Steve Witkoff’s real estate developer with no diplomatic experience and now, extraordinarily, special envoy to the Middle East and de facto envoy to Vladimir Putin, is off to Moscow with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (of ‘Gaza Riviera’ renown) to carve out a Ukraine peace deal – without Ukraine
Kyiv’s allies fear Putin will dangle deals across the negotiating table as allegations of a “pay to play” system which benefits those who do business with the president’s family.
Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, argues that the Trumps’ approach amounts to “nothing more than an old-fashioned grift tethered to a superpower”.
The 28-point peace plan negotiated by Witkoff and Kushner in October seemed remarkably generous to American corporate interests. The deal called for $100 billion of frozen Russian assets to be invested in the reconstruction of Ukraine, but with the US creaming off 50 per cent of the profits. The remainder of the confiscated Russian money would be ploughed into a joint US-Russian investment fund with few known details about its purpose. “We know this is not about peace. It’s about business,” Donald Tusk, the president of Poland, said.
Marco Rubio has pulled back on some of the original plan. But the Witkoff/Kushner negotiating duo is still in place.
Steven Witkoff, March 15, 1957, New York, is a Sun, Mercury, Venus in Pisces in an overly confident opposition Jupiter in Virgo with an unpleasant, hard-driving Mars in Taurus conjunct Algol square Pluto. That square will be rattled this month by tr Uranus hard aspects and again in the spring of 2026 so something will go up in the air; plus an undermining tr Saturn opposition his Jupiter in the second half of January 2026. Tr Pluto square his Neptune won’t improve his tattered nerves through this month till January followed by a turbulent tr Pluto opposition his Uranus on and off all 2026.
His relationship with Trump hits that odd dip come June 2026 when tr Neptune gets to 4 degrees Aries, which will make for a mood of high uncertainty between them.
Jared Kushner, 10 January 1981, an ambitious, controlling Sun Capricorn square Pluto, with Saturn Jupiter conjunct in Libra (fly high and then crash?) trine Mars in Aquarius conjunct the South Node. There’s no verified time for him but he does have Solar Arc Neptune conjunct his Mars and SA Mars square his Neptune at the moment, neither of which look anything but panicky and unsuccessful.
His relationship chart with Trump has that odd fated yod of Mars Neptune sextile Pluto inconjunct Mercury, tying them together irrevocably for good or for ill. Their association will be rattled by tr Uranus square the composite Saturn from May 2026 onwards, though 2027 looks like their nadir.
Tom Stoppard, one of Britain’s cleverest playwrights has died at the age of 88. His writing was witty and playful, he took ideas seriously and delighted in philosophical and political argument. He was a writer who managed to combine an intellectual’s delight in complexity with an entertainer’s talent for having fun. “Stoppardian” became shorthand for rapid-fire wit, shimmering wordplay and bathetic juxtaposition.’
An early success on stage with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead was followed by thirty years of prolific output on stage with Arcadia and Jumpers amongst others and screenplays including the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love. He wrote the adaptation of John le Carré’s The Russia House, Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and became the go-to writer for blockbusters in need of a bit of spit and polish (including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the Star Wars adventure Revenge of the Sith).
He was born Tomas Straussler on 3 July 1937 in what was then Czechoslovakia, where his Jewish father worked as a doctor for the Bata shoe company. His parents fled from imminent Nazi occupation when he was still a baby and went to Singapore, where his father died in a Japanese prison camp. Tom and his mother and brother had escaped ahead of the Japanese invasion and went first to Australia, later to India. There his mother met and married an Englishman, a Major Stoppard.
He had a Cancer Sun and Mercury square a forced-to-be-self-reliant Saturn in Aries; with his Sun trine a determined Mars in Scorpio, sextile a creative Neptune in Virgo – and his Uranus in a creative trine to Neptune and a risk-taking opposition to Mars. Imaginative and artistic, attention-seeking, adventurous, he also had a super-confident Jupiter opposition Pluto which was trine/sextile Venus Algol in Taurus.
