Komunitas
hexbear.net
Good article. I wish the author would find a better place to post than fucking Facebook. What an awful place to read shit. Oil, Lies, and Eleven Dead The United States didn’t bomb drug traffickers. It bombed civilians in the Caribbean — and the cover story isn’t holding. White Rose (December 3, 2025) ::: spoiler article body The strange thing about the new American drug war in the Caribbean is how little it resembles a drug war. If you listen to the White House, Venezuela has somehow become the fentanyl capital of the Western Hemisphere and every wooden fishing skiff is a floating Sinaloa superlab. None of it is true, and they know it’s not true. In 2024 the DEA’s own National Drug Threat Assessment ranked Venezuela fourteenth among cocaine transit countries, behind the Dominican Republic, behind Jamaica, behind freighters flying flags nobody can pronounce. Fentanyl was mentioned exactly zero times in connection with Venezuela. Fentanyl comes from Chinese laboratories and Mexican production lines. Cocaine is overwhelmingly Colombian. Venezuela is a minor transit country at best. Yet here we are, firing missiles at boats and pretending these skiffs were hours away from poisoning American teenagers. The storyline is so flimsy it falls apart under its own syntax, but it soldiers on because it has to. It is the fig leaf that keeps the public from seeing what this operation is actually about. To understand that, you have to go back almost twenty years, to the moment the world’s largest oil reserves slipped out of American hands. In 2007 Venezuela forced foreign operators into minority positions in its Orinoco Belt projects. Most companies accepted the new terms. Exxon and ConocoPhillips refused. They walked out, their assets were nationalized, and their claims were annihilated in international arbitration. It was one of the largest expropriations in the history of the modern energy sector. The bitterness lingers beneath everything Washington does in the region. It is the quiet resentment of a superpower that believes it was robbed and has spent nearly two decades waiting for the moment to claw back what it considers its rightful domain. Even today, even battered and mismanaged, Venezuela runs on oil revenue. Ninety-five percent of its export income comes from the wells. The country is a petrostate by chemistry, not ideology. And while Americans debate fentanyl seizures at the border, the Gulf Coast refinery system is starving for the exact heavy crude Venezuela used to supply. China is sinking capital into the Orinoco. Russia is offering security guarantees. Iran is rebuilding refineries and pipelines. PDVSA is stumbling back toward partial recovery. If you’re an American administration desperate for cheap fuel optics and terrified of Beijing building a Western Hemisphere anchor, you don’t leave that situation alone. You poke it. You provoke it. You look for a justification to treat Venezuela’s coastline the way you treated Iraq’s airspace in 2003. You manufacture a threat where no threat exists. That is what the boat strikes were. The first publicly acknowledged attack killed eleven people outright — passengers aboard a wooden vessel the Pentagon immediately labeled a “narco-smuggling boat.” Yet the details collapsed under scrutiny. And then, on November 14 and again on November 21, 2025, U.S. Navy MH-60R Seahawks fired Hellfires into two more wooden boats off Venezuela’s coast, killing additional civilians. The Pentagon called them narco-subs. Satellite imagery showed nothing of the sort. What appeared instead was what every Caribbean coastal resident recognizes instantly: long open fiberglass peñeros with outboard Yamahas, the working boats of the region. And here’s the part they hope no one understands. Boats like that cannot reach the United States. At planing speed those triple-outboard rigs burn one hundred gallons an hour. They would need to refuel four or five times just to cross the Caribbean, or else carry so much fuel there would be no room left for anything else. These vessels aren’t designed for long transits. They are built for life along the archipelago. Gasoline in Venezuela is so cheap it’s practically a public utility, which is why peñeros are everywhere — ferrying families, fishermen, groceries, tools, workers, whatever the day requires. And that matters because the first strike didn’t kill a cartel crew. It killed eleven people in a peñero. That is not a smuggling configuration. That is a ferry run — workers, relatives, or market-goers moving between coastal towns and islands the way they have for generations. These boats carry plantains to Grenada, cousins to Margarita, fishermen to the banks at dawn. They are the backbone of civilian life across the Lesser Antilles. Calling them narco-subs is not a misidentification. It is a lie crafted for people who have never lived near the Caribbean Sea. The first missile was reckless. The second was deliberate. Survivors in the water don’t pose a national security threat, but they do pose a political one, because survivors talk. The point wasn’t interdiction. The point was messaging. It was the United States marking the Caribbean littoral as a zone of unilateral enforcement. A shadow blockade without naming it. A hint to Caracas that its shipping lanes, its export routes, and its access to world markets were now contingent on American pleasure. That is not drug policy. That is resource leverage dressed in tactical camouflage. And now comes the talk of airspace. People underestimate how serious that step is. Closing another nation’s airspace isn’t a diplomatic reprimand. It is a confession that you no longer recognize that nation’s sovereignty. Every major conflict of the last fifty years began with some version of that move. Kosovo. Iraq. Gaza. You close the skies when you are preparing to strike targets beneath them. You close the skies when you want to control who enters and who leaves. You close the skies when you believe the next phase is military and you want the legal fiction on your side. If Trump and Hegseth close Venezuelan airspace, that is war in every meaningful sense, whether Congress debates it or not. The drug narrative collapses on contact. Fentanyl is almost entirely a China-to-Mexico-to-border pipeline. Cocaine is overwhelmingly Colombian. None of that travels in peñeros. Yet here we are, bombing the only country in the region with minimal narcotics production but maximal petroleum wealth. You don’t need paranoia to notice the contradiction. You only need a map and a memory. This is the old American story in a new costume. Iraq was sold as a WMD crisis that happened to sit on top of massive oil reserves. Afghanistan was counterterrorism layered atop mineral corridors and pipeline dreams. And now Venezuela, the country with the most oil on Earth, is being framed as the beating heart of the fentanyl crisis. It’s too neat. Too convenient. Too familiar. The policy makes no sense until you invert it. Pretend the oil is the point and the drugs are the excuse. Suddenly the entire puzzle locks into place. The danger is where this leads. If Washington keeps escalating, if the rhetoric hardens and the airspace closes and the shadow blockade becomes a declared one, we may stumble into a war no one voted for and no one truthfully explained. A war sold as a narcotics crackdown but understood privately as an attempt to claw back lost resource dominance. A war born not of fentanyl flowing through Caribbean waters but of Exxon losing an arbitration case eighteen years ago and American power refusing to swallow the insult. The truth is simple. Venezuela does not have a fentanyl problem. It does not have a cocaine empire. It has oil. A lot of it. More than anyone. Enough to make superpowers lie with conviction. Enough to make men like Hegseth imagine themselves as historical actors. Enough to make a peñero look like a threat worthy of missiles. When the story is this crooked, the motive is always straight. Annotated Sources DEA National Drug Threat Assessment 2024 — Venezuela ranked 14th among cocaine transit countries; no fentanyl link Source: U.S. DEA, NDTA 2024 report https://www.dea.gov/…/2024-national-drug-threat-assessment U.S. Strikes and Casualty Count — first strike killed 11; U.S. justification disputed Source: AP News, CBS News reporting on Sept–Nov 2025 incidents https://apnews.com/ https://cbsnews.com/ Venezuela boat type misidentification — peñeros identified via satellite analysis Source: Reuters regional reporting & maritime imagery reviews https://reuters.com/ Orinoco Belt nationalization & Exxon/Conoco arbitration history Source: ICSID arbitration records + Financial Times coverage https://icsid.worldbank.org/ https://ft.com/ Venezuela oil dependency (90–95% of export revenue) Source: OPEC & World Bank indicators https://opec.org/ https://worldbank.org/ :::
Komunitas
lemmy.world
We have 2 major incidents First one: Dude A lends Dude B some money, relatively small amount, pretty sure it was less than $50. Dude B decides he’s not going to pay it back, so like mature, reasonable teenagers they decide they’re going to go to the park after school to fight about it. Dude A is not a big guy, he asks Dude C who is a giant of a human being to come along just to make sure he doesn’t get killed, sort of a referee to pull dude B off of him if things get out of hand, not expecting him to step in or lend a hand or anything. Dude B apparently has a different idea about how this is going to go down, and has a few friends come along with him with screwdrivers and baseball bats and other such improvised weapons. Dude C sees this as they’re about to walk off the school property to fight, and does his job, takes these weapons, throws them in his bag, throws his jacket over the protruding bat, and they’re about to continue on their way. The school, however, got word of this fight about to go down, and a bunch of cops show up. Dude A lucks the fuck out and a passing senior he kind of knew pulls him into her car and assures the police that he wasn’t involved in this clusterfuck. None of the other kids give him up and he gets off scott-free and cops never figured out who the last unnamed party to this was. The rest of them are all taken in, questioned, and receive their various punishments. Dude C gets the worst of it since he’s the guy who’s now holding all the weapons. He goes and spends a year or so at an alternative school, and is allowed to come back partially on the condition that he joins the football team. Our senior year we proceeded to win 0 football games, so fat lot of good having a giant on the team did. Apparently dude C had misled his friends about how much money this was over, when informed by the cops that it was over like $40 he flew into a small rage, threw some things around, then calmly sat down and said “I have been misinformed” Rumors of course start swirling and the truth gets very lost to the point I heard a version of the story where Dude C attacked the cops with a samurai sword and tried to flee on a motorcycle. I’m pretty confident that this is a pretty accurate version of events though, a couple of the involved parties have all told me pretty much the exact same story, and it’s relatively unspectacular compared to some of the embellished versions I’ve heard. It’s also pretty much in line with what I know of their personalities. For the most part, these kids weren’t dangerous, I don’t think any of them really had any other significant problems for the rest of their school career, and I’d describe most of them as nerds and generally decent people, some of them have some mental/emotional baggage, and couple that with some hormones and being stupid teenagers the stars just kind of aligned in the wrong way, and for the most part none of them held any significant grudges against each other and could probably have been considered friends to some extent afterwards. Second incident: I’m home sick one day, my mom worked at a school in our district, my sister was in school this day. The phone rings, it’s an automated message from the district. Something about the district being made aware of a threat to the high school, but that everything is under control, there’s no danger, etc. not a lot of details. Call my mom, she doesn’t have much more info than I do, she’s, not particularly worried, but of course a lot of parents panic and go to pick up their kids. She texts my sister to see if she wants to be picked up, she declines, she’s having a good time, it’s her and like 3 other people left in her class, they’re chilling and watching movies and such, there’s a news crew and some cop cars outside of the school. Having nothing better to do, I’m going through all the news I can to figure out what’s up. Eventually, it took a few days for all of the details to emerge, what we managed to piece together was There was a kid who was planning a shooting, tried to recruit another kid who turned him in. Cops raided his house, found a bunch of airsoft guns, flea market swords, a half-built pipe bomb, and one gun (that his parents bought him) with no ammo. This kid had been pulled out of school and was being homeschooled because of bullying. I didn’t know him, he was a few years younger than me, but from what I understand from people who knew him he was mostly bullied because he was an unlikeable racist asshole. The short bit of attention the media gave it tried to make it out like he was bullied for being fat (and let’s make no mistake, this dude was fat he may have been almost as wide as he was tall) but from the stories I’ve heard of him from before this happened, if any kid ever deserved bullying it was him for being such a major asshole. I wouldn’t really mention his fatness, except that at some point during the trial and such, his mom (herself a very large lady) got in trouble for trying to smuggle him food, which was just icing on the proverbial cake. The kid who turned him then went and broke into his house a little while later and tried to steal his Xbox or something.
