by Michael Hollister
Exclusive published at Michael Hollister on October 11, 2026
4.317 words * about 23 minutes readingtime
On peace prizes for warriors, rules for others, and a standard the values-based West hangs only on other people’s doors
On October 01, 2026, Münster offered a scene visible to the naked eye that is usually hidden behind official statements. At the Historic Town Hall, NATO accepted the Westphalian Peace Prize, presented on its behalf to Secretary General Mark Rutte. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz delivered the laudatory address. Up above, beneath the town hall’s inscription arch, stood the honorees. Down on the square stood people who had something other than applause in mind. They shouted, “Blood on your hands,” they shouted, “Murderers,” they shouted, “Get lost.” A military alliance received a peace prize, and people outside protested against it – that is the frame in which everything that follows takes place. Local reporting from Münster documented both the award ceremony and the protests.
You only have to edit the scene a little and it becomes a solemn image: cut the shouting out of the report, point the camera at the inscription arch, leave the security forces on the ground out of frame. What remains is dignity. Those who stood on the square saw a military alliance celebrating itself, with a crowd in front of it that could not bear the sight. Those who switched on the evening news saw, in some places, above all the laudatory speech and the serious faces of the honorees. The same event, 2 images – and the camera angle decides which one enters the country’s memory. What is shown determines what is accepted as true. It is worth dwelling on that sleight of hand, because it is the method behind the whole thing.
The prize recipient himself provides the measure of the absurdity. Less than 3 months earlier, on July 08, 2026, the same Mark Rutte had defended new American attacks on Iran as “absolutely necessary”. A peace prize for a man who applauds a war of aggression. It is almost as if Jack the Ripper opened a women’s shelter.
The Prize Circus
A Defender That Attacks
Let us begin where the contradiction is built into the name itself. NATO sees itself as a defensive alliance. That is the label, and it is a friendly one. A defender waits until he is attacked. He does not attack first. NATO has attacked – and the cases must be kept carefully separate, because the opposing argument thrives on people failing to do so.
In 1995, the alliance carried out air strikes in Bosnia, covered by United Nations resolutions. Legally, that was not aggression. But a purely defensive alliance does not bomb, however solid its legal cover may be – anyone who strikes outside his own territory is not defending himself; he is waging war. In 1999, NATO bombed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days, beginning on March 24, without an explicit mandate from the Security Council. The Independent International Commission on Kosovo later described the operation as illegal but considered it legitimate given the circumstances at the time – a formula that does not make the breach of law disappear, but merely makes it easier to live with.
In 2011, the alliance entered Libya with a mandate to protect civilians and ended the operation with the overthrow of a government. It was not some critic who recorded this, but the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British House of Commons, from a NATO member state. The threat to civilians had been overstated and based on inadequate intelligence; the protection mandate had turned into a policy of changing the government, unsupported by any strategy for what would come afterward. The committee’s own report reached that conclusion. What followed belongs in the picture as well: not a stable state, but years of disintegration, competing militias, and, from 2017 onward, open slave auctions documented by CNN, where African migrants changed hands for a few hundred dollars. Meanwhile, the same Mediterranean route they hoped would take them to Europe claimed thousands of lives. Protecting civilians was the mandate. The result looked different. Anyone who causes something like that and continues to call himself a defender has quietly redefined the meaning of the word.
That is the pattern, not the exception. The Military Intervention Project at Tufts University, one of the most careful counts available, documents almost 400 U.S. military interventions since 1776, half of them between 1950 and 2019, and more than a quarter after the Cold War. The interventions did not decline when the Soviet Union, the great threat, disappeared. They increased. According to commonly cited counts of America’s war years, the United States has spent more than 90 percent of its existence in armed conflict – not because someone attacked its territory, but because it attacked elsewhere.
Set beside that a state the West has spent years portraying as the embodiment of danger. Since the founding of the Islamic Republic, Iran has not started a war of aggression against a neighboring state. The lectures on international law nevertheless come from Washington, not Tehran. Thou shalt not steal, says the thief.
The Prize for 92,000 Bombs
And while we are on the subject of prizes: The most famous of them all, the Nobel Peace Prize, went to Barack Obama in 2009. The announcement came on October 09, 2009, less than 9 months after he took office. He was honored for intentions, for visions, for the rhetoric of a world without nuclear weapons. For what he said. The Norwegian Nobel Committee’s official record preserves the rationale.