He was married three times and had various relationships with Felicity Kendal and Sinead Cusack amongst others.
He only discovered when his mother died in the 1990s and with the fall of communism what had happened to his family, with all four grandparents dying in Auschwitz – that plus his father’s death may be part of his Venus Algol conjunction.
His creative 5th and 7th harmonics were strong, even more so was his writers 21st harmonic and his global-renown 22H.
“Like Samuel Beckett, but with much better jokes.”
“Sir Tom Stoppard, OM, playwright of dazzling wit who turned high concepts into hits.”
The killing fields of Sudan have become a new Trump initiative after the Saudi leader, Mohammed bin Salman’s recent visit. Wracked by war for two-and-a-half years, Sudan lies in ruins. Previously Trump had written it off as “crazy and out of control.” Now he has pledged to work with Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to end the violence.
With nearly 12 million driven from their homes, famine conditions and atrocities a regular occurrence, there is abject despair in the country. Gulf states are concerned about instability on the Red Sea — a key trade route — and fear the rise of Islamists in the region as does Egypt. Russia has been meddling supporting one side of the conflict. Most wish that both combatants could be ousted.
See previous post: Sudan – a humanitarian disaster too far 24th September 2024.
Sudan, 1 January 1956, has a chart suggestive of a troubled trajectory – with a destructive and vengeful Mars Saturn conjunct in Scorpio in a ruthless, bleak square to Pluto conjunct Jupiter. Across this winter tr Uranus will oppose the Saturn and square the Pluto for more turmoil and turbulence. The Solar Arc Saturn is conjunct the Venus as news of recent horrors emerged – and apart from tr Uranus square the Jupiter from June 2026 onward, repeating in early 2027 there is not much of cheer.
Trump’s chart relocated to Sudan is not inspiring – harsh words and high hopes – but nothing much substantive to indicate it is a success zone for him.
This winter looks rattled where his other two ‘peace-making’ efforts were focused. Israel has its Mars at the same degree as Ukraine’s Venus and Sudan’s Saturn and Pluto – all of which will be in line of jolting transiting Uranus hard aspects this December and again next spring. The conflicts have no connection with each other but none of them look like turning into done deals on the peace front anytime soon.
The Belgian PM has put a spanner in the works of using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine. He says it would violate international law and would destabilise financial markets. Belgium hosts €183bn, about two-thirds of the Russian assets immobilised in the west, at the Brussels-based central securities depository Euroclear. He warned that Euroclear could be sued by Russians with a claim on the assets, landing the Belgian government with a multibillion euro bill. He also said it would prevent the EU from reaching a peace deal, because the Russian assets would not be available for the reconstruction of Ukraine. He clearly reckons Ukraine will lose the war and that Russia would then be asking for its sovereign assets to be returned. As has happened in other cases.
The assets are seen as a key element of upping pressure on Russia, as well as a means of funding Ukraine’s defence at a time when many EU governments are grappling with tight budgets or deficits.
Bart De Wever, 21 December 1970 11.40pm Mortsel, Belgium is a conservative and Flemish nationalist. He has a 4th house Sagittarius Sun in a controlling square to Pluto in his 1st house, both final degree – and both to be undermined over the winter by tr Neptune Saturn in hard aspect. He also has Saturn in Taurus opposition Mars Venus in Scorpio with Jupiter also in Scorpio. Not a man to budge easy.
His chart relocated to Kyiv puts a focus on financial matters for him. But what intrigues me is his relocated chart to Moscow which puts the abusive, lying Nessus exactly on his Midheaven and intolerable-suffering Chariklo on his Descendant. There will be different ways of reading the meanings of these two positions but there may be more to his trenchant resistance than meets the eye.