Komunitas
hexbear.net
To talk about the Tu-95 strategic bomber fleet, first we must look at the number of Tu-95 bombers currently operated by Russia and the variants used. As of 2023, Russia has been assessed to operate 55 Tu-95s. As for variants, 25 of these are MS6 specification, and 30 are either MS16 or MSM specification, as only MS16 specification Tu-95s can be modernised to the MSM standard, for reasons I’ll explain below. As of 2020 before MSM modernisation began in earnest, it was assessed that Russia operated 25 MS6 and 30 MS16 specification Tu-95s, hence the numbers above for the 2023 estimates. Source -Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Nuclear Notebook. So what’s the difference between the three Tu-95 models in service, the MS6, the MS16 and the MSM? It’s all about the missiles they can carry and the functionality. The MS6 and MS16 were built to carry the Kh-55 cruise missile (with both nuclear and conventional variants), with the number being the amount of Kh-55s they can carry. MS6 specification Tu-95s carry 6 Kh-55 missiles on an internal rotary launcher and no missiles externally. MS16 specification Tu-95s carry these 6 Kh-55 missiles internally, along with an additional 10 Kh-55s on external pylons for a total of 16. However, the Kh-55 has seen limited use in the Ukraine war due to its low survivability, lacking stealth/low observability features and modern countermeasures and guidance systems. Instead, the Russians have made more extensive use of the more modern Kh-101 subsonic cruise missile (nuclear variant Kh-102), which has these features. However, due to the increased size of the Kh-101, it cannot fit in the internal weapons bays and rotary launchers of the Tu-95. This means that the MS6 specification Tu-95, of which Russia has 25 out of 55, cannot carry the Kh-101 at all due to a lack of external pylons. The MS16 specification Tu-95 can physically carry some Kh-101s externally, but not a load of 10 due to the increased size, I’d estimate a maximum load of 4 with Jerry rigged pylons, and without the full capabilities of the Kh-101 (such as changing target after launch) due to outdated electronics. This is where the MSM specification Tu-95 comes in. The MSM specification Tu-95 is a full modernisation program, that costs about $50 million per MS16 airframe modified. MS6 airframes cannot be modified to MSM specification as they lack external pylons, the wings were not built to handle such loads. MSM modernisation consists of new engines, avionics, radars, electronic countermeasures, and new external pylons, which allows an MSM specification Tu-95 to carry 8 Kh-101 missiles externally. The increased size of the Kh-101 means a load of 10 externally is no longer possible, the outboard pylons can only hold two Kh-101 missiles each, not three as with the Kh-55. Also, the Kh-101 still does not fit in the internal weapons bays, so even the MSM can only carry the Kh-55 internally. Maximum combined load of an MSM is 14 missiles: 8 Kh-101s externally and 6 Kh-55s internally. All this is to say that the effect on the strategic bomber force really depends on what variants of the Tu-95 Ukraine destroyed, an MS6, MS16 or MSM. It’s impossible to verify which aircraft have been destroyed at this time. MSM aircraft would be the most costly loss, followed by MS16. As for estimates, this is difficult as it’s unknown how many of the 30 airframes are MS-16 or MSM. For a Ukraine exclusive force reduction scenario, let’s say all 30 are MSM, and all 8 damaged are MSM. That would reduce the maximum Kh-101 salvo from 240 to 176, a 27% reduction in capability. However, such is quite unlikely. I don’t think Ukraine exclusively destroyed MSM specification Tu-95s, and I don’t think that all 30 potential airframes are at MSM standard. Ukraine could’ve also destroyed some MS6 airframes. What could Russia do in the meantime? The could see if they have some old MS16 airframes lying around, about 55 were built, which leaves 25 currently not in service or in boneyards somewhere. However, the cost of bringing back one of these planes back into service, yet alone modernising it to MSM standard would be enormous, much more than the current $50 million to take an already flying MS16 and modernise it to MSM. That brings up the question of if this is even possible, the out of service 25 MS16 airframes might’ve already been used for spare parts to keep the 30 in service MS16s flying, or they might be in too poor of a condition to ever get airworthy again. It’s fair to say that these are permanent losses as Russia no longer makes Tu-95 strategic bombers. As for how long it’ll take Russia to make 7-8 new production Tu-160s to replace them, that’s anyone’s guess, but I’d estimate years, if not over a decade. As for the PAK-DA, the Russian equivalent to the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber, it only exists on computer screens at the moment.
Komunitas
hexbear.net
https://archive.ph/DSAKv (in Ukrainian) “NATO’s methods don’t work anymore.” Why weren’t Ukrainian military trained to fight with drones at Polish training grounds? Since 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been training in training centers in European countries. In particular, Poland provides its instructors and training grounds, where basic and special training of Ukrainian soldiers has been taking place for almost three years. However, many military personnel who have undergone this training complain that they are preparing for the war of the past without drones - according to NATO scenarios from Iraq and Afghanistan, where drones were not yet discussed. Only in early October did the first drone range “Jomsborg” open in Poland, built with Norwegian funds. ::: spoiler more “Four APCs are participating in the defense of the river bank: one of them crosses the bridge to the other bank - this is a reconnaissance crew,” quotes one of the Polish instructors, translator Vitaliy (name changed), who at the end of 2024 completed a rotation with the Ukrainian military in western Poland. “There is a confused silence in the classroom,” he continues. “More than half of the audience are marines who went through Krynki (an operation on the left bank of the Kherson region in 2023. - Ed.). In the end, one of them asks, what if the bridge is destroyed? The Polish instructor proudly replies: “Our APCs swim.” He did not understand at all that everything was controlled by enemy drones, which would leave nothing of those APCs that swim up to 10 km/h.” This dialogue between the instructor and the Marines is just part of the overall picture, which has everything – NATO, textbooks and charters, fancy barracks and experienced buglers, but lacks the key element of modern warfare – drones. “They continue to teach from ‘Grunwald’ textbooks,” another BBC interlocutor bitterly jokes, referring to the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, a victory in which Polish historians are still proud to this day. The BBC spoke with Ukrainian Armed Forces servicemen and translators who accompanied them during their training in Poland, and also received comments from the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Polish Ministry of Defense. So what does the situation really look like? “Can we remove the mavics?” Training in Poland takes place in several areas - including basic training, advanced training, coordination, and special training in the use of Western technology. The programs include tactics, topography, survival, tactical medical, fire and assault training, international humanitarian law, etc. They are conducted mainly by Polish instructors, but some courses are prepared jointly with trainers from other partner countries. The battalion commander of one of the assault brigades currently fighting in the Pokrovsky direction, a major with the call sign “Eighteen”, talks about the adjustment course that his battalion took in Poland in 2024. The vast majority of fighters had just arrived after the BZVP in Ukraine: out of more than 400 people, only a dozen had combat experience. Major “Eighteen” himself completed his military service in 2013-2014, received a military education, and since 2022 has been fighting as part of the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade. In 2024, he received a newly formed battalion, which became part of another brigade. At the beginning of training, recruits were offered to choose from several areas: they could train to be marksmen (infantry sniper, short- and medium-range shooter), engineers, UAV operators, and infantry fighting vehicle crews. The training was conducted by instructors from Poland, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine. The Czechs were responsible for marksmen and engineers, the Poles trained the infantry fighting vehicle crews, and the Ukrainians taught tactics. “The program of the Poles and Czechs follows NATO standards, but I have seen the Ukrainian army in the Poles since the end of 2013,” he says and explains, ““Statutshchina”, security measures, an instructor walks over each soldier. They taught what our soldier will not actually see in battle.” For example, the battalion commander says, tactical medicine training was based on the “golden hour” rule - a standard for evacuating the wounded within 60 minutes, which emerged after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Ukraine, this standard has become a painful irony, because it is impossible to compare the possibilities of evacuation from under the sights of dozens of drones with how it was carried out in the Middle East under US air superiority. Now the wounded have to wait for evacuation for more than one hour, and in some places even more than one day. “One of our servicemen was wounded at around 8 am - a serious one, in the groin area. He could have just bled to death. But thanks to the fact that we taught him medicine, he made it until the evening - his limb wasn’t even amputated. So I explained to them (the instructors. - Ed.) that they should tell the soldier not just how to apply a tourniquet and tighten it harder, but also about after what period of time, at what time of year, how much the tourniquet should be released,” says “Eighteen.” uh… critical support to the NATO invasions of the Middle East, which have apparently completely mind-broken the whole of Western military leadership to the point where they have no idea what actual conflict looks like anymore? note that this is training taking place in 2024, two years into the war! The Polish side was also supposed to train UAV operators, but in fact was only able to provide a platform for this, says the major. “Fortunately, we took 12-15 Mavics, and we had one experienced pilot,” he says. The most interested in drones was Czech instructor Jakub (name changed), a veteran of peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan. Together with him, “Eighteen” decided to conduct an exercise: Czech paratroopers were to storm Ukrainian military positions. The “mavics” were to help them defend themselves. “After their first assault actions, Yakub came up to me and said, ‘Hey, can we remove the Maviks?’” says the major. “What’s wrong, Yakub?” he asked in response. “But you just cover us up very quickly with your Mavics, and we can’t get to you, you detect us on the approach to your positions,” the Czech instructor replied. “I say, Jakub, unfortunately, we are preparing for war.” Western militaries genuinely cannot conceptualize actually being the victims of any real weapon, whether bombing by planes, artillery, or drones, they just assume that they’ll get to walk right up to the enemy’s position and win “This is a good playground. Safe” “Kastet” is a UAV operator of one of the units currently fighting in the Kharkiv direction. He joined the ranks of the defense on the third day of the full-scale war - he joined the infantry when he was 21 years old. Since then, he has fought in the Kharkiv region, Zaporizhia, and participated in the defense of Bakhmut. “Kastet” arrived in Poland in early 2025 to improve his skills - he was supposed to earn the rank of sergeant in order to lead a platoon. “After the first week, I was already calling the commander, telling him to take me away from here. I said, I’ll get on the bus myself and come. It was very unusual,” the soldier recalls and explains that he did not agree with what the Polish instructors were teaching. “Knuckles” gives an example: in survival classes, they were shown how to navigate the terrain using paper maps - but in over 3.5 years of combat operations, he never had to do this, because all the maps are on the soldiers’ phones or tablets. Storming trenches and urban operations, according to “Kastet”, are also taught in accordance with the realities of wars 20 years ago. “They want to fly in tanks and Humvees right under the trench. Well, we told them that it doesn’t work that way anymore. It’s not done that way now. You put on a “kikimora” (camouflage suit. - Ed.) or an anti-heat cloak to be as invisible as possible, and you go to the position on foot,” he says. The constant presence of drones in the sky has turned any movement into a deadly threat, and the front line into a so-called “kill zone,” which, according to Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky, already extends for at least 10 kilometers. Some military personnel even speak of a 20-kilometer strip that is being shot at by Russian UAVs. Because of this, the landing of infantrymen now takes place as far away from the positions as possible: individual fighters on the way to the dugouts may not be noticed by enemy drones - unlike heavy equipment or military “snatchers”, characteristic khaki-colored SUVs. “Kastet” believes that what the Polish instructors could teach was useful for the “staff” soldiers, who made up half of the group. The rest - soldiers with combat experience -, he said, trained the Poles themselves. “We showed them how to properly storm with a drone. And how much easier it is. They were shocked,” he says, adding that he even received a certificate from the instructors for this. When asked if there was anything positive about training in Poland, “Kastet” thinks about it. In the end, he admits that he liked training on his own the most. The commander of the assault battalion “Eighteen” answers without hesitation: “This is a good playground. Safe.” ::: cont’d in response
Komunitas
hexbear.net
it’s wild how if they wanted to just have like, even the optics of not being evil, they could have at least rebuilt it (even if it’s under western ownership and therefore rent seeking imperialist bullshit) but no I think they just bombed it and were like “welp I guess people are just going to die now” and blueMAGA still likes the clintons!
