remarks at the plenary meeting when, with the Pahalgam attack in mind, he stated that double standards on terrorism were unacceptable and that SCO countries need to oppose terrorism together in every form and manifestation.
Connectivity is an integral part of expanding cooperation within the SCO countries. Modi mentioned initiatives such as the Chabahar Port and the International North-South Transport Corridor, which would enhance linkages with Afghanistan and Central Asia. He cautioned though that every effort towards connectivity must uphold the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity, which are also enshrined in the core principles of the SCO Charter. This was a veiled reference to the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Modi referred to the shared Buddhist heritage of several SCO countries and proposed to strengthen people-to-people ties with the creation of a Civilizational Dialogue Forum under the SCO. This is important in the context of the major SCO countries defining themselves as “civilizational states.”
In short, with the Tianjin SCO summit the organization has gained an enhanced profile internationally.
Warsaw says all joint counter-drone training with Kiev will take place on Polish territory
Poland’s Defense Ministry has denied reports that its soldiers will be sent to Ukraine for training, clarifying that all joint military training exercises with Kiev on drone warfare will be conducted inside Poland.
The ministry issued the statement on Friday after Reuters and several media outlets in Ukraine suggested that Polish Armed Forces personnel would travel there to receive instruction on countering aerial threats.
“In response to questions regarding the location of planned drone training and cooperation between Polish and Ukrainian experts, we inform you that talks are currently underway between specialists from both countries on deepening cooperation in the field of unmanned and counter-drone systems,” the ministry wrote on X.
“It is expected that all such activities will take place on the territory of Poland,” the Defense Ministry emphasized.
The clarification came after Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter, that “Polish military representatives will undergo training on shooting down drones,” after Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky allegedly claimed Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk “had already agreed to send military representatives to Ukraine on the issue.”
Separately, the Defense Ministry also rejected rumors that Poles would soon be called up for service as part of a broader mobilization effort. “It is untrue that thousands of Poles are to receive summons,” the ministry said, stressing that qualification planned for 2026 is a routine fitness assessment.
The Polish government said its military tracked at least 19 alleged violations over a seven-hour period on Wednesday, describing the episode as “deliberate” and “unprecedented.”
Warsaw convened an emergency UN Security Council session over the incident, while NATO announced the launch of operation “Eastern Sentry,” designed to bolster its posture along the bloc’s eastern flank.
Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, dismissed the accusations as “hysteria,” arguing that the drones used in strikes against Ukrainian military facilities lacked the range to reach Poland and that the damage reported inside Polish territory was consistent with debris, not explosives. Moscow has offered consultations with Warsaw but warned against “megaphone diplomacy” aimed at escalating tensions.
Warsaw convened an emergency UN Security Council session over what it claimed was a “deliberate attack”
Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, has dismissed accusations that Moscow intentionally violated Polish airspace earlier this week, insisting that claims of an “attack” on the NATO state were unsupported by evidence and hyped up by what he called the “European party of war.”
The Polish government said its military tracked at least 19 alleged violations over a seven-hour period on Wednesday, describing the episode as “deliberate” and “unprecedented.”
“Warsaw hastily pinned blame on Russia, without presenting any evidence whatsoever,” Nebenzia told the Security Council on Friday. He argued that damage reported in eastern Poland was consistent with falling debris rather than an explosive strike, and noted that Polish officials themselves admitted no warheads had been found.
According to the Russian diplomat, the drones used in strikes against Ukrainian military targets on the night of September 10 had a range of no more than 700 kilometers – “making it physically impossible for them to reach Poland.” He suggested that some of the reported devices may have malfunctioned or been disrupted by electronic warfare or GPS spoofing; Belarus had promptly warned Warsaw of possible risks.
Nebenzia said Moscow was willing to engage in professional dialogue with Polish officials to investigate the incident, but warned against “megaphone diplomacy” and what he described as “information campaigns” designed to prolong the Ukraine conflict.
The envoy also drew parallels to the 2022 Przewodow incident, in which two Poles were killed by a missile later acknowledged to have been launched by Ukraine. He accused Kiev of seeking to “drag NATO into war” and said European leaders were once again using “hysterical outbursts” about Russian aggression to justify militarization.
“Who benefits from this artificially inflated hysteria? Only the Kiev regime and the European party of war, who are desperately trying to derail the prospects for a Ukrainian settlement that began to take shape as a result of Russian-American contacts in August,” Nebenzia argued.
Multiple EU officials, including top diplomat Kaja Kallas, have called the incident a “deliberate violation.” NATO announced the launch of the “Eastern Sentry” operation to “bolster posture” along the eastern flank.
US President Donald Trump downplayed the incident on Thursday, suggesting it “could have been a mistake.” But Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk doubled down, insisting “it wasn’t.”