Mahmood Mamdani, the anthropologist father of Zohran, the newly elected Democratic Mayor of New York, has written a weirdly revisionist history of the brutal dictator Idi Amin. The Mamdani family were Ugandan Asians, ejected by Amin in his purge in the 1970s, though Mahmood had been previously educated in the US and involved in the civil rights movement.
Amin was an admirer of Adolf Hitler and considered one of the most brutal despots in modern world history responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths. He expropriated businesses and properties belonging to the Asians and the Europeans and handed them over to his supporters. At the time, Asians accounted for 90% of the country’s tax revenue; with their removal, the economy all but collapsed.
Mahmood, professor of government and anthropology at Columbia University, has long styled himself as the left’s answer to VS Naipaul. He writes that the expulsions were aimed at the British, not Indians. He urges the reader to discard “media-driven preconceptions” of the gothic tales of Amin’s killings and cannibalism – and presents Amin as an anti-colonial moderniser. He destroyed landlord power, made black rule “meaningful” which evidently earned him aa place in Mamdani’s pantheon of liberation heroes.
Amin, 30 May 1928, was a Sun Gemini opposition Saturn with an aggressive Mars in Aries conjunct Uranus, trine Saturn and in a brutal square to Pluto.
What intrigues me is Mahmood Mamdani’s chart, 23 April 1946, Mumbai, India, which has a Taurus Sun square Mars Pluto conjunct in Leo – so he has the same Mars Pluto resonance as Amin. Though that can cut two ways and could have made him more sensitive to Amin’s rampant savagery. But clearly not.
It may not be exactly helpful for his son’s political position having his father act as an apologist for such a verifiably vicious dictator as Amin.
Mahmood’s Taurus Sun falls on his Zohran’s Midheaven with his Mars Pluto on Z’s Ascendant – so father pushes son hard but there will be a strong streak of competitiveness in there. Zohran, 18 October 1991 1.15am Kampala, Uganda, does have a Libra Sun conjunct Mars in Scorpio square Saturn with a 4th house Pluto – so relations with his father will have been fraught.
None of this may add up to much but it is astrologically interesting – and one to watch out for ahead.
The Kennedy clan wars are likely to heat up ahead as Jack Schlossberg, only grandson of JFK and Jackie, aims to throw down his hat for a try at a New York Congressional seat in the 2026 Mid Terms and voices trenchant criticism of his cousin the anti-vaxxer health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jnr, describing him as a “loser” and a “dangerous person”.
His sister Tatiana, tragically diagnosed with a rare form of terminal acute myeloid leukaemia after the birth of a baby last year is continuing to speak out. At the time of RFK Jnr’s confirmation she wrote: “I watched from my hospital bed as Bobby, in the face of logic and common sense, was confirmed for the position, despite never having worked in medicine, public health or the government.”
Robert F Kennedy Jnr has been spotlighted from another angle recently with hints of an affair with Olivia Nuzzi, a political journalist, from her forthcoming memoir. She previously claimed it was a “non-physical” but romantic affair though when details were leaked she left her job and her fiancé broke off their engagement.
RFK Jnr, 17 January 1954 born maybe 5.32pm, was nine when JFK was assassinated and fourteen when his father, Robert F Kennedy, was also assassinated . By his teens, he had developed cocaine and heroin problems, and gained a reputation for leading other family members astray. He started his career as an environmental lawyer and activist, and became an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist who has denied the link between HIV and Aids, pushed the idea that Covid spared Jewish and Chinese people, and claimed the CIA killed his uncle. He has been married three times and has six children. His second wife, Mary Richardson, died by suicide in 2012, two years after the couple separated, and after she had found one of his journals detailing sexual encounters with 37 different women. He developed “brain fog” and memory issues in 2010 which he put down to a brain worm as well as mercury poisoning from eating too much tuna.
With Sun, Venus, North Node and Mercury in Capricorn opposition Uranus (and Moon in Cancer) square Neptune he is a curious mix of earthy with so much Capricorn but also with a tendency to become detached from reality with a focal point Neptune – and worse, resistant to taking on evidence which contradicts his sometimes-fanatical beliefs (Uranus Neptune).