Komunitas
hexbear.net
[CW: disturbing] This Intercept article is the most depressing thing I have read about Gaza. I Joined Gaza’s Trail of Tears And Displacement After weeks of reporting on Israel’s war from Gaza City, I was one of thousands of Palestinians who fled south on Friday. ::: spoiler The article I Joined Gaza’s Trail of Tears And Displacement After weeks of reporting on Israel’s war from Gaza City, I was one of thousands of Palestinians who fled south on Friday. Hind Khoudary November 12 2023, 5:11 p.m. It was Thursday night when we started to negotiate. Do we need to evacuate to the south or not? The F-16s did not leave the sky, the bombing did not stop, the live ammunition was very close. The sky was foggy, gas bombs and white phosphorus filled the sky. It was hard for us to even breathe. Our job is to document the war, to let the world know what is happening. How could we leave? For hours, we asked the question. I had a headache from overthinking. “What if they kill us? What if they arrest us?” one guy asked. “I am not leaving, I prefer dying here,” another said. “We should leave, we have kids and families.” “We did everything we can. We reported everything.” Despite the sound of the bombs, I urged myself to sleep. I wondered if this might be my last night in the office, my last night in the city. We had evacuated from the office three times in 30 days. We evacuated from the office to Roots Hotel, but journalists there were targeted, so we evacuated to Al Shifa Hospital. After the threats the hospital received, we chose to risk it and go back to our three-room office in the Al Rimal area, near Al Saraya. I used to live on a mat on the floor in the office. I had a private bathroom. The 11th floor office had the best view of Gaza. It was home when we were displaced. It was our tiny home. I slept as my colleagues were still debating. It was 6:30 when my colleague Ali woke me up. “Get ready, we are leaving,” he said hurriedly. “Go where? Nowhere,” I told him. “Let’s find another place to go. I do not want to leave.” “Hind, yalla, no time to negotiate, we do not have a lot of time,” he stressed while he was packing his cameras in his backpack. I stood up from the mat. Everyone was packing, searching for their stuff. I realized that I do have ADHD, as I’ve always suspected, because I had no idea where to start. It was less of a problem because I barely have clothes anyway — a couple of dirty sweaters, my laptop, and my camera. I have been displaced since October 9. I grabbed my bag and hurried with Ali to pick up his injured mom and my cousin. Ali drove so fast. We parked away from the Al Shifa entrance. The entrance to a hospital has become a danger zone, with several having been bombed recently. We started walking so fast trying to enter the hospital. It was crowded, people were rushing out. We started pushing people. It took us more than 10 minutes to reach the building from the entrance, a distance that normally takes just a minute or less to cross. I went to find my cousin, Sara. She works as a surgeon and has been in Al Shifa hospital since day one. Ali went to get his injured mom and sister. I started knocking on the door. “Sara, open the door. It’s me, Hind.” I kept knocking for three minutes until another doctor opened the door. Sara was sleeping. I woke her. “Hurry up, we are leaving,” I told her. She gave no reaction. She began packing her clothes. Ali took his mother in a wheelchair. I took my cousin with a couple of doctors. The corridors were becoming empty, everyone in a rush. Even patients were evacuating. By now, we were far too many to fit in the car, so we began to walk. We walked with thousands of other civilians. I even saw a hospital bed being pushed along the way. Children, people in wheelchairs, the elderly, babies — everyone was carrying their backpacks, pillows, and mats. We waited at the intersection for 40 minutes until Ali met us. Together, we walked. I studied the looks on people’s faces. Terrified, they were holding white flags. A truck that normally carried cows was packed with people. Another truck that used to transport gas canisters took people to the south. People crying, angry, sad, eyes filled with fear. My emotions were blocked. All I could think was that I do not want to leave, that it was wrong to leave, that I must not leave. Everything was destroyed. Even the streets were damaged and destroyed. My eyes were trying to document everything, I tried my best to capture everything in my eyes. I wanted to cry my tears out, but I held them inside me. It’s not time to cry, I will cry later, I told myself. We started walking from the “Doula Square” — the launching point. We found donkey carts. They called out that they would take us as far as the Israeli tanks. We reserved two carts. The owner was in a hurry; he charged us 20 NIS — around $5 — for a 10-minute donkey ride. Some could not afford it, so they walked on foot. I saw people carrying cats, carrying their birds in their cage, holding their bags, taking as much as they could. We reached the area scraped flat by bulldozers. I saw one bulldozer, two tanks, and a dozen soldiers. The owner of the donkey carts told us that this was as far as he could take us. All the people started holding out their green IDs, raised their hands and their white flags. Everyone was terrified. This was the first time many people in Gaza — especially kids — would see a tank or an Israeli soldier. I saw Israeli soldiers in 2016 when I left the Gaza Strip through Erez, the fortified border in the north. I was not scared. We were still walking. I was holding two bags, one on each shoulder. Ali’s injured sister was leaning on me all the way. She got shrapnel in her leg when the Israelis targeted the Al Shifa hospital entrance. As I was walking with the crowd, I was looking toward the ground. I saw baby blankets, baby slippers. I saw clothes, toys, bags. I’m sure people were too scared to go back and pick up the stuff they dropped. We walked over dead, decomposing bodies. We were thousands of us pushing each other on this one-way road. We wanted this to end. To our left was a tank and soldiers holding their rifles, watching us through binoculars on a sand hill. To our right were four soldiers standing in front a bombed-out building, posing and taking selfies on the rubble. Our group was stopped more than four times (for no reason) — and let go for no reason. As we approached the soldiers, I saw a naked man standing in front of the sand hill alongside three other men with their heads down. Another man with a yellow five-gallon water jug and a blond child were called over by the soldiers. They asked the small boy to step closer without his father. The boy was terrified. Those of us walking past worried the boy would be taken. The soldier told him there was nothing wrong, he just liked blond kids. We kept walking. As we walked, pushing each other, we saw bombed cars and dead bodies inside the cars. Flies filled the cars, feasting on the blood and the bodies inside. A newborn in front of me was crying. The mom was trying to make food for her as we were walking. She started nursing her without stopping the walk. Another mom was pulling her kids in their baby seats with a rope. A man pushed an injured woman in her wheelchair. It kept getting stuck in the sand. We kept walking, stopping, then walking, the soldiers a constant threat. It felt like years of walking, though it was only hours. It was packed, and we constantly looked between the crowds for each other. On the other side were people who were already in the south and came to pick us up. People in the south were searching for us, for people coming from the city. Everyone was tired. Everyone was thirsty. I had lost my cousin in the crowd of thousands, but found her at the end. She was crying, her leg had given out. She was in intense pain. We helped her keep moving until we could find a car. I can’t describe the sadness. We escaped from being killed or injured, but I did not want to leave — and did not want to leave the city. As we walked closer to where the cars were stationed, people started distributing water to us. They told us we were welcome and that their homes were open to us. We were so tired. I could not feel my shoulders or my legs. Everyone was happy we evacuated; everyone was hugging us. We had safely made it. But I did not feel the same. A piece of my heart was left in the city, and I may never be able to go back to get it. It is impossible for me to imagine I abandoned my father’s house, left it alone. He built that home with his own hands, and when he died in 2012, it stayed with the family. Our house in my family is something so precious to us. We do not know if our house is still standing or not, but we know that we are not in it. Fifteen minutes after we arrived, the people walking behind us were bombed. ::: This… To our right were four soldiers standing in front a bombed-out building, posing and taking selfies on the rubble. …gives me a special kind of rage.