What he did can be measured in tonnage. In the very year he received the prize, more than 4,000 bombs were dropped under his command – so the award did not reach him in peacetime, but in the middle of active operations. Across his 2 terms in office, the recorded weapons released in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria add up to around 92,000, according to an evaluation of U.S. Central Command data for the years 2009 through 2016. That figure includes weapons dropped by the U.S.-led coalition – but that is not an objection; it is the point. In 2016 alone, the United States accounted for around 80 percent of all coalition bombs dropped over Iraq and Syria, according to Micah Zenko’s analysis of the data. Without the leading power, none of them would have fallen. And even the 92,000 figure is a floor, not a ceiling: It covers the 3 major air-war theaters. The drone and air strikes added in Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and Libya are not included.
As the Los Angeles Times noted at the end of his presidency, Obama was the first U.S. president to serve 2 full terms whose armed forces were at war in every single year. After that record, one at least understands what must be done to receive a Nobel Peace Prize.
The Rules – for the Others
From prizes to rules. Here the principle becomes clearer, because a rule is only a rule if it applies to everyone. If it applies only to the others, it is an instrument of domination.
Hormuz: The Same Toll, Two Verdicts
The Strait of Hormuz provides a lesson of rare clarity, compressed into just a few weeks of 2026. When it became apparent that a fee might be charged for passage through the strait, the Western verdict was unequivocal. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made clear in Bahrain on June 25, 2026: “No country may charge fees on an international waterway.” A toll on an international waterway – impermissible, unlawful, a violation of the maritime order.
Less than 3 weeks later, on July 13, 2026, President Donald Trump imposed precisely that toll. Other states were henceforth to pay 20 percent on their cargo, Iranian ships were no longer allowed to pass at all, and Iranian ports were subjected to a naval blockade. The relevant UN shipping organization stated that there was no legal basis for a single country to impose such a fee. Associated Press reporting on the July 13 announcement recorded both the toll and Rubio’s earlier position. The same verdict that would have applied to Tehran did not apply to Washington. And Trump did not stop with the toll. In mid-August 2026, he circulated on his platform a map labeling the strait “new US territory” – an international waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, thousands of miles from the nearest American coast, simply declared American soil. One does not have to admire the Iranian leadership to notice that the roles are reversed here: The attacked party invokes international law, while the guardian of the rules-based order distributes maps with new borders.
Territory Sorted by Allies
The double standard becomes even clearer in the treatment of land incorporated by a state. Here a direct comparison is useful.
First there are the Golan Heights. Israel occupied them in 1967 and annexed them in 1981. The UN Security Council unanimously declared that step “null and void and without international legal effect” in Resolution 497 and demanded withdrawal. Israel never complied. The Western response? Decades of silence. And then, in 2019, the leading Western power went a decisive step further: The United States officially recognized the annexation. At the same time, the U.S. State Department removed the phrase “Israeli-occupied” from its annual human-rights report and replaced it with “Israeli-controlled.” A situation that was unambiguous under international law and unanimously condemned – in the end not merely tolerated, but welcomed. Contemporary reporting also recalled the Security Council’s “null and void” language in Resolution 497.
Then there is Crimea. Whether the events of 2014 constituted an annexation or a secession remains disputed among international-law scholars; it is a contested case, and I make no claim here about which interpretation is correct. What matters is how the West responded: with maximum force. On March 27, 2014, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 68/262, with 100 states voting in favor. The resolution rejecting the change in Crimea’s status was followed by sanctions packages that remain in place to this day, and a policy of non-recognition that became permanent. In the contested case, then, full throttle.
And finally Kosovo. On February 17, 2008, the territory, previously part of Serbia, declared itself independent. Serbia categorically rejected the unilateral separation. On July 22, 2010, the International Court of Justice found that the declaration of independence did not violate international law. The West recognized the new state and celebrated the separation as an act of self-determination – the same principle of unilateral separation from a parent state that it condemns elsewhere as an abomination. The World Court’s advisory opinion was reported on July 22, 2010.