He also has a destructive Mars Saturn in Scorpio – a hint of his childhood experience of death and danger – but which has continued through his life to have a damaging effect on his behaviour and lifestyle.
His Solar Arc Pluto will conjunct his Saturn by 2027 which will grind certain aspects of his life to a halt. He’ll be blocked and discouraged.
His relationship chart with Donald Trump has a ‘power-couple’ Jupiter Pluto conjunction though also an explosive composite Mars square Uranus which will be buffeted and undermined by tr Neptune square Uranus from June 2026 onwards and opposition the composite Mars through 2027. Their togetherness will be sagging badly by then. [There is an odd repetition in many of the DT relationship charts with the period when tr Neptune hits 4 degrees in June 2026 onwards).
Jack Schlossberg, 19 January 1993 6am New York, is also a Sun Capricorn conjunct Mercury; with Uranus, Neptune in Capricorn opposition Mars in Cancer square Jupiter in Libra – so in an odd way not unlike his cousin though houses will make a difference. He evidently has an abrasive social media presence presumably from his Mars. That will be balanced to a degree by his 12th house Sagittarius Moon square a charming Venus in Pisces in his communicative 3rd.
At the 2026 Mid Terms he has tr Jupiter square his Pluto which will give him a confidence boost. But he’ll be in better shape by the 2028 election since tr Saturn by that time will be crossing his IC raising his visibility thereafter; and on his Jupiter Return with tr Jupiter heading for his Midheaven after the 2029 Inauguration.
Tatiana Schlossberg, 5 May 1990 10.10 pm, New York, facing a tragic diagnosis with courage, has a 5th house Taurus Sun and Mercury opposition Pluto. With a healing, creative Water Grand Trine of Pluto trine Mars in Pisces trine Jupiter. Her Sun Mercury and Uranus Neptune (opposition Jupiter) are her driving planets.
Such a tragedy. She has two children, born 2022 and 2024.
ADD ON: Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK and Jackie, lost her father and uncle Robert Kennedy to assassinations, her brother John Jnr to a plane crash and now one of her daughters to cancer in her thirties.
She was born 27 November 1957 8.15 am New York. She has a 12th house Sagittarius Sun square Pluto which can suggest a father outwith her control , a frequent occurrence for those with an absent father.
She also has her Aquarius Moon conjunct Chiron opposition an 8th house Uranus square Mars North Node in Scorpio which is fairly heavy duty – and the Moon Chiron does suggest wounding in relation to mother and family. Plus a violent/vengeful Mars in Scorpio next to the North Node could tie her into tragic events in the culture.
What may be the most significant of all – her Venus is conjunct Chariklo. Living with never-ending suffering is the myth of Chariklo, wife of Chiron, who was unable to heal himself from a poisoned arrow. Her task as caregiver was to create a sacred inner space more powerful than the endless challenge she faced – to transform the tragedy of her situation into a spiritual connection
See previous post: Chariklo – wait without hope. 10th October 2025 .
Hong Kong is in shock after a huge fire engulfing a high-rise public housing complex killed at least 55 people with nearly 300 missing.
Natural and man-made catastrophes happen all the time but they can on occasion (always?) be the forerunner to approaching times of radical change for the country involved. In this instance it could be a broader indicator of the overlord China’s fortunes ahead.
The recent Lunar Eclipse located to Hong Kong had Pluto conjunct the Descendant and the Solar Eclipse the New Moon on the Descendant. Planets on the axis point to significant events being likely.
The Hong Kong 1 July 1997 12am chart is hinting at rising tensions through 2026 with tr Pluto conjunct the Uranus/Neptune midpoint and further upheavals and turbulence with tr Uranus opposition the Pluto after June 2026 into 2027. There will be panicky moments with tr Neptune opposition the Mars from mid 2026 into 2027 – and yet more radical changes in 2027/28 as tr Pluto is conjunct the Uranus. Any major rebellions are likely to be met with oppression. But the China 1912/Hong Kong 1997 relationship chart will be under considerable strain throughout 2026 with the possibility of explosive incidents.