Komunitas
hexbear.net
https://archive.ph/6eQmR European NATO countries scrap plan to buy Boeing E-7 Wedgetail AWACS The Netherlands and a number of European NATO partners are scrapping plans to buy six Boeing E-7 Wedgetail aircraft to replace the alliance’s fleet of aging Boeing E-3A airborne warning and control systems, the Dutch Ministry of Defence said. ::: spoiler more The United States withdrew from the AWACS replacement program in July, removing the strategic and financial base of the program, the Netherlands’ MoD said in a statement on Thursday. The remaining six NATO countries are now exploring alternatives and looking at new partners, it said. NATO operates a fleet of 14 E-3As from Geilenkirchen in Germany that represents Europe’s primary AWACS capacity. The aircraft will reach the end of their lifespan by 2035 and are a source of noise pollution, the Dutch MoD said. “The commitment remains to have other, quieter aircraft operational before 2035,” Dutch State Secretary for Defence Gijs Tuinman said in the statement. “The withdrawal by the U.S. in addition shows the importance of investing as much as possible in the European industry.” AWACS aircraft with their radar systems and communication equipment play an “essential role” in securing NATO airspace and commanding air operations, the Netherlands said. The US Department of Defense said in July it was canceling the E-7 Wedgetail program, citing significant delays and cost increases, as well as survivability concerns in a contested environment, instead planning to invest in space-based capabilities and additional E-2D Hawkeye aircraft. The E-3A is a modified version of the Boeing 707, an aircraft model dating to the 1950s, with a visually distinctive radar dome planted on the fuselage in front of the aircraft’s tail fin. The E-7 is based on the more modern Boeing 737. The main European alternative to the E-7 is Saab’s GlobalEye, with the company’s CEO Micael Johansson in October saying the company was seeing “huge interest” for the plane, including from NATO, Germany and Denmark, as well as other countries. The system is built around a Saab radar and sensors mounted on a Bombardier long-range business jet. Dassault Aviation has proposed a modified version of its Falcon 10X for the AWACS role, though that system’s prospects took a hit when France said in June it would buy Saab’s GlobalEye. :::
Komunitas
lemmy.ml
Here are the +972 articles that I have personally read through and compiled at this point: July 31, 2015: Palestinian baby burned to death in West Bank arson attack July 31, 2016: A year since the Duma murders: Navigating justice and pain October 12, 2020: For Israel, tens of thousands of Palestinian newborns don’t exist June 8, 2021: Settlers shot Palestinian and mutilated his body as he lay dying July 15, 2021: Joint militias: How settlers and soldiers teamed up to kill four Palestinians April 5, 2022: Israel charges Palestinian journalists with incitement — for doing their jobs April 10, 2022: Israel’s false promise of security May 25, 2022: Israel says this book justifies Masafer Yatta expulsions. Its author begs to differ July 8, 2022: This Israeli forbids Palestinians from building. He lives in an illegal outpost July 11, 2022: Classified document reveals IDF ‘firing zones’ built to give land to settlers August 11, 2022: ‘We killed a little boy, but it was within the rules’ August 30, 2022: Israel destroyed Palestinian village for luxury settlement that was never built September 15, 2022: How Israeli media reported a ‘lynching’ that never happened September 26, 2022: ‘We built the Palestinian Authority with blood. We won’t give up on it’ November 8, 2022: “He asked me how many children I have. Then he said: ‘Now you have one less.'” October 5, 2022: In Jenin and Nablus, resistance and despair go hand in hand January 24, 2023: A coming out party for Israel’s religious Jewish left February 16, 2023: The theft of Harun Abu Aram’s body, home, and life February 27, 2023: The pogrom is the point March 2, 2023: ‘They were burning our house with kids inside. The army didn’t let us through’ March 5, 2023: ‘I couldn’t see if my brother’s murderer was a soldier or settler’ March 13, 2023: ‘Who hits a 64-year-old woman with a bat?’ March 22, 2023: Armed settlers break into Palestinian family home under cover of darkness May 3, 2023: Revealed: The IDF unit turning ‘hilltop youth’ settlers into soldiers November 13, 2023: How a hasbara group’s sham investigation put Gaza journalists in the firing line November 23, 2023: What Israelis won’t be asking about the Palestinians released for hostages November 30, 2023: A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza December 8, 2023: ‘It would’ve been better if they shot us’: Palestinians recount prison abuse December 11, 2023: ‘Diseases are spreading rapidly’: In Jabalia camp, thousands shelter in one school December 19, 2023: Gaza’s rescue workers are haunted by those they couldn’t save December 19, 2023: A Palestinian student briefly deleted her social media. Israel revoked her permit December 28, 2023: Palestinian Christians in Gaza fear being ‘swept under the rubble or into the desert’ January 2, 2024: The ‘second Nakba’ government seizes its moment
Komunitas
hexbear.net
I don’t really understand how AI comes into this at all. They clearly have a pre-built list of Hamas operatives and where they live. Surely you just tell the pilot “Bomb these ten houses on your raid and then come back.” This just seems like an attempt to rebuild a sense of an efficient technomagical apparatus in the aftermath of an attack where that same apparatus was completely blown the fuck out by a few hundred guys training in full view of Israel for years. “No, see, we actually have an extremely advanced, cutting-edge system in which we can detect the thoughts of Gazans based purely on body language analysis (BLA - I have assigned it an acronym and thus it is real!) and thus assign them a friend-or-foe indicator and utilize tactical bombing to conduct surgical strikes onto Islamic-style terrorist individuals. This isn’t an incoherent genocide where we’re literally bombing random houses to generate as much terror as possible, and marching into hospitals where we think there are headquarters and then not finding them, and bumbling into obvious traps set out by Hamas. There’s AI and quantum physics and lasers and-- no, I swear, please! Our tanks do work, they’re just using Allah-supplied nanoparticles to bypass the trophy system! Please! Netanyahu will rule for a thousand years from his cryostasis!”
Komunitas
news.abolish.capital
By Celina della Croce – May 26, 2026 In mid-January, a young Venezuelan mother named Oriana invited me into her home in Ciudad Tiuna, a government-built housing project with thousands of apartments and roughly 20,000 residents. With her five- and twelve- year-old sons in the other room, she pointed through the window at the charred earth where the United States military had abducted President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores two weeks earlier. A few buildings down, Oriana’s neighbor showed me the path where a bullet had entered through the bedroom window, ricocheted off the wall, and pierced a dresser, a pair of shoes, and a towel next to her bed. The exterior and interior walls of the building, too, were pierced with bullets. So was the nearby primary school that Oriana’s son attends. Children in a playground in Ciudad Tiuna, January 2026. Photograph by Celina della Croce. Since the January 3 assault, rumors and accusations have spread like wildfire across the globe. On the evening of January 3, one of my neighbors in Queens, New York – who knew I was in Venezuela at the time – sent me a screenshot of a Tweet that had been seen by 4.3 million people alleging that “the so called ‘capture’ of Maduro was a negotiated deal between Maduro and US for an agreed exit strategy. … Maduro likely already has purchased property in Dubai to retire to.” Last month, an attendee of an event in Brooklyn, New York – not far from where Maduro and Flores sit in prison – quipped, like many, that the country’s leadership has sold out since January 3 and asked somewhat rhetorically, why Venezuelans weren’t “fighting back”. When I was invited to Venezuela for an assembly for peace in December, a friend of mine – a photographer – asked if I might have room in my suitcase to bring him a pair of combat pants. He, like many Venezuelans, had begun civic-military training exercises in the build-up to the bombing, in which Trump’s administration killed 150 fisherpeople, seized Venezuelan oil tankers, and repeatedly threatened and carried out acts aggression of against Venezuela. When I arrived in Caracas and caught up with a member of a commune in the neighborhood 23 de Enero (an economist by trade), he had a pistol tucked into his waistband: he was headed straight to his volunteer patrol shift after our conversation, preparing for the possibility of an invasion at any moment. The idea that Venezuelans have given up or are not “real” revolutionaries is easy to profess from an armchair in the imperial core (as Vijay Prashad, Roxanne Dunbar Ortíz, and others reminded us in “A letter to intellectuals who deride revolutions in the name of purity,” published in the aftermath of the 2019 coup in Bolivia). There is a deep irony that this assertion is made – and made often – in a country that has not only intentionally and strategically “increase[ed] pain and suffering that the Venezuelan people are suffering from,” to use the boastful words of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but that continues to brutally repress the right to democratic expression within its own borders (as is evident from the mass arrests of anti-police and anti-ICE protestors through the years, murders of Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis earlier this year, and decades’-long political prisoners such as Mumia Abu-Jamal and Josh Williams). Yet for this group of people, the focal point, seemingly exclusively, is whether or not Venezuela (or Cuba, for that matter) is “doing it right.” Have they sold out? Has enough blood been shed to win the approval of these studied observers? (What happens within the US seems to be of no interest here). A window of the classroom where Oriana’s five-year-old son studies in Ciudad Tiuna, January 2026. Photograph courtesy of Celina della Croce. In Venezuela, a country that has lived through terrorism in many forms – from the degradation imposed by the poverty in which 70% of the population lived before the revolution to the economic warfare wrought by the US which caused 40,000 people to die in the first year of Trump’s “maximum pressure campaign” and attempts to assassinate Maduro – many would prefer to die on their feet rather than to live on their knees. Over the years, the United States has spent millions of tax-payer dollars on “pro-democracy” initiatives in Venezuela that seek to enact regime change and has imposed over 1,000 unilateral coercive measures, including one of the harshest sanctions regimes in the world (in fact, the very idea of economic warfare is for the population to overthrow its own leader by, as US President Richard Nixon put it 1970, ‘mak[ing] the economy scream”). The Trump administration has taken no pains to hide its agenda, declaring, repeatedly, some variation of phrases like “America will not … allow a hostile regime to take our Oil, Land, or any other Assets” (President Donald Trump) and the US is “deadly serious about getting back the oil that was stolen from us” (Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, “our” meaning Venezuela’s oil). Furthermore, Trump has been clear that a decision from the Venezuelan government to refuse to make concessions would undoubtedly lead to mass destruction, stating at his January 3 press conference, for instance, that “we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so… a much bigger wave, actually” and that “All political and military figures in Venezuela should understand what happened to Maduro can happen to them”. (Interestingly, in the press conference there is not a single mention of international law, which the US has violated repeatedly – only of “American justice,” “American property,” “American foreign policy,” “American dominance,” and “American sovereignty.” As Trump said in a telling slip of tongue, “I watched last night one of the most precise, uh, attacks on sovereignty. I mean, it was, uh, an attack f- — for justice.”) The Return of the “Repentant Dog”: How the Purist Left Judges Venezuela from Afar Trump and his predecessor showed how far they are willing to go, and what they are capable of, to further the American agenda and consolidate US hegemony. The livestreamed genocide in Gaza has been one warning to the world; January 3 was another, when the US military shut off power in Caracas, disabled detection and air defense systems, flew over 150 aircraft into the city, bombed at least seven locations, and made off with the president and first lady (herself an important leader in the country since the early years of the revolution) after rehearsing the attack on a full-scale replica of Maduro’s compound built in Kentucky. As US President Donald Trump boasted later the same day, “[t]his extremely successful operation should serve as warning” and “if you would’ve seen the speed, the violence… it’s just, it was an amazing thing, an amazing job that these people did.” Caracas became an example for the US government to show off its military might; as many survivors of the bombing told me, “we experienced, briefly, what it is like to be Palestinian.” The discussion of where Venezuela “should” – or can – draw the line is an extremely complex one, and not something that should be taken lightly. January 3, and the genocide of Palestine before it, ushered in a heightened era of hyper-imperialism, an increasingly unrestrained, and illegal, use of US military power as the country’s economic and technological edge lose their edge. Faced with the threat of continued bombings and bloodshed, the Venezuelan people are left with a difficult, if not impossible, set of choices and their own internal contradictions to struggle through. To fixate on these calculations while ignoring the context that informs them – implying that we, in the West, in fact know what is best and what decisions should be made – is an adaptation of imperialist thinking disguised as left intellect. Or, as Fidel Castro said, “You strangle us for… years and then criticize us for the way we breathe.” Apartment buildings near a January 3 bombing site in Ciudad Tiuna, a government-funded housing project through Mision Vivienda which has in total constructed over 5 million homes across the country. Photograph by Celina della Croce. The decision of where to draw the line, what setbacks to accept and at what cost, and how much blood is to be shed, is one that belongs to the Venezuelan people – the ones who would pay the price for a hard stance with their lives. To imply that the Venezuelan people do not have agency in this choice is not only ahistorical but pedantic, colonial, and quite frankly racist. To point to one segment of the population – especially the diaspora in the US – as if they represented the voice of an entire people, is lazy, inaccurate, and unscientific. Those in the West who insist that Venezuela must take a hard stance to be a “real revolutionary” in so doing imply that Venezuelans are not acutely aware of the complex reality in which they find themselves and that they cannot think for themselves or sort through the contradictions and challenges they face, whether external or internal. This assumption is particularly ironic when imposed on a country where the revolution has from the onset used its wealth to fund programs that have not only vastly improved the quality of life of its people but have also bolstered their training, consciousness, and confidence to lead their own revolution, from Mission Robinson (which eradicated illiteracy by 2005 and taught 1.5 million people to read and write) to a variety of programs that have built dozens of universities and developed cadre training and political education. The task for revolutionaries in the West is not to determine the “right” thing for Venezuela to do, nor is to make ahistorical comparisons that equate the reality in Venezuela with countries like Iran. The task, rather, is to recognize – and learn from – the extraordinary skill, leadership, and fierce dedication of a people who have endured decades, if not centuries, of foreign interference (including the kidnapping of former President Hugo Chávez in 2002) while building a struggle for social advancement and liberation at home. With no such accolades to boast in the US – a country rife with poverty and inequality whose president recently professed that the only obligation of the government is to fund the military – we would do well to learn from the Bolivarian Revolution rather than challenge the competency and ability of the Venezuelan people to determine their own future. (CounterPunch) From Orinoco Tribune via This RSS Feed.
