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Nobel Prize winner Robert Aumann commented on the issue of the hostages at the Arutz Sheva - Israel National News Jerusalem Conference. “Consider the ultimatum game,” Professor Aumann began, referencing a known economics problem. “Two players will get ten thousand shekels if they can agree on how to divide it. One suggests splitting it evenly. The other The other insists on taking at least nine thousand shekels. The first player will realize that even though such a demand is irrational, he will still profit by agreeing, and so the rational first player will agree to the terms set by the...

For over a year now, pro-Russian voices have circulated the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was close to signing a peace deal in the spring of 2022, only to be thwarted by the West. Although this narrative has repeatedly been debunked as disinformation, it stubbornly persists in some circles.The central premise of the theory is that, only a few weeks into the war, Ukraine was ready to sign a deal with Russia amid peace talks in Istanbul until Western powers, led by former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, ordered Kyiv to scrap the deal. It is thus argued that blame for...

In his two-hour-long interview with Tucker Carlson, the Russian president listed Moscow’s conditions for bringing the two-year-old NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine to an end. Now, the ball is in the West’s court, according to Russian international affairs expert Dmitry Suslov.President Putin has confirmed to Tucker Carlson that Russia favors a “negotiated settlement” to the crisis in Ukraine, saying that it will be up to Kiev and its Western partners whether or not to accept it. “We prepared a huge document in Istanbul [during peace talks in the spring of 2022, ed.] that was initialed by the head of the...

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he did not know when hostage discussions will resume between Israel and Hamas will restart after the fighting reignited over the weekend. Kirby said, “Well, there are no official negotiations going on right now, Kristen, and that’s because of Hamas. Hamas failed to come up with yet another list of women and children that could be released, and we know they’re holding additional women and children – not combatants, not female IDF soldiers, but innocent civilians, women and children that they have that they couldn’t put...

One of leftist billionaire George Soros’ chief henchmen clamored for Israel to employ diplomatic solutions in its conflict with Hamas after the latter’s genocidal Oct. 7 attacks on the Jewish state. Open Society Foundations president Lord Mark Malloch-Brown joined BBC Newsnight on Nov. 7 to give his organization’s position on the conflict, patronizing Israel on how it should deal with its attackers. His take was nothing short of ridiculous. Malloch-Brown claimed that there were “several other ways” of neutralizing the Hamas terrorists “rather than just beating the last one to the ground.” He lectured Israel, advocating that the country instead...

Canadians’ access to news on Facebook and Instagram will be cut off in the coming weeks after Meta said Tuesday that a “fundamentally flawed” law is forcing the company to make the tough decision. Canada’s Online News Act, passed by its leftist legislature earlier this summer, requires Big Tech companies to negotiate agreements with Canadian news outlets and pay them for news content shared on social media platforms, Reuters reported. Meta spokesman Andy Stone slammed the law in a tweet on Tuesday and said ending access to news on its platforms was the only option. “Today we’ve begun the process...

Joe Biden’s administration did not sanction or support secret meetings that former top US national security officials held with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and other Russians on potential talks to end the Ukraine war, the White House and state department have said. “The Biden administration did not sanction those discussions,” a state department spokesperson said on Thursday. “And as we’ve said repeatedly, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.” The spokesperson was referring to an administration policy of not discussing possible negotiations on ending the war without involving Ukrainian officials. He said the administration would continue providing weaponry to Kyiv...

Some Democrat leaders have acknowledged some of the losses in the debt ceiling negotiations and have urged their fellow members to vote “yes” anyway. According to Congressional reporter Max Cohen, former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has been urging his colleagues to vote “yes” despite some of their misgivings.

Iran's intelligence minister said a "terrorist" group linked to Israel was arrested on the western borders of Iran on Sunday, Reuters reported, citing the Iranian semi-official Nour News agency. "A terrorist group associated with the Zionist regime, which entered the country from the western borders, was arrested," said Esmail Khatib. The statement comes amid heightening tensions between Iran and its arch-enemy Israel over Tehran's nuclear program. Earlier Sunday, Iran International reported that Shahryar Haidari, a member of the Iranian parliament's National Security Committee, said the US suggested holding talks with Tehran without the presence of other JCPOA partners, Iran International,...

President Joe Biden on Wednesday struggled to explain why he delayed negotiating with House Republicans on raising the debt ceiling. Speaking at SUNY Westchester Community College in New York with a backdrop that resembled former President Donald Trump’s stage setting, Biden spoke about “why Congress must avoid default immediately,” even though negotiations were delayed on the brink of default.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met with President Joe Biden at the White House Tuesday for talks over raising the debt ceiling, but the California Republican reported that little progress was made.McCarthy has offered a budget proposal that would trade spending cuts for an increased borrowing limit, but Biden has shown little interest in negotiating. The president has his own budget proposal: a $6.9 trillion behemoth that would spend $1.8 trillion more than the government would take in. He claims that massive new taxes would make up the difference and even lower the deficit.McCarthy was not enthusiastic about the talks:“Everybody in...