One does not have to be a lawyer to see the pattern; one only has to have looked. I looked, from SFOR through the first follow-on KFOR contingent, while deployed in Yugoslavia. There, a Serbian woman once asked me what exactly we were doing there. I tried to explain it to her. She listened and then said, in essence: Imagine the Turks in Germany occupied Berlin and declared it New Istanbul. How would you like that? It made me think. Because judged by that standard, the only honest one, one example falls into the same category as the other. Only the Western judgment changes, depending on whose ally is affected.
An Arrest Warrant with an Exemption
Let us stay with the unequal standard and turn to the arrest warrant. Since November 21, 2024, an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court has been outstanding against Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes, including starvation of civilians as a method of warfare. An arrest warrant is not a conviction – it means the opposite: A wanted person is sought so that a trial can take place. States Parties to the Court are obliged to execute it. Human Rights Watch summarized the warrant and Hungary’s obligations before Netanyahu’s April 2025 visit.
What happened instead? In April 2025, Netanyahu traveled to Hungary, a State Party. Hungarian authorities allowed him to come and go unmolested. The Court subsequently formally found that Hungary had violated its duty to cooperate. And when the wanted man was expected in New York in the summer of 2026, something remarkable happened: New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called on the federal authorities to enforce the warrant and declared Netanyahu unwelcome. The most powerful man in the West then placed himself protectively in front of the wanted man. President Trump publicly guaranteed that Netanyahu would not be arrested on American soil “in any way, shape or form.” The United States has never joined the Court; its response to the Court’s investigations had in any case included sanctions against ICC judges – among them, in August 2025, the very judge who had helped authorize Netanyahu’s arrest warrant. The arrest warrant applies to everyone. Except the ally whom the president personally protects.
That such an order does not correct itself lies in its design. Five states possess veto power in the UN Security Council and can block any binding measure, including measures against themselves or their allies. On June 04, 2025, 14 of the Council’s 15 members voted for a ceasefire in Gaza; a single American veto killed the resolution, as reporting on the 14-to-1 vote documented – just as a Russian veto on February 25, 2022, had blocked a resolution condemning its own invasion of Ukraine. The toothless tiger is not a design flaw. It is the design principle.
At Home, With Us
It would be convenient to push all of this into the distance, to Washington, to the Security Council, to the desert. But the same pattern lies closer to home than one might like.
The Woman Who Deletes
Take Ursula von der Leyen. Her career is instructive because it tells the story of the double standard all by itself. As Germany’s defense minister, she became embroiled in a consulting scandal: external service providers received contracts worth hundreds of millions, a Bundestag committee of inquiry was supposed to investigate how they had been awarded, and when it came to the evidence, the data on 2 of the minister’s official cell phones had been deleted. A member of parliament filed a criminal complaint on suspicion of destruction of records. The matter was never fully resolved. Instead, she was promoted upward and became President of the European Commission. From there, she now lectures others about rules, transparency, and resilient democracy.
Then came the judgment. On May 14, 2025, the General Court of the European Union, in Case T-36/23, annulled the Commission’s decision refusing a journalist access to the text messages between von der Leyen and the CEO of Pfizer. The case concerned a vaccine deal worth billions. The Commission had failed to plausibly explain why the messages could not be found – and one can guess why that sounds familiar. The EU court ruling of May 14, 2025 put the issue in legal terms.
First the deleted official phones in Berlin, then the vanished messages in Brussels: The pattern of evidence no longer being available at just the right moment runs through the entire career. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office has been investigating the matter since October 14, 2022. Her response to the criticism is almost the best part of the whole affair: The critics, she said, were “Putin apologists.” Demand transparency, and you are declared a friend of the Kremlin.
Dirty Work Abroad
And then there is Friedrich Merz, the laudator in Münster. On the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, he spoke on ZDF on June 17, 2025, about the Israeli attack on Iran. The moderator introduced the phrase “dirty work” in her question. Merz could have left it there. Instead, he picked it up, explicitly thanked her for it, and uttered the sentence that remained: “This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us.” The chancellor of a country that invokes the rules-based international order at every opportunity applauded a war of aggression in violation of international law as a service rendered – and even thanked the interviewer for supplying the appropriate phrase.
The Staccato
The list could be stretched until the frame breaks. Every one of the following points could be turned into an essay of its own, some into a book. So only in passing now, for the sake of completeness.