Komunitas
news.abolish.capital
Alex BaumhardtOregon Capital Chronicle GOLDENDALE, Wash. – High up on the Washington side of the Columbia River near the John Day hydroelectric dam, members of the Yakama Nation gathered to protest a clean energy storage project slated to be built on a sacred tribal site. Supporters of the Goldendale pumped-hydro energy storage project have said it will help meet growing regional energy demand, and the project developers tout its potential to one day power up to half a million homes without sending harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But mounting evidence shows a large data center campus could be among the main beneficiaries of that power. At the event earlier this month, Yakama leaders and a handful of nonprofits fighting the project in federal court, including Hood-River based Columbia Riverkeeper, called on Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson to intervene after state and federal agencies issued key permits to the project developers, a process 10 years in the making. This was despite a state review finding that it would have “significant and unavoidable adverse impacts” on Yakama historic sites and culturally significant plants. The 700-acre hydrostorage project is slated to be built on the contaminated grounds of an abandoned aluminum smelter formerly owned by Lockheed Martin, and, more broadly, a site that has long encroached on a sacred Yakama site called Pushpum, meaning the “Mother of all roots.” It’s home to Yakama archaeological sites and dozens of seeds, roots, flowers and shrubs harvested and protected by the tribe, some of which are endemic only to the area. “I know we’re in a time when we need renewable energy, but why on our root grounds? Why on critical migratory corridors for hawks, for sage grouse and the deers?” asked Elaine Harvey, a watershed manager at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and a member of the Yakama’s Kamíłpa Band. “And I say: For who are we building? We’re going green now for data centers,” she said. “We’re not going green for Washington and Oregon state mandates. We’re going green for data centers.” Elaine Harvey, a member of the Yakama Nation and a watershed manager at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission speaks at an event near Pushpum, a site sacred to Columbia River tribes near Goldendale, Wash. on Friday, May 8, 2026. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle) The project’s owners, the Danish investment firm Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, have not disclosed details about who would buy the energy. Paul Copleman, communications manager for the firm, did not answer multiple questions from the Capital Chronicle about who exactly the company would sell the power to, but instead said in an email that the project is meant to serve rising electricity demand in the Northwest, and that at full capacity it could support “enough on-demand renewable electricity to power about 500,000 homes.” He added that the permitting process involved consultation with the Yakama and a lengthy public comment period. “We remain committed to working with affected Tribes to finalize a Historic Properties Management Plan that safeguards cultural and historic resources,” he said. Recent reports from Street Roots, Northwest Public Broadcasting and permitting documents and energy use data from the local public utility district reviewed by the Capital Chronicle make it clear Denver-based data center company STACK Infrastructure would certainly be among the power buyers. STACK did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesperson for the Washington Department of Ecology told Street Roots the data center is in talks to buy acreage next to the Goldendale energy storage project. Furthermore, Street Roots reported that Scott Tillman, manager of the LLC that currently owns the land where the energy storage project would be built, also lists on his LinkedIn page that he is working with STACK and Blue Owl Digital Infrastructure “to develop the world’s greenest IGW + hyperscale data center.” People gather near Pushpum, a site sacred to Columbia River tribes near Goldendale, Wash. on Friday, May 8, 2026. Leaders from the Yakama Nation, as well as nonprofit environmental groups, are hoping to stop the development of a pumped storage energy project which they say will threaten the site, the seeds and roots tribal members harvest from it as well as wetlands, groundwater and wildlife in the area. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle) Power for who? If constructed, the multi-billion-dollar pumped-hydro storage project would work as a sort of gravity battery. When wind or sun aren’t generating enough power, billions of gallons of water from a reservoir built above the river would be released down a large tunnel to turbines below, generating power before pooling in a lower reservoir. When abundant wind and sun are next available, the excess energy would be used to push the water back to the upper reservoir, where it would await release to recharge the turbines on another dark or windless day. There is no sign the project is needed to provide more power to meet growing local energy demand in Klickitat County. The local public utility district’s most recent projections in 2024 estimated industrial and commercial energy demand would rise only 3 percent in the next 10 years. And data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows electricity demand among Klickitat Public Utility District users is nearly the same for commercial and industrial customers today as it was 10 years ago. There are no data centers in the county as of now, no more than the STACK data center slated, and the district meets the needs of a steady residential customer base. But in a 2020 letter to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, district officials wrote that they had “engaged in recent discussions with parties interested in pursuing the development of a data center facility,” adjacent to the proposed Goldendale energy storage site. The district has agreed to provide water needed to the Goldendale energy project, and said it would provide water to the data center if approved, but it would not be able to provide the data center with electricity unless it bought the power from a source like the Goldendale energy project. That’s because the district currently buys all its power from the Bonneville Power Administration, and under the Northwest Power Act, it is not allowed to use that power to serve new single loads with a capacity greater than 10 megawatts — such as a “hyperscale data center.” It’s more likely a private investor-owned utility would need to power the data center. In 2022, Puget Sound Energy filed an interconnection request with BPA for a 958 megawatt Stack data center to be built at what appears to be the Goldendale site, and listed it as in “study phase,” according to researchers at Columbia Riverkeeper. If built to that size, the data center facility running at its maximum could require as much as 80 percent of the 1,200 megawatts of energy the Goldendale pumped storage project could generate. Meg Bommarito, an environmental planner at Washington’s Ecology Department, said application materials for the Goldendale project show it would require a new aerial transmission line across the Columbia River to connect to Bonneville Power Administration’s John Day substation. That means it could also be planning to sell power directly to BPA, but Bommarito didn’t have any information about the connection or buyers. The ecology department and the Klickitat Public Utility District directed all questions about who would buy the energy back to Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. For the Yakama, the project, process and opaque power buyers represent another round of multi-generational displacement, driven by new industrial energy consumption. Youth from the Yakama Nation perform the Swan Dance near Pushpum, a site sacred to Columbia River tribes near Goldendale, Wash. on Friday, May 8, 2026. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle) For more than a century, governments, corporations and individuals have engineered, harnessed and exploited the power of the Columbia River Basin’s water, winds and sparse landscape for energy at enormous cost to indigenous nations and the natural world. In the early 20th century it was hydroelectric dams to power the expansion of irrigated farmlands, towns and cities, then to make the extraordinary amount of aluminum used for planes and artillery during World War II. Now, wind and solar farms dot the landscape to feed growing residential, but increasingly industrial, need for electricity with non-fossil energy, coveted after 150 years of pumping catastrophic levels of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere to feed endless demand. “We’re feeling the pressures of data centers and the push that they have, and that need that they have for water and the need that they require for energy,” Harvey said. “I feel like it’s coming too fast, just like the dams came and our people were pushed aside.” The post ‘Going green now for who?’ Yakama protest clean energy project on sacred site to power data center appeared first on ICT. From ICT via This RSS Feed.
Komunitas
lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/52499 Iran obtains initial draft of a framework for a MOU with the U.S. to end the war. Iran reiterates that its enriched uranium stockpile is off the table in current U.S. negotiations. IRGC Navy says 25 vessels transited Strait of Hormuz under Iranian coordination in past 24 hours. South Korea says it is “highly likely” an Iranian missile was used to attack its cargo vessel. Israeli strikes kill at least 31 across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says. Israeli strikes and displacement orders continue on Eid Al-Adha. Israeli strikes kill 14 in Gaza. Trump’s “Board of Peace” World Bank fund has received no donor money four months after launch, Financial Times reports. Israeli Knesset advances bill to seize control of antiquities sites across occupied territories. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeats Sen. John Cornyn in GOP Senate runoff. South Carolina Senate rejects new congressional map. Trump administration proposes requiring federal workers to sign nondisclosure agreements. CDC scrambles to recruit airport screeners as Ebola outbreak spreads. U.S. military kills one person in strike on vessel in Eastern Pacific. Bolivia’s lower house repeals law limiting presidential emergency powers. Human Rights Watch report finds UAE helped deploy Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside Sudan’s RSF. Russia accuses U.S. of violating UN treaty after denying visa to deputy foreign minister. Armenia signs strategic partnership and transit corridor agreement with U.S. as election approaches. Britain and Poland sign new defense and security treaty. FROM DROP SITE: Livestream: U.S.-Iran Negotiations in the Balance, Israel Escalates Attacks Against Gaza and Lebanon Drop Site is now live on WhatsApp. Get our latest reporting, podcasts, and breaking news, delivered directly. Join the channel here. This is Drop Site Daily, our free daily news recap. We send it Monday through Friday. Today’s edition is being sent to more than 750,000 subscribers. Help us grow that number by forwarding and recommending this newsletter. Subscribe now 🛒 Get your “Drop [Site] News/Not Bombs” Hoodie here: Get Your Hoodie Workers from the Uganda Red Cross Society evacuate the body of a suspected Ebola victim in Kampala on May 26, 2026. Photo by Badru KATUMBA / AFP via Getty Images Subscribe now Iran and Ceasefire Iran obtains initial draft of a framework for a MOU with the U.S. to end the war: Iran’s state TV said on Wednesday Tehran obtained a preliminary document outlining a framework for a potential memorandum of understanding with the United States. The framework would restore commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels within 30 days, and includes the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iran’s vicinity and the lifting of a naval blockade. The Mizan news agency reported that “America has committed to withdrawing its military forces from Iran’s surrounding environment, whether this includes forces deployed to the region or forces stationed at bases requires negotiation.” It added, “If a final agreement is reached within a 60-day period, this agreement will be approved in the form of a binding UN Security Council resolution.” Iran reiterates that its enriched uranium stockpile is off the table in current negotiations: Ali Bagheri Kani, deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reiterated Tuesday that the fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium “is not on the agenda of the negotiations” with the United States, speaking to Fars news agency on the sidelines of a security conference in Moscow. President Donald Trump has previously said the U.S. will not permit Iran to retain its 440-kilogram stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent and that it would have to be shipped to the U.S. as part of any agreement. But in a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump stated that it would be acceptable for the uranium to be “destroyed in place” by Iran with the oversight of international monitors. (Uranium cannot be destroyed but Iran has previously proposed diluting its stockpile with International Atomic Energy Agency supervision.) On a similar note, an Iranian official told Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill that Trump’s demand that several Muslim nations join the Abraham Accords as part of a potential Iran deal has “no connection whatsoever to the ceasefire negotiations” between Iran and the U.S. He characterized this as an attempt to “extract last-minute concessions from the Arab countries” in the final stages before an agreement is reached. South Korea says it is “highly likely” an Iranian missile was used to attack its cargo vessel: South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that an Iranian-made anti-ship missile was “highly likely” used in an attack earlier this month on the HMM Namu, a vessel operated by South Korean shipping company HMM, in the Strait of Hormuz, citing technical analysis of the warhead’s shape and gas debris color, according to the country’s Yonhap news agency. Seoul plans to summon Iran’s ambassador over the incident, First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo said. Iran calls U.S. strikes a sign of bad faith: Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday denounced U.S. strikes on southern Iran the previous day as a violation of the ceasefire and as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability,” warning Washington would bear responsibility for “all consequences.” “The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered,” the Foreign Ministry statement read. IRGC official warns Iran will turn its coastline into a “graveyard for aggressors”: A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval official warned Wednesday that Iran stands ready to repel any attack despite assessing the likelihood of renewed war with the United States as low, according to Tasnim. “The possibility of war is low because of the enemy’s weakness, but the armed forces are lying in wait,” said Mohammad Akbarzadeh, deputy political chief of the IRGC’s navy, threatening to turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr—spanning the full length of Iran’s southern coastline—into a “graveyard for aggressors,” should hostilities resume. IRGC Navy says 25 vessels transited Strait of Hormuz in past 