Anyone who doubts that narrative is “either the author or an accomplice of Russian propaganda,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski stated in Kiev on Friday.
The Polish president has demanded that the existing aid program be amended
Lawmakers in Poland’s lower house of parliament have adopted a new bill tightening the rules for Ukrainian refugees, after Polish President Karol Nawrocki vetoed an earlier proposal to prolong the existing system of payments set to expire at the end of September.
The bill passed the Sejm on Friday by 227 votes to 194, with seven abstentions, and will now go to the Senate, according to the Polish Press Agency.
The measure extends the legality of stay for Ukrainians in Poland until March 2026, but links access to family benefits – such as the monthly ‘800 plus’ zloty allowance ($220 or more) – to proof of employment and school enrollment for children. Foreigners will now have to show they earn at least 50% of the minimum wage, with compliance checked monthly through Poland’s social security system (ZUS).
If a recipient is found not to be working in a given month, the benefit will be suspended. Authorities also plan to integrate multiple government databases to detect fraud and prevent benefit abuse, while requiring all applicants to hold a PESEL social security number.
Nawrocki, who vetoed the earlier version of the bill in August, has repeatedly argued that Poland’s generosity must not extend to those who do not contribute to the system.
“Only those Ukrainians who work in Poland should receive the 800 plus allowance,” he insisted.
The new legislation also restricts some free medical services for adult Ukrainians, while maintaining exceptions for children and people with disabilities.
During the debate, lawmakers rejected several opposition amendments, including proposals to extend the uninterrupted residence period for naturalization from three to ten years; impose harsher penalties for illegal border crossings; and criminalize the promotion of Banderism, the Ukrainian nationalist ideology linked to WWII-era atrocities against Poles.
According to Polish Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Duszczyk, the reforms are meant to combat the country’s “grey” labor market, detect fictitious employment schemes, and boost tax revenues. Ukrainians, who number over one million in Poland, are expected to be the main focus of enforcement.
The conservative activist’s “mission” must live on, Pavel Durov has said
The murder of conservative American influencer Charlie Kirk was an attack on freedom of speech, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has said, warning that other liberties could soon be at risk as well.
Kirk “fought for open debate, and enemies of truth hated him for it,” Durov wrote in a Telegram post where he paid his respects to the activist, who was shot on Wednesday while addressing thousands of students at a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University.
While US officials have described the killing as a targeted political assassination, Durov called it a direct “assault on free speech.”
“Once free speech is lost, every other freedom soon follows. We must continue Charlie’s mission to defend it,” he added.
The Russian billionaire has long cast Telegram as a bulwark for free speech and privacy, often in contrast to what he calls authoritarian attempts at censorship. He has clashed with French authorities and other Western governments, facing fines in Germany for the platform’s failure to remove “illegal” content, as well as criticism in the US over allegedly enabling extremist groups.
In the wake of Kirk’s murder, conservative politicians and public figures have eulogized him as a patriot and champion of civil dialogue. US Vice President JD Vance said his interactive events with young audiences provided “one of the few places with open and honest dialogue between left and right.”
US President Donald Trump announced that Kirk would be posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Trump vowed to pursue not only Kirk’s killer but also what he called the “radical left” networks that fuel political violence, promising a probe into billionaire investor George Soros over his alleged role in funding mass “riots” in the US. Tech mogul Elon Musk likewise denounced the radical left as a “party of murder.”
On Friday, US authorities confirmed that a Utah resident identified as Tyler Robinson, 22, had been arrested on suspicion of killing Kirk. Both Trump and Utah Governor Spencer Cox have said the suspect should face the death penalty if convicted.
In his apology, George Abaraonye has blamed the conservative influencer’s own statements and media for amplifying his “impulsive” reaction
The president-elect of the prestigious Oxford Union debating society, George Abaraonye, who had sparred with Charlie Kirk earlier this year, mocked the murder of his conservative opponent in a series of social media posts he has since retracted.
Kirk, 31, was fatally shot on Wednesday during a Turning Point USA event at Utah Valley University in what authorities have called a targeted political assassination. Shortly after the news broke, Abaraonye, who is due to assume the Union presidency in January 2026, posted celebratory messages on WhatsApp and Instagram.
“CHARLIE KIRK GOT SHOT LET’S F****** GO,” the Afro-British debater wrote in a WhatsApp group chat, according to screenshots circulated among Oxford students and UK media. He also added, “SCOREBOARD FN,” a reference to video game kill statistics. On Instagram, he posted: “Charlie Kirk got shot loool.”
Abaraonye, who had debated Kirk on “toxic masculinity” in May, acknowledged the remarks, calling them “impulsive” and made “prior to Charlie being pronounced dead.”