There is the same Merz, this time looking inward. Budget discipline, no new debt, intergenerational fairness – hardly any terms appeared more often in his election campaign. On March 18, 2025, the already defeated, outgoing Bundestag approved, by 512 votes to 206, a €500 billion debt-financed special fund together with a sweeping exemption of defense spending from the debt rule. Merz himself commented on the maneuver before he had even taken office: He was paying for it “with a considerable loss of credibility as well.” He was elected on May 06, 2025 – and only in the second round, after becoming the first designated chancellor in the history of the Federal Republic to fail in the first ballot. The accelerated second vote was made possible by shortening the usual deadline, for which his CDU/CSU bloc depended on votes from the Left Party, a party with which it officially rules out cooperation.
Then there is the supposedly “state-independent” public broadcaster. On March 25, 2014, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court found that more than 40 percent of the members of the ZDF Television Council came from the state or state-affiliated sphere, exceeding the permissible one-third limit. This supposedly state-independent broadcaster is financed through a compulsory levy established by law. Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.
Then there is Germany itself, always eager to explain the rules to others. Nicaragua has a case pending before the International Court of Justice against the Federal Republic over alleged complicity in genocide; in September 2026, the Court heard the preliminary objections, and a decision on them is expected in early 2027. The background: Germany approved arms exports to Israel worth €326.5 million in 2023 and is one of the country’s most important weapons suppliers. More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza. A state lectures the world about the rules-based order while simultaneously supplying another state against which a case alleging complicity in genocide is pending.
And finally there is Nicolás Maduro. On January 03, 2026, a Delta Force unit of the U.S. military captured the Venezuelan head of state in a nighttime operation and took him out of the country, to New York, to stand trial. A sitting head of state removed from his country by a military commando – by the very power that tirelessly preaches fidelity to international law to the rest of the world.
The Finding
Before stating the finding, place just 2 cases side by side. Russia is accused of attacking a neighboring country without cause; the reporting has a fixed vocabulary for it – imperialism, aggression, violation of law – and applies it with great consistency. During the same period, Israel carries out attacks against several neighboring countries, occupies and annexes foreign territory, more than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza, an allegation of genocide is before an international court, and an arrest warrant is outstanding against the head of government. In one case, the full vocabulary; in the other, muted silence. The acts are the same – war, occupation, arrest warrant – only the outrage is carefully sorted by ally.
That is the finding. It is not that the West has no rules. No community has more of them; none devises new regulations more tirelessly. The finding is that these rules are hung on other people’s doors and forgotten at one’s own. Those who explain to China, Russia, and the rest of the world from on high that they are the community of values and rules should first sweep their own doorstep. If they manage that, they are welcome to lead by good example. Until then, the image from Münster remains: The same people who hand peace prizes to warriors, call an attacking alliance defensive, and break their promises at the next opportunity stand beneath the inscription arch, look down, and tell all of us: You had better follow the rules.
May the reader form his own judgment.
About the Author
Michael Hollister
is a geopolitical analyst and investigative journalist. He served six years in the German military, including peacekeeping deployments in the Balkans (SFOR, KFOR), followed by 14 years in IT security management. His analysis draws on primary sources to examine European militarization, Western intervention policy, and shifting power dynamics across Asia. A particular focus of his work lies in Southeast Asia, where he investigates strategic dependencies, spheres of influence, and security architectures. Hollister combines operational insider perspective with uncompromising systemic critique – beyond opinion journalism. His work appears on his bilingual website (German/English) www.michael-hollister.com and in investigative outlets across the German-speaking world and the Anglosphere.
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Sources
Münster / Westphalian Peace Prize 2026
- ms-aktuell – NATO ausgezeichnet, Proteste vor dem Rathaus – Liveticker, October 01, 2026.
https://ms-aktuell.de/?p=163920 - Stuttgarter Zeitung – Preisverleihung mit Protesten – was ist heute in Münster los?, October 01, 2026.
https://www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de/wissen/preisverleihung-mit-protesten-was-ist-heute-in-muenster-los-79523521.html
Rutte: U.S. attacks on Iran “absolutely necessary”
- Reuters / Arab News – New US attacks on Iran were absolutely necessary, NATO chief says, July 08, 2026.
https://www.arabnews.pk/node/2650061/middle-east
NATO operations (Bosnia 1995, Kosovo 1999, Libya 2011)
- NATO – Operation Deliberate Force / NATO in Bosnien 1995 (chronology).