24 hours: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy reported Tuesday that 25 ships—including oil tankers, container ships, and other commercial vessels—had passed through the Strait of Hormuz under IRGC coordination and security clearance in the past 24 hours, according to Fars News, which is linked to the organization. This brings the total number of vessels allowed through the strait over 90, according to the group’s figures. Iran releases 10 Indian sailors: Iran has freed 10 Indian sailors who had been detained since July 2025 after their vessel, the MV Harbour Phoenix, was intercepted near Jask Port, India’s Directorate General of Shipping announced Wednesday, attributing the release to “sustained diplomatic engagement” between the two countries. The directorate said arrangements were being made for the crew’s return to India, but did not provide further details on the reason for the arrests or the detention of the Palau-flagged oil products tanker. Iran announces reopening of Tabriz International Airport: Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization announced that Tabriz International Airport, damaged during the war with the U.S. and Israel, will reopen Wednesday after being rebuilt by Iranian specialists, according to state broadcaster IRIB. The reopening brings the number of Iranian airports that have resumed operations following war-related disruptions to 20. Lebanon Israeli strikes kill at least 31 across southern Lebanon on Tuesday: Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon killed at least 31 people on Tuesday, including four children and three women, and wounded 40 others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said, with 15 of the dead reported in Burj al-Shamali, near the southern city of Tyre. Other major strikes were reported in Maarakeh, where five were killed, and Haboush, where four were killed. Israel carried out more than 180 strikes across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on Tuesday, according to local media, despite the ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States. Two more first responders were killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon, reporter Courtney Bonneau confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the total number of paramedics killed since March 2 to over 120. Israeli strikes and displacement orders continue on Eid Al-Adha: An Israeli airstrike on Deir Aames killed two people on Wednesday, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. Later, further attacks were reported with two major waves targeting Dibbin and Shebaa. A Lebanese soldier’s body was recovered on Wednesday after being killed in an Israeli strike close to the Qaraoun Lake Dam in Lebanon’s western Bekaa region on Tuesday, while several paramedics were also killed as they attempted to evacuate him from the area. The Lebanese army said in a statement that a military unit managed to recover the soldier’s body under heavy Israeli drone surveillance, adding that rescue teams had initially been unable to reach him because of ongoing security threats and Israeli strikes targeting the area. The Israeli army issued a forced displacement order on Wednesday for residents of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre and surrounding camps and neighborhoods. The order covered at least three Palestinian refugee camps in the Tyre area: Rashidiya camp, Burj Al-Shamali camp, and Al-Bas camp. The military further warned that “any movement south of the Zahrani River may put your lives at risk.” The Israeli military also issued a displacement order earlier today to residents of the southern Lebanese towns of Kfar Houneh, Aaramta, Mleikh, Jarjouh, and Houmine al-Fawqa. Hezbollah said Wednesday that its fighters “clashed with the enemy forces at point-blank range” in Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, a town at the edge of Israel’s self-declared yellow line in southern Lebanon, a day after the Israeli military announced it was expanding its ground incursions in the south. The town sits north of the Litani River, the boundary that Israeli forces are required to withdraw behind under the terms of the ceasefire. Israel orders forced displacement of 27 southern Lebanese towns and villages late Tuesday: The Israeli army issued forced displacement orders for 27 towns and villages across southern Lebanon just before 10 p.m. local time Tuesday, forcing families to rouse children and evacuate elderly and disabled relatives with only what they could immediately carry, journalist Courtney Bonneau reported. Netanyahu says Israel “deepening operation” in Lebanon”: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of a Security Cabinet meeting Tuesday that, “We are deepening our operation in Lebanon. The IDF is operating with large forces on the ground and seizing dominant terrain. We are fortifying the security zone to protect the communities of the north.” He added that the Security Cabinet is “leading a massive national effort to advance creative and innovative solutions against explosive drones,” in reference to the successful use of FPV drones by Hezbollah to target the Israeli military in Lebanon. Hezbollah claims sustained ground engagement with Israeli forces across southern Lebanon: Hezbollah described its day-long ground engagement with Israeli forces advancing on Zawtar al-Sharqiyah in the Nabatieh district, with its media outlet claiming the destruction of a Merkava tank and a Humvee with FPV drones, strikes on a Namera armored personnel carrier and a communications vehicle in Bint Jbeil, and drone strikes on Israeli tanks in Odaisseh. It also said that it shot down two Israeli drones over Srifa and Deir Kifa, and that it itself conducted multiple drone and rocket strikes on Biranit barracks inside Israel, where one strike, it claimed, hit an Iron Dome launcher platform. Palestine Israeli strikes kill 14 on eve of Eid Al-Adha: Israeli strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians on the eve of the Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Adha. A drone strike on a roundabout west of Khan Younis killed two Palestinian men in their vehicle. A 15-year-old girl also died of wounds sustained during an Israeli attack on Monday on Mawasi, Khan Younis. Israeli assassination strike on Al-Rimal neighborhood kills six: An Israeli strike on a residential tower in Gaza City killed six Palestinians and wounded at least 20 others, according to Al Jazeera Arabic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that the strike killed Mohammed Odeh, whom he described as the current commander of Hamas’s military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades following the recent assassination of his predecessor, Izz al-Din al-Haddad in an Israeli strike that killed six others, including three children, and wounded 50. Hamas confirmed Odeh’s death in a statement on Wednesday, saying that he was killed alongside his wife and two of his children in a “treacherous zionist bombing,” and adding that Israel’s “escalation of its crimes in assassination, siege, and starvation…will not succeed in achieving their goals that they have failed at, nor in breaking the will of our people and their resistance.” Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz also announced Odeh’s assassination on social media and added that “the voluntary emigration plan from Gaza will be implemented at the proper time and in the proper manner.” Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in Jenin raid: Israeli forces shot and killed a 45-year-old Palestinian man during a military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its crews recovered his body from inside the camp before transferring it to Jenin Government Hospital. Trump’s “Board of Peace” World Bank fund has received no donor money four months after launch: The World Bank fund established for Trump’s “Board of Peace” has received zero dollars from donors four months after its creation, the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing four people familiar with the matter. Donations have instead been routed through a JPMorgan account without transparency, according to the report. Morocco’s approximately $20 million has funded the office of High Representative Nickolay Mladenov and salaries for a Palestinian technocratic committee, while $100 million pledged by the UAE to train a Gaza police force remains frozen, with the program yet to begin. Member states had pledged $7 billion for the board’s Gaza relief package. President Donald Trump promised an additional $10 billion in U.S. funding, but two people familiar with postwar planning told the FT that not one U.S. dollar has been deployed for Gaza’s reconstruction, and no contracts for that reconstruction have been awarded. Israeli Knesset advances bill to seize control of antiquities sites across occupied territories: The Israeli Knesset is moving toward a final vote on legislation that would establish a “Judea, Samaria and Gaza Heritage Authority,” empowering the government to purchase or seize land across the occupied West Bank and Gaza—including Palestinian-run Areas A and B—under the guise of protecting historic sites. The Heritage Ministry, which would be given control over these lands, is presently controlled by Amichai Eliyahu, a member of extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who supports the bill, has stated that it aims to “strengthen our hold on the Land of Israel.” The bill was condemned by the Palestinian Authority which governs parts of the occupied West Bank. Gaza Health Ministry opens emergency center: Dr. Muneer Al-Boursh, head of Gaza’s Health Ministry, announced the opening of a new emergency and ambulance center in Halawa Camp in northern Jabalia, where more than 20,000 displaced Palestinians are living in deteriorating tents along the Israeli military boundary dividing Gaza. “Halawa Camp stands as a witness to one of the harshest humanitarian tragedies of our time,” al-Boursh said. “More than 20,000 people are living in worn-out fabric tents on land that was once covered with orange and lemon groves—an area once filled with greenery and life. Today, nothing green remains, except painful memories.” Al-Boursh also noted the nearby presence of an Israeli military position to the east, from which Palestinians have been “relentlessly” fired upon, and which resulted in casualties that ambulances were unable to reach. The center was established in tribute to paramedic Ibrahim Abu Saqr, who was killed while helping to set it up. As of February 5*,* and following intensive Israeli attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers in Gaza,none of the Strip’s 37 hospitals were fully operational, and only 19 were partially functioning, according to OCHA. U.S. News By Julian Andreone, with Ryan Grim. Have a tip on Capitol Hill? Email Andreone at [email protected]. Ken Paxton defeats Senator John Cornyn in Texas GOP Senate runoff: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in Tuesday’s Republican Senate runoff. Paxton overcame a narrow deficit from the March primary by relying on grassroots conservative support and surviving millions of dollars in attack ads from Cornyn highlighting his record of personal and political scandals, but the single factor that most likely facilitated his win was an endorsement he received from President Trump last week. Head-to-head polling shows Democratic nominee James Talarico holding a slight lead over Paxton in the November general election. Freshman Rep. Christian Menefee defeated 11-term incumbent Rep. Al Green on Tuesday in the Democratic primary runoff for Texas’ 18th Congressional District, an incumbent-on-incumbent race created by Republican redistricting that pushed Green out of his redrawn 9th District. Menefee, 38, who was sworn in earlier this year after winning a special election following the death ofRep. Sylvester Turner, benefited from more than $5 million in outside spending from Protect Progress, a super PAC aligned with cryptocurrency industry leaders. Menefee was also congratulated by AIPAC on his victory; Green condemned Israel’s genocide in Gaza in a 2025 statement. Democrat Johnny Garcia won Tuesday’s primary runoff in Texas’ newly redrawn 35th Congressional District, which stretches from Austin to San Antonio, defeating Maureen Galindo, who was disavowed by national Democratic leaders after her antisemitic social media posts. Galindo received over a million dollars from an opaque group linked to the GOP. Garcia will face Air Force veteran Carlos De La Cruz, who won the Republican primary runoff Tuesday with Trump’s endorsement, in a district Trump carried by 10.5 points in 2024. Texas State Sen. Mayes Middleton defeatedRep. Chip Roy on Tuesday in the Republican primary runoff for Texas attorney general. Roy has notably broken with President Donald Trump on occasion. Middleton, a wealthy Galveston oil businessman who loaned his campaign more than $16 million, positioned himself as the rightful heir to outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton’s conservative legacy. Trump made no endorsement in the race. Redistricting news: The Republican-led South Carolina Senate voted Tuesday against advancing a redrawn congressional map that would have eliminated the state’s sole majority-Black district, represented by DemocraticRep. James Clyburn, in a surprise defeat for President Donald Trump, who had urged lawmakers to pass it. Several Republican state senators reversed course, citing timing concerns after early voting had already begun for the June 9 primary, with state Sen. Richard Cash saying neither his “conscience nor common sense” would allow him to halt an election already underway. White House advisers said they were caught off guard by the failed vote, with one calling it a “betrayal,” and noted they received no advance warning from Republican Gov. Henry McMaster. A Florida circuit judge on Tuesday denied a request to temporarily block a new Republican-friendly congressional map signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this month. Judge Joshua Hawkes, a DeSantis appointee, ruled that challengers had not sufficiently proven partisan intent and cited the proximity of the primary—less than three months away—as grounds against introducing map changes, while leaving open the possibility of halting the map after a full ruling on the merits. The new map could affect as many as four Democratic incumbents in a delegation where Republicans already hold a 20-8 advantage. A three-judge federal panel blocked Alabama Republicans’ redrawn congressional map Tuesday, ruling it intentionally discriminates against Black voters in violation of the Constitution and that the Supreme Court’s recent decision narrowing the Voting Rights Act does not alter that finding. The panel—which notably included two Trump appointees alongside a Clinton appointee—ordered the state to continue using a court-drawn map that created a second majority-Black district, paving the way for Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures’ election. Federal appeals court temporarily blocks deportation of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil: The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on Tuesday, blocking the Trump administration from re-detaining and deporting former Columbia University graduate student and activist Mahmoud Khalil while he seeks a Supreme Court review of his case, ABC News reported. Khalil, a green card holder married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March 2025 after Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged his Pro-Palestinian views “threatened U.S. foreign policy interests,” while acknowledging