Given that the HK Chief Executive John Lee is an anti-democracy hardliner and the sole candidate approved by China, his position may be a barometer for any winds of change blowing in Beijing. His own chart has an all-systems-change tr Uranus square his Pluto through mid 2026 onwards with considerable confusion and concern throughout.
It reminded me of the Grenfell Tower fire in London on 14 June 2017 in which 72 people died which was the deadliest structural fire in the UK since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the Blitz of World War II. It was admittedly a calamity-filled year, post-Brexit, with the Ariane Grande Manchester bombing and London Bridge terrorist attacks. And that all coincided with on the UK chart the Solar Arc Uranus poised to move into the 8th house of deep-seated transformations followed in 2021 by tr Uranus into the 8th.
So the Grenfell Fire was, along with other disasters, arguably pointing to the political and financial muddle and guddle that transpired afterwards and is still ongoing. This is a bit of a stretch but these major events do carry a resonance.
Jimmy Cliff, Jamaican singer whose mellifluous voice helped to turn reggae into a global phenomenon, has died aged 81. Best known among mainstream listeners for songs such as “Many Rivers to Cross”, “If I Follow My Mind”, “You Can Get It If You Really Want”, and Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now” from the Jamaican bobsled drama film Cool Runnings. He also starred in the film The Harder They Come, which was the first major commercial film from Jamaica and helped popularise reggae around the world. He was one of only two Jamaicans in the Hall of Fame, the other being Bob Marley.
Born 30 July 1944 in Jamaica, he had a determined Sun Pluto conjunction in entertaining Leo with his Pluto close to charming and flamboyant Venus. His Sun Pluto fell midway between a creative, inventive Uranus trine Neptune; and his Uranus was in a rebellious square to Mars in Virgo. His Moon in ever-optimistic Sagittarius was further boosted by a square to an enthusiastic Jupiter Mercury conjunction in Virgo
His creative, the eternal-seeker 7th harmonic was strong.
The year 2028 is causing a few flutters of concern with challenging influences coming together though this happens every so often and does not mean the end of times.
By mid 2028 Saturn is edging its way into Taurus to square Pluto – Saturn Pluto is associated with hardship and deprivation, often war. The recent conjunction oversaw the pandemic. WW11 started with Saturn in Taurus square Pluto in Leo. WW1 started on Pluto in Cancer with Saturn in late Gemini approaching the conjunction. It does have ominous overtones but the Falkland War started on a Saturn Pluto conjunction which was UK v Argentina so does not necessarily pull in multiple players.
The January 2028 Solar Eclipse has an Aquarius New Moon conjunct Pluto trine Uranus; with Mars in Aquarius having moved on from the conjunction to Pluto in the Lunar Eclipse two weeks earlier. Mars Pluto is usually associated with ruthlessness and violence – was there for the Ukraine Invasion and various Gaza wars as well.
Charts with concentration of Fixed planets around this mark – are the UK with its 8th house Mars; the EU with its Taurus Moon and Uranus in Leo; and the Maastricht Treaty with its Scorpio Sun. All will feel the effects.
China hay be late to the party’ with a marginally later degree Saturn in Taurus.
The USA chart is on a Uranus Return as it was for the start of the US Civil War though it has had another Uranus Return in 1945.
What may also be significant are the Lunar Eclipses of 2028 at 21 Cancer and 15 Capricorn which will trigger the UK 10th house Cancer Moon and the July one the USA Sun – eclipses are challenges to change. So it will not be a year to stand still.
[Andre I would be grateful if you did not go off on one of your apocalyptic musings – it’ll be tough but that does not mean the world blows up.]