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_52122.htm - Independent International Commission on Kosovo – The Kosovo Report (“illegal but legitimate”), 2000.
https://www.almendron.com/tribuna/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/the-kosovo-report.pdf - The Conversation – Kosovo disputes continue 20 years after NATO bombing campaign (78 days, no UN mandate).
https://theconversation.com/kosovo-disputes-continue-20-years-after-nato-bombing-campaign-113669 - House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee – Libya: Examination of intervention and collapse (HC 119), 2016.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmfaff/119/119.pdf - CNN – MPs attack Cameron over Libya ‘collapse’ (threat “overstated,” change of government), September 13, 2016.
https://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/13/europe/libya-uk-intervention - Al Jazeera / CNN – Migrants for sale: Slave trade in Libya (CNN investigation, 2017), November 2017.
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/video/counting-the-cost/2017/11/26/migrants-for-sale-slave-trade-in-libya
U.S. military interventions
- Kushi / Toft, Tufts Fletcher School – Introducing the Military Intervention Project: 1776-2019 (almost 400 interventions), 2023.
https://fletcher.tufts.edu/research/research-publications/introducing-military-intervention-project-new-dataset-us-military - Tufts Now – US foreign policy increasingly relies on military interventions, 2023.
https://now.tufts.edu/2023/10/16/us-foreign-policy-increasingly-relies-military-interventions - TMS / Transcend – America Has Been at War 93% of the Time – 222 out of 239 Years (commonly cited count of war years).
https://www.transcend.org/tms/?p=67793
Obama: Nobel Peace Prize and bombing record
- Norwegian Nobel Committee – The Nobel Peace Prize 2009 – Barack Obama (announcement October 09, 2009).
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2009/summary/ - Micah Zenko, Council on Foreign Relations – How Many Bombs Did the United States Drop in 2016? (2016: 26,171; 2015: 23,144; U.S. share of coalition bombs: 80%), January 05, 2017.
http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2017/01/05/bombs-dropped-in-2016/ - NBC News – U.S. Bombed Seven Countries in 2016.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-bombed-iraq-syria-pakistan-afghanistan-libya-yemen-somalia-n704636 - 24/7 Wall St. – The number of weapons the US released every year since 2007 (CENTCOM series 2009-2016 ≈ 92,000, including coalition).
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2022/03/05/the-number-of-weapons-the-us-released-every-year-since-2007/4/
Strait of Hormuz
- AP / Las Vegas Sun – Trump demands 20% toll for passage through strait (including Rubio, June 25, Bahrain), July 13, 2026.
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2026/jul/13/the-latest-trump-demands-20-toll-for-passage-throu/ - The National – Trump’s Strait of Hormuz toll (20%; UN shipping organization: no legal basis), July 14, 2026.
https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/energy/2026/07/14/trumps-strait-of-hormuz-toll-could-add-32m-to-every-supertanker-voyage/ - The New Arab – Trump posts map declaring Strait of Hormuz ‘new US territory’, August 18, 2026.
https://www.newarab.com/news/trump-posts-map-declaring-strait-hormuz-new-us-territory
Golan / Crimea / Kosovo
- Anadolu – Trump recognizes Israel’s claims to occupied Golan (“occupied” → “controlled”), March 25, 2019.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/trump-recognizes-israel-s-claims-to-occupied-golan/1429932 - AP / Washington Times – Syria slams Trump statement on Israel sovereignty in Golan (Resolution 497: “null and void”), March 22, 2019.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/22/syria-slams-trump-statement-on-israel-sovereignty-/ - RNZ – UN rejects annexing of Crimea (Resolution 68/262, 100 yes votes, March 27, 2014), March 28, 2014.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/240090/un-rejects-annexing-of-crimea - Moscow Times – EU calls upon UN countries to impose sanctions against Russia.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2016/03/18/eu-calls-upon-un-countries-to-impose-sanctions-against-russia-a52206 - AP / Washington Times – World Court rules on Kosovo break from Serbia (ICJ advisory opinion, July 22, 2010), July 22, 2010.
https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/22/world-court-rules-kosovo-break-serbia/
Netanyahu / International Criminal Court
- Human Rights Watch – Hungary: Arrest, don’t welcome, ICC fugitive Netanyahu (arrest warrant November 21, 2024; starvation), April 01, 2025.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/04/01/hungary-arrest-dont-welcome-icc-fugitive-netanyahu - JNS – Hague court says Hungary failed obligations by not arresting Netanyahu, July 2025.
https://www.jns.org/hague-court-says-hungary-failed-obligations-by-not-arresting-netanyahu - AP / Boston Globe – Mamdani calls on federal authorities to enforce the warrant; Trump guarantees Netanyahu will not be arrested, July 22, 2026.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/22/nation/mamdani-netanyahu-arrest/ - AFP / Anadolu – US sanctions 4 ICC judges and deputy prosecutors over Netanyahu warrants (including Judge Guillou), August 20, 2025.