that his activity was “otherwise lawful.” AP: ICE detainees dying by suicide at an unprecedented rate: An investigation by the Associated Press has found that at least 10 ICE detainees have died by suicide since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, a pace that far exceeds the growth in the detainee population. “Since October, seven deaths have been classified as suicides, a number that is already the most for any fiscal year in the agency’s history. ICE has usually recorded one or no such deaths annually,” AP wrote. Public health officials and jails experts told the AP that the unprecedented number of suicide deaths is an indication that authorities are failing to properly oversee the detention of tens of thousands of immigrants swept up in Trump’s immigration crackdown. “Staff in the facilities ignored signs of distress, delayed mental health treatment, and failed to monitor detainees who were already deemed at risk. They also permitted detainees to have access to materials that could be used for self-harm,” AP reported. Chemical tank implosion at Washington state paper facility kills at least one, injures multiple workers: A tank containing white liquor—a sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide solution used in paper pulp production—imploded Tuesday morning at a Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in the Portland, Oregon suburb of Longview, Washington, killing at least one person and sending at least nine workers and one firefighter to hospitals with chemical burns and other injuries, authorities said. CDC scrambles to recruit airport screeners as Ebola outbreak spreads beyond remote areas into major regional cities: The CDC issued an urgent internal request Tuesday recruiting staff to screen passengers arriving from Central Africa for Ebola symptoms, as the International Rescue Committee warned the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda is spreading faster than responders can contain it and risks becoming the deadliest on record, according to an internal email obtained by ABC News. The current strain of Ebola, Bundibugyo, has no approved vaccines or treatments, carries a case fatality rate of 30 to 50 percent, and is difficult to detect with standard Ebola tests.The Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that JFK International Airport would join Dulles, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental as designated entry points for travelers from affected countries, where CDC staff will conduct temperature checks and symptom observation. Trump administration proposes requiring federal workers to sign nondisclosure agreements: The Office of Personnel Management posted a draft rule Tuesday proposing that federal employees be required to sign nondisclosure agreements, citing the need to combat unauthorized disclosures to the media and protect confidential government information, with violations potentially resulting in civil and criminal penalties. The proposal, which sets off a 30-day public comment period after official publication Wednesday, would give individual agencies discretion over whether to implement the NDAs for new hires and current employees. Whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid said the NDA would not create new legal obligations or restrict lawful whistleblowing, but argued it appeared designed to “induce fear and intimidate the workforce.” The American Federation of Government Employees said it would oppose the rule, warning that OPM would pressure agencies to make it mandatory and fire employees who refuse to sign. Hasan Piker and Medea Benjamin deny receiving subpoenas, contradicting Fox News report: Political streamer Hasan Piker and Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin both told Drop Site News’ Ryan Grim that they have not been subpoenaed, contradicting a Fox News report claiming federal officials had served them subpoenas in connection with their recent trips to Cuba. Fox News had reported that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued administrative subpoenas as part of a sanctions-related investigation into activists involved in humanitarian aid convoys to Cuba. U.S. trade representative says tariffs on Mexico and Canada will remain: U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Tuesday that the Trump administration intends to maintain tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada even as formal renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement gets underway, telling a Council on Foreign Relations event that tariffs will remain in place “as long as we have a giant trade deficit.” U.S. and Mexican negotiators are meeting this week in Mexico City to launch the first formal negotiating rounds, covering revised rules of origin and economic security. Greer reserved sharper language for Canada, saying the administration’s issues with Ottawa go well beyond its “significant” trade issues and indicated it may be difficult for the two countries to resolve their differences in the near future. Federal firearm charge dropped against Las Vegas man accused of operating unlicensed biological storage facility: A federal firearms charge against Ori Solomon, 55, the Israeli-American property manager of a Las Vegas home found to contain what the FBI described as a biological storage facility, was dismissed earlier this month after prosecutors cited a review of evidence and information provided by the defense, according to court documents. Solomon still faces a felony state charge for improper disposal of hazardous waste and is due in court on June 4. The January raid on the home uncovered refrigerators containing vials of unknown liquids, human biological samples, compounds associated with influenza vaccines, and COVID and pregnancy test components. An LLC tied to Ori Solomon’s home address matches one involved in a case in California involving a Chinese citizen, who faces federal charges for manufacturing and selling misbranded biological devices. California DOJ report finds overcrowding, medical neglect, and excessive force at state ICE detention facilities: A California Department of Justice report published May 15 found that overcrowding driven by the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign has led to inadequate medical care, food, and hygiene, as well as excessive use of force at the state’s ICE detention facilities, with Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) calling conditions “cruel, inhumane and unacceptable.” Inspectors found particularly severe conditions at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and Desert View Annex—both run by GEO Group, whose former executive David Venturella was recently appointed acting ICE director—where only 18 percent of detainees reported being able to see a doctor, and four people have died during the second Trump administration. At Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, run by CoreCivic, inspectors found the facility holding 1,433 detainees against a contractual maximum of 1,142, with overflow detainees sleeping on floor mats. A separate CoreCivic facility, California City Detention Facility, was found to have opened prematurely without sufficient staff. Other International News U.S. military kills one person in strike on vessel in Eastern Pacific: U.S. Southern Command announced Tuesday that it carried out another lethal strike on a vessel in the Eastern Pacific, killing one person and leaving two survivors as part of Operation Southern Spear, in which it has targeted “narco-terrorist organizations.” SOUTHCOM claimed, without evidence, that the vessel was “was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” SOUTHCOM has killed more than 190 people in vessel strikes in the Pacific and Caribbean since they began eight months ago. Bolivia’s lower house repeals law limiting presidential emergency powers: Bolivia’s Chamber of Deputies voted Tuesday to repeal Law 1341, stripping away key restrictions on the president’s ability to declare a state of exception and deploy the military against internal unrest. The 2020 law had capped the president’s emergency powers at 60 days, required justification for suspending civil rights, and restricted military force against demonstrations. Human rights groups warned that the repeal gives President Rodrigo Paz. sweeping authority to impose a military crackdown on the country’s protest movement by decree. Protests and roadblocks, which have been ongoing for four weeks, continued across Bolivia on Tuesday, amid deaths that the government has denied. Sudanese army recaptures four areas in Blue Nile region: The Sudanese army’s Fourth Infantry Division announced Tuesday it had retaken four areas in the Blue Nile region—Abdaqla, Adi, Washimbu, Um Shanqar, and Kinshinkaru—within Qaysan locality, and continued pursuing Rapid Support Forces fighters to Sudan’s Ethiopian border. The advance comes two days after the army retook the Barka area and brings it closer to the town of Karamak, which fell in March to an alliance of RSF forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North. Fighting in the Blue Nile area has displaced around 50,000 people from Karamak, Bau, and Qaysan in recent months. Human Rights Watch report finds UAE helped deploy Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside Sudan’s RSF: A Human Rights Watch investigation released on Monday found that the UAE facilitated the deployment of hundreds of Colombian private military contractors to fight alongside Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces during the siege and fall of El Fasher. Witnesses in the city described white foreign fighters standing beside RSF troops during executions of civilians, including people with disabilities. An Abu Dhabi-linked security company, GSSG, reportedly recruited former Colombian soldiers who transited through UAE military facilities before being flown through Libya, Chad, and Somalia into Darfur. HRW said the evidence suggests UAE military stockpiles, aircraft networks, and proxy companies were used to support the RSF—which the report extensively documents committing war crimes, sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, and child soldier recruitment—and called for sanctions, arms embargoes, and investigations into Emirati officials and companies involved. Russia accuses U.S. of violating UN treaty after denying visa to deputy foreign minister: Russia accused the United States on Tuesday of breaching its obligations under the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement after Washington denied a visa to Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov, who had been set to represent Russia at a Security Council meeting in New York. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia also framed the denial as a slight against China, which chairs the Security Council presidency in May. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also canceled his participation in the same meeting due to U.S. visa issues. Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro meets with Trump at White House: Brazilian Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro shared a photo Tuesday showing him alongside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, as his presidential campaign works to recover from a scandal over allegations he sought funds from a fraud-convicted banker to finance a film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro. The younger Bolsonaro, who has emerged as the standard-bearer of Brazil’s political right and the leading challenger to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of October’s election, traveled to Washington without a guaranteed appointment. Recent polls show the scandal has allowed Lula to retake the lead after the two had previously been in a near-tie. Lula’s office announced the president was beginning treatment for early-stage skin cancer and would undergo 15 radiotherapy sessions. Chinese dissident detained in South Korea after fleeing China by boat: Dong Guangping, 68, a Chinese dissident and former police officer who has been imprisoned multiple times for criticizing the Chinese Communist Party, was detained by South Korean coast guard authorities late Monday after crossing the Yellow Sea on an inflatable boat. Rights group Human Rights in China said Dong lost consciousness by the time he reached South Korean waters and urged Seoul not to return him to China, where he faces “a grave risk of persecution and torture.” Dong’s escape attempts span more than a decade—he was previously intercepted attempting to swim to islands off the coast of Taiwan, deported from Vietnam, and deported from Thailand despite holding UN refugee status. His family has since resettled in Canada. His detention comes at a sensitive moment for South Korea, which is seeking improved relations with China, its largest trading partner. Armenia signs strategic partnership and transit corridor agreement with U.S.: Armenia signed a strategic partnership agreement with the United States on Tuesday, alongside a framework on critical minerals and a transit corridor deal during a visit by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Yerevan. The 43-kilometer corridor, dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, would traverse southern Armenia and connect Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan and onward to Turkey. The agreements deepen Armenia’s westward pivot under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is opposed by pro-Russia parties in the country’s June election. North Korea tests AI-guided cruise missiles and ballistic weapons: North Korea tested a combination of tactical ballistic missiles, long-range artillery rockets, and AI-guided precision cruise missiles, state news agency KCNA reported Wednesday. Leader Kim Jong Un said the tests confirmed the combat readiness of cruise missiles equipped with AI-guided control and deployed near its border, which are capable of striking targets within 100 kilometers—well within range of Seoul. Britain and Poland sign new defense and security treaty: The UK and Poland signed a new defense treaty Wednesday, amid Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s push to rebuild security ties with Europe in response to U.S. pressure for Europe to shoulder more of its own defense. The agreement, signed by Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, will deepen cooperation on air and missile defense, weapons production, border security, organized crime, cybersecurity, and counter-espionage. Both governments framed the pact around the threat from Russia, with Tusk saying the two countries view Moscow as a “strategic threat.” The deal follows similar UK agreements with France and Germany amid an effort to rebuild ties damaged by Brexit. More from Drop Site Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill speaks with Dr. Foad Izadi, professor of American studies and international relations at University of Tehran on Iran’s negotiating position. Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Scahill also speak with Eyad Amawi of the Gaza Relief Committee in Deir al-Balah about the escalating Israeli assault on Gaza and the growing hunger crisis.Watch the livestream here: If you want to continue getting this newsletter, you don’t have to do anything. But if this is too much—we do try to be mindful of your inbox—you can unsubscribe from this newsletter while continuing to get the rest of our reporting. Just go into your account here at this link, scroll down, and toggle the button next to “Drop Site Daily“ to the off setting. It looks like this: Subscribe now Leave a comment From Drop Site News via This RSS Feed.