He insisted “nobody deserves to be the victim of political violence,” but argued that Kirk’s “horrific and dehumanizing statements” on gun rights, Gaza, and LGBTQ issues had shaped his “raw, unprocessed response.” He also complained that the media had “ignored” his retraction while amplifying the deleted comments.
The Oxford Union leadership quickly moved to distance itself. Current president Moosa Harraj condemned Abaraonye’s remarks as “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable,” stressing they do not represent the debating society’s values.
Former club president James Price resigned from its charitable trust in protest, saying the president-elect had “doubled down” instead of apologizing.
Oxford University, formally independent from the debating society, said it “deplores comments appearing to endorse violence.” Baroness Valerie Amos, master of University College, where Abaraonye studies, called the remarks “abhorrent” but confirmed no disciplinary action would be taken, saying they did not breach free speech rules.
Australia is getting engulfed by the “yellow peril” narrative, disregarding its own political and economic interests
Recent events in China have had an extraordinary and revealing effect on Australian domestic politics and invite comparisons with the crises that have lately engulfed the UK and France.
Australia’s “China crisis” was in part triggered by the fact that two former Labor politicians of note (former foreign minister and NSW premier Bob Carr and former Victoria Premier Dan Andrews) attended the recent Victory Day celebrations in Beijing.
Their presence at the festivities should have come as no surprise. China is Australia’s major trading partner and has been for decades. In fact Australia’s current economic prosperity is a consequence of its exceedingly beneficial long-term economic ties with China.
Carr has been a strong advocate for an independent Australian foreign policy and closer ties with China for over a decade, and Andrews negotiated Belt and Road arrangements with China when he was premier of the state of Victoria and has business interests there these days.
Notwithstanding this, the Murdoch media recently described China as an “evil tyranny” and crudely denounced both former Labor politicians as “shameful” for meeting with “Xi Jinping and the world’s nastiest dictators”.
The Australian newspaper – Murdoch’s “quality” broadsheet – published articles titled “Echoes of Adolf: Beijing or Nuremberg as Xi sends grim message”; “To control the future Xi manipulates the past” and “Xi’s China unleashed” – which neatly summarises media coverage of recent events in China.
This, however, is hardly journalism at all. It is one thing to point out the obvious – namely that China is not a liberal democracy. It is quite another to engage in ideologically deranged demonisation of a major world power that Australia, from any rational view, is obliged to maintain good diplomatic and economic relations with.
This modern demonization of China by right-wing media and politicians is, of course, nothing more than a regurgitation of cold war McCarthyist anti-communism and the White-Australia-based racist fear of being overrun by the “yellow peril” in a new guise. Ideological anachronisms live on in Australia like the ghosts of Cold Wars past.
Implicit in this deeply anti-intellectual world-view is a blanket refusal to acknowledge history (including, most relevantly, the brutal Japanese occupation of China in the 1930s and 1940s) as well as China’s contemporary status as a world power – together with its right (long denied by Western and Japanese imperialists) to act as an independent power on the world stage.
The Murdoch demonisers have also forgotten that in 2003 then Liberal Prime Minister John Howard – paradoxically one of Murdoch’s political heroes – boasted of “Australia’s close practical relationship with China” and permitted the then Chinese President, Hu Jintao, to address the Australian parliament.
Is China today a radically different nation from the one it was then? Was Hu not a “dictator”?
And, to go a little further back in history, were Nixon and Kissinger wrong to reach a rapprochement with China in 1972 – at the height, by the way, of the cultural revolution? It is a measure of the deep foreign policy irrationality that permeates the contemporary West that even the conservative realpolitik of Kissinger must now be erased from history and implicitly condemned.
And why is China not entitled to celebrate its birth as an independent nation and its victory over the Japanese at the end of World War II and display its impressive collection of military hardware to ward off further imperialistic incursions into its territory?
As to the implicit canard that China is an aggressor nation – this can easily be disposed of by simply asking how many wars of imperial aggression China has engaged in over the past 80 years. The answer, of course, is none.
In fairness to the Murdoch press, it must be noted that the so-called “left-wing” ABC and other media outlets also enthusiastically joined in the recent denunciation of China – albeit in a slightly less deranged manner.
Not surprisingly, the tirade of abuse levelled at Beijing has highlighted a number of ongoing domestic political controversies that have besieged the Albanese Labor government since its re-election earlier this year.
Similar domestic tensions – always likely to be inflamed by irrational foreign policy stances – exist in all contemporary western nations. Hence the current chronic, ongoing political instability that afflicts the UK and France – and also, to a lesser degree, Germany and America.
This is hardly surprising – there is, after all, a direct causal link between a persistent refusal to engage in necessary and long overdue domestic reforms and the pursuit of fundamentally irrational foreign policy objectives.
