All right, Alexander, let's talk about what is going on in the Middle East.

Anthony Blinken touring the Middle East.

We do have some announcements from Israel, from Israeli officials saying that they're going to start to shift the conflict to a more low intensity operation.

That's what they're saying.

Blinken is trying to get support in the Middle East.

He's trying to get Saudi Arabia to reengage with Israel and to get this recognition of Saudi Arabia and Israel back on

track, which was derailed after October 7th. And, and then maybe we can, we can touch on,

on Lloyd Austin a bit. I don't know. Do you want to talk about the Lloyd Austin mystery illness now?

And then we'll talk about what's happening in Israel. Yeah, I think let's do that because I think

this is one of the most interesting events altogether. Now, the first thing to say is, I mean,

Lloyd Austin was generally and seriously ill. and he had an operation, and he was

out of commission, if you like, for about nine, ten days. So it's a serious illness. The most

interesting thing about it, and the thing people need to take note of, is that the White House wasn't informed.

You know, this is, you know, the Secretary of Defence, the head of the Pentagon, the most important

person of the military system, and he's out of contention for several days. He's very, very seriously

ill, and the president and presumably the national security

advisor, as to say, Jake Sullivan, are not told about it. Now, that is incredible. The first thing to say

is, it shows that there is a complete breakdown in communications within Washington, because

you would have thought that,

you know, if the Secretary of Defense goes missing, people in the White House would have noticed.

So that already tells us that there are some kinds of stresses and strains and, you know,

breakdowns of communication between Lloyd Austin

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