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Iran obtains initial draft of a framework for a MOU with the U.S. to end the war. Iran reiterates that its enriched uranium stockpile is off the table in current U.S. negotiations. IRGC Navy says 25 vessels transited Strait of Hormuz under Iranian coordination in past 24 hours. South Korea says it is “highly likely” an Iranian missile was used to attack its cargo vessel. Israeli strikes kill at least 31 across southern Lebanon on Tuesday, Lebanon’s Health Ministry says. Israeli strikes and displacement orders continue on Eid Al-Adha. Israeli strikes kill 14 in Gaza. Trump’s “Board of Peace” World Bank fund has received no donor money four months after launch, Financial Times reports. Israeli Knesset advances bill to seize control of antiquities sites across occupied territories. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeats Sen. John Cornyn in GOP Senate runoff. South Carolina Senate rejects new congressional map. Trump administration proposes requiring federal workers to sign nondisclosure agreements. CDC scrambles to recruit airport screeners as Ebola outbreak spreads. U.S. military kills one person in strike on vessel in Eastern Pacific. Bolivia’s lower house repeals law limiting presidential emergency powers. Human Rights Watch report finds UAE helped deploy Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside Sudan’s RSF. Russia accuses U.S. of violating UN treaty after denying visa to deputy foreign minister. Armenia signs strategic partnership and transit corridor agreement with U.S. as election approaches. Britain and Poland sign new defense and security treaty. FROM DROP SITE: Livestream: U.S.-Iran Negotiations in the Balance, Israel Escalates Attacks Against Gaza and Lebanon Drop Site is now live on WhatsApp. Get our latest reporting, podcasts, and breaking news, delivered directly. Join the channel here. This is Drop Site Daily, our free daily news recap. We send it Monday through Friday. Today’s edition is being sent to more than 750,000 subscribers. Help us grow that number by forwarding and recommending this newsletter. Subscribe now 🛒 Get your “Drop [Site] News/Not Bombs” Hoodie here: Get Your Hoodie Workers from the Uganda Red Cross Society evacuate the body of a suspected Ebola victim in Kampala on May 26, 2026. Photo by Badru KATUMBA / AFP via Getty Images Subscribe now Iran and Ceasefire Iran obtains initial draft of a framework for a MOU with the U.S. to end the war: Iran’s state TV said on Wednesday Tehran obtained a preliminary document outlining a framework for a potential memorandum of understanding with the United States. The framework would restore commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels within 30 days, and includes the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iran’s vicinity and the lifting of a naval blockade. The Mizan news agency reported that “America has committed to withdrawing its military forces from Iran’s surrounding environment, whether this includes forces deployed to the region or forces stationed at bases requires negotiation.” It added, “If a final agreement is reached within a 60-day period, this agreement will be approved in the form of a binding UN Security Council resolution.” Iran reiterates that its enriched uranium stockpile is off the table in current negotiations: Ali Bagheri Kani, deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, reiterated Tuesday that the fate of Iran’s highly enriched uranium “is not on the agenda of the negotiations” with the United States, speaking to Fars news agency on the sidelines of a security conference in Moscow. President Donald Trump has previously said the U.S. will not permit Iran to retain its 440-kilogram stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent and that it would have to be shipped to the U.S. as part of any agreement. But in a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump stated that it would be acceptable for the uranium to be “destroyed in place” by Iran with the oversight of international monitors. (Uranium cannot be destroyed but Iran has previously proposed diluting its stockpile with International Atomic Energy Agency supervision.) On a similar note, an Iranian official told Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill that Trump’s demand that several Muslim nations join the Abraham Accords as part of a potential Iran deal has “no connection whatsoever to the ceasefire negotiations” between Iran and the U.S. He characterized this as an attempt to “extract last-minute concessions from the Arab countries” in the final stages before an agreement is reached. South Korea says it is “highly likely” an Iranian missile was used to attack its cargo vessel: South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Tuesday that an Iranian-made anti-ship missile was “highly likely” used in an attack earlier this month on the HMM Namu, a vessel operated by South Korean shipping company HMM, in the Strait of Hormuz, citing technical analysis of the warhead’s shape and gas debris color, according to the country’s Yonhap news agency. Seoul plans to summon Iran’s ambassador over the incident, First Vice Foreign Minister Park Yoon-joo said. Iran calls U.S. strikes a sign of bad faith: Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday denounced U.S. strikes on southern Iran the previous day as a violation of the ceasefire and as a sign of “bad faith and unreliability,” warning Washington would bear responsibility for “all consequences.” “The Islamic Republic of Iran will leave no act of aggression unanswered,” the Foreign Ministry statement read. IRGC official warns Iran will turn its coastline into a “graveyard for aggressors”: A senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval official warned Wednesday that Iran stands ready to repel any attack despite assessing the likelihood of renewed war with the United States as low, according to Tasnim. “The possibility of war is low because of the enemy’s weakness, but the armed forces are lying in wait,” said Mohammad Akbarzadeh, deputy political chief of the IRGC’s navy, threatening to turn the area from Chabahar to Mahshahr—spanning the full length of Iran’s southern coastline—into a “graveyard for aggressors,” should hostilities resume. IRGC Navy says 25 vessels transited Strait of Hormuz in past 24 hours: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy reported Tuesday that 25 ships—including oil tankers, container ships, and other commercial vessels—had passed through the Strait of Hormuz under IRGC coordination and security clearance in the past 24 hours, according to Fars News, which is linked to the organization. This brings the total number of vessels allowed through the strait over 90, according to the group’s figures. Iran releases 10 Indian sailors: Iran has freed 10 Indian sailors who had been detained since July 2025 after their vessel, the MV Harbour Phoenix, was intercepted near Jask Port, India’s Directorate General of Shipping announced Wednesday, attributing the release to “sustained diplomatic engagement” between the two countries. The directorate said arrangements were being made for the crew’s return to India, but did not provide further details on the reason for the arrests or the detention of the Palau-flagged oil products tanker. Iran announces reopening of Tabriz International Airport: Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization announced that Tabriz International Airport, damaged during the war with the U.S. and Israel, will reopen Wednesday after being rebuilt by Iranian specialists, according to state broadcaster IRIB. The reopening brings the number of Iranian airports that have resumed operations following war-related disruptions to 20. Lebanon Israeli strikes kill at least 31 across southern Lebanon on Tuesday: Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon killed at least 31 people on Tuesday, including four children and three women, and wounded 40 others, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said, with 15 of the dead reported in Burj al-Shamali, near the southern city of Tyre. Other major strikes were reported in Maarakeh, where five were killed, and Haboush, where four were killed. Israel carried out more than 180 strikes across southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley on Tuesday, according to local media, despite the ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States. Two more first responders were killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon, reporter Courtney Bonneau confirmed on Wednesday, bringing the total number of paramedics killed since March 2 to over 120. Israeli strikes and displacement orders continue on Eid Al-Adha: An Israeli airstrike on Deir Aames killed two people on Wednesday, according to Lebanon’s National News Agency. Later, further attacks were reported with two major waves targeting Dibbin and Shebaa. A Lebanese soldier’s body was recovered on Wednesday after being killed in an Israeli strike close to the Qaraoun Lake Dam in Lebanon’s western Bekaa region on Tuesday, while several paramedics were also killed as they attempted to evacuate him from the area. The Lebanese army said in a statement that a military unit managed to recover the soldier’s body under heavy Israeli drone surveillance, adding that rescue teams had initially been unable to reach him because of ongoing security threats and Israeli strikes targeting the area. The Israeli army issued a forced displacement order on Wednesday for residents of the southern Lebanese city of Tyre and surrounding camps and neighborhoods. The order covered at least three Palestinian refugee camps in the Tyre area: Rashidiya camp, Burj Al-Shamali camp, and Al-Bas camp. The military further warned that “any movement south of the Zahrani River may put your lives at risk.” The Israeli military also issued a displacement order earlier today to residents of the southern Lebanese towns of Kfar Houneh, Aaramta, Mleikh, Jarjouh, and Houmine al-Fawqa. Hezbollah said Wednesday that its fighters “clashed with the enemy forces at point-blank range” in Zawtar al-Sharqiyah, a town at the edge of Israel