Update(1017ET): What's being described as an initial, informal meeting between Presidents Xi and Putin is underway at the Kremlin. While the expected cordialities and expressions of closer relations were exchange, among the most notable early statements came from Putin, who said he's "open" to peace talks with Ukraine and China's mediation efforts."We have a lot of joint tasks, goals," Putin told his Chinese counterpart while also congratulating him on re-election as the head of the Chinese state for a third 5-year term. Xi in return said "Russia succeeded in promoting prosperity under Putin’s leadership." Putin further expressed that "we will...

Hungary's far-right Prime Minister Viktor Orban snubbed Wednesday's meeting in Warsaw with President Joe Biden and the other Bucharest Nine leaders after insisting Donald Trump was the only person who could broker peace with Vladimir Putin. Orban has been an outlier on the war in Ukraine, chiding the European Union for prolonging the conflict and saying in October that only former U.S. President Donald Trump could negotiate a deal between the Ukrainians and Russians to end the conflict. 'This is going to sound brutal, but hope for peace goes by the name of Donald Trump,' Orban said at the time,...

Moscow's proposals for settlement in Ukraine are well known to Kyiv and either Ukraine fulfils them for their own good or the Russian army will decide the issue, TASS agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying. "Our proposals for the demilitarization and denazification of the territories controlled by the regime, the elimination of threats to Russia's security emanating from there, including our new lands, are well known to the enemy," the state news agency quoted Lavrov as saying late on Monday. "The point is simple: Fulfil them for your own good. Otherwise, the issue will be decided by...

MOSCOW — Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine but Kyiv and its Western backers have refused to engage in talks, President Vladimir Putin said in an interview aired Sunday. Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. There is, thus far, little end in sight to the war. The Kremlin says it will fight until all its aims are achieved while Kyiv says it will not rest until...

Resident ⚡️⚡️⚡️#Inside Office of the President is disappointed by the Western reaction to the rocket attack on Poland and attributes this to the fact that Britain is gradually starting to exit the Ukrainian case, leaving the main place of the United States. This is due, first of all, to a set of internal problems that allow London to have limited participation and support for Kyiv, which is clearly not enough for Ukraine. Resident ⚡️⚡️⚡️#Inside Our source in the OP said that all public gifts to Ukraine from British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak were just a veil that hid the real...

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that Ukraine has put forward “unrealistic and inadequate” terms for future peace talks. Lavrov said he spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G20 summit in Bali, where he reiterated accusations that Kyiv “categorically refuses” negotiations with Moscow. “I reminded him that all the problems are on the Ukrainian side, which categorically refuses any negotiations and puts forward terms that are obviously unrealistic and inadequate,” Lavrov told reporters. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the G20 via video link earlier Tuesday, where he presented a 10-point peace plan to end Russia’s invasion. In...

Andrey Rudenko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, said that Russia had no preconditions for starting negotiations with Ukraine.Source: Kremlin-aligned news outlet RIA Novosti, quoting RudenkoQuote: "There are no preconditions on our part [for starting the negotiations], except for the main one – that Ukraine should show good will."Background:On 31 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin complained that Ukraine did not want to hold "peace talks" with the Russian Federation and said that he would wait for Ukraine to agree to such talks.On 4 October, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine put into effect the decision of the National Security and...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the world to pressure Russia into “genuine peace negotiations” with Ukraine in an address to the nation on Monday, insisting his administration had “repeatedly proposed” talks but received only “insane” responses. Russia first invaded Ukraine nearly a decade ago, in 2014, and has been waging a proxy war in the eastern Donbas region since the invasion and colonization of Ukraine’s Crimea region in March of that year. Russian leader Vladimir Putin escalated the conflict into a full-scale invasion this February, formally introducing Russian troops into the battle theater and bombing major urban centers, including the...

Musk understands what many commentators don’t: The war will end in a negotiated settlement or it will escalate, possibly into nuclear war.As if to burnish his reputation as a super-villain in the eyes of the corporate press, Elon Musk this week floated an idea on Twitter for a possible resolution of the Russo-Ukrainian war. For his trouble, he was swiftly accused of being a pro-Putin stooge by guardians of the Official Narrative. His suggested peace plan was dismissed out of hand as “Russia-friendly” and, as The Washington Post’s Olivier Knox put it, “designed to lock in Russian territorial gains.”But Musk’s...