Such misguided policies – both at home and abroad – generate tensions that feed off each other and create ongoing crises that contemporary social democrat political leaders in the West are simply not competent or willing to deal with. Is this not precisely the situation that Starmer and Macron now find themselves in at present?
The resignation of Angela Rayner and the sacking of Peter Mandelson, together with the recent ousting of yet another French Prime Minister have plunged the UK and France into severe political crises.
This is also the position that Prime Minister Albanese now finds himself dealing with – even though, like Starmer, he was recently elected with a substantial parliamentary majority.
Albanese – a politician completely lacking in courage and vision – dealt with the recent “China crisis” in typical fashion – by trying to duck the issue and hoping that it would go away.
In so acting Albanese gave up yet another opportunity to formulate an independent foreign policy for Australia and denounce an irrational anti-Chinese narrative that is being promulgated by his political opponents.
Unfortunately, this has now become Albanese’s standard modus operandi. What then were the domestic political controversies that were brought into focus by Albanese’s recent China crisis?
Last week large anti-immigration demonstrations took place in all major Australian cities. These were infiltrated by small fringe neo-nazi groups that have recently been given a disproportionate amount of media coverage by both the Murdoch media and the ABC.
These rallies attracted people who believe (wrongly) that the current cost of living crisis is caused by mass immigration – yet another irrational political ideology promoted by Albanese’s political opponents. The cost-of-living crisis is, of course, real and getting worse – but to blame it on mass immigration is to engage in ideological obfuscation of the crudest kind.
Albanese – who, like all social democrat politicians, is firmly committed to mass immigration – responded by saying that “many good people” had demonstrated and, again, hoping that the issue would simply go away.
But the immigration issue will not disappear. In fact, it will only intensify – as Starmer and Macron and all have found to their political cost in recent years. Both European leaders currently find themselves dealing with violent and ongoing anti-immigration riots.
Albanese, like them, is unable to meaningfully confront this issue or the increasing discontent – both legitimate and illegitimate – that underlies these protests. Like Starmer and Macron, Albanese is a captive of the global elite policies that he is wedded to.
Domestic discontent over the conflict in Gaza and the epidemic of anti-semitism that has supposedly recently engulfed Australia also continues to bedevil Albanese and his government – and large pro-Palestinian rallies continue to be held throughout Australia, despite attempts by police and politicians to prevent them.
Having broadly supported the Netanyahu regime until very recently –as well as accepting the irrational right-wing “anti-semitism” discourse formulated by his political opponents – Albanese last month sought to defuse the Gaza issue by recognising a Palestinian state.
This, however, is nothing more than virtue signalling of the most opportunistic and pathetic kind – it will not stop the destruction of Gaza or the ongoing killing of innocent Palestinian civilians, and can only exacerbate the deep divisions within Australian society generated by what is happening in Gaza.
Once again, Albanese – like Starmer and Macron – has refused to adopt an independent stance on an important foreign policy issue and is paying the price domestically for his lack of principle and cowardice.
And lurking in the background is the ongoing controversy over Australia’s commitment to the ill-advised AUKUS deal with America and the UK.
Apparently Albanese still believes that Washington and London would send troops to defend Australia in the unlikely event of a land war breaking out in Southeast Asia. Not even former conservative Prime Minister Tony Abbott still believes that – he stated in a recent speech “that America would fight a war for its allies… can no longer be taken for granted”.
Be that as it may, recent comments by Republican leaders in Congress make it tolerably clear that the US is unlikely to even deliver the promised AUKUS submarines.
Yet again Albanese finds himself the captive of an irrational foreign policy decision – initially taken by the conservative Morrison government and cynically adopted by Albanese for short-term political advantage – that he stubbornly refuses to jettison.
It is true that the domestic crises that confront Albanese are not as serious as those currently engulfing Starmer and Macron. That is largely because, unlike those leaders, Albanese does not have to confront a politically effective and growing populist opposition party – at least for the time being.
In fact, Albanese is triply blessed because the conservative opposition in Australia is deeply divided, inept and led by a political non-entity – much like the Conservative party in the UK. And unlike Starmer and Macron, who do not have to face elections for the next few years, Albanese’s poll ratings have never been better.
Even so, Albanese’s persistent refusal to adopt independent foreign policy positions and engage in genuine domestic reform condemns his government to being little more than an unadventurous, time-serving regime engaged in permanent ongoing crisis management while presiding over Australia’s long-term decline.
This, of course, is precisely where Starmer and Macron were twelve months ago.
Albanese will certainly remain in office longer than Starmer and Macron – but one might legitimately ask whether that is any kind of an achievement at all.