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/us-sanctions-4-icc-judges-deputy-prosecutors-over-netanyahu-arrest-warrants/3664800
UN veto power
- Al Jazeera – US vetoes UN Security Council resolution demanding Gaza ceasefire (14:1), June 04, 2025.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/4/us-vetoes-un-security-council-resolution-demanding-gaza-ceasefire - American Society of International Law – The US Veto of the June 2025 Gaza Ceasefire Resolution.
https://www.asil.org/node/22527 - UN Security Council – Russia’s veto of the Ukraine resolution (SC/14808, February 25, 2022).
https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14808.doc.htm
Ursula von der Leyen
- t-online – Grüner erstattet Anzeige wegen von der Leyens gelöschtem Diensthandy (consulting scandal).
https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/militaer-verteidigung/id_87038486/von-der-leyens-handy-gruener-erstattet-anzeige-wegen-geloeschter-daten.html - Court of Justice of the European Union – Judgment of the General Court in Case T-36/23, May 14, 2025.
https://dorie.ec.europa.eu/en/details/-/card/8015911 - Berliner Zeitung – Von der Leyen nervös: EU-Staatsanwaltschaft ermittelt wegen Pfizer-Deal (EPPO investigation since October 14, 2022).
https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/article/281403 - EU Alive – Von der Leyen dismisses criticism over Pfizergate as attack from ‘Putin apologists’, July 07, 2025.
https://eualive.net/von-der-leyen-dismisses-criticism-over-pfizergate-as-attack-from-putin-apologists/
Merz: “dirty work,” debt brake, chancellor election
- ZDF – Merz: Israel macht in Iran „Drecksarbeit für uns alle“, June 17, 2025.
https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/g7-gipfel-merz-100.html - Michael Hollister – Friedrich Merz nach einem Jahr (debt brake 512:206; “considerable loss of credibility”), May 24, 2026.
https://www.michael-hollister.com/de/2026/05/24/friedrich-merz-nach-einem-jahr/ - ZDF – Kanzlerwahl: Merz im zweiten Wahlgang gewählt (325 votes; dependent on the Left Party), May 06, 2025.
https://www.zdfheute.de/politik/deutschland/lanz-linnemann-bundeskanzler-merz-bundestag-100.html
Public broadcasting
- Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung – BVerfG-Urteil zum ZDF-Staatsvertrag, March 25, 2014 (more than 40% state or state-affiliated; one-third limit).
https://www.bpb.de/kurz-knapp/hintergrund-aktuell/181313/bverfg-urteil-zum-zdf-staatsvertrag/
Nicaragua v. Germany / Gaza
- AFP / TimesLIVE – Germany fights Gaza genocide claims at the UN’s top court (preliminary proceedings, September 2026), September 07, 2026.
https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/world/2026-09-07-germany-fights-gaza-genocide-claims-at-the-uns-top-court/ - Michael Hollister – Vier Tage Den Haag: Deutschlands Verteidigung im Völkermord-Verfahren (€326.5 million), September 23, 2026.
https://www.michael-hollister.com/de/2026/09/23/vier-tage-den-haag-deutschlands-verteidigung-im-voelkermord-verfahren-und-was-sie-verraet/ - ICTJ – Gaza death toll above 73,000 (Health Ministry).
https://www.ictj.org/es/node/38474
Maduro
- USNI News – Maduro, Wife Captured by American Forces (Delta Force; taken to New York), January 03, 2026.
https://news.usni.org/2026/01/03/maduro-wife-captured-by-american-forces-u-s-to-oversee-venezuela-ahead-of-new-government-trump-says - Bloomberg – Raid Months in the Making Captured Venezuela’s Maduro in Just Hours, January 03, 2026.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-03/strike-against-venezuela-how-us-took-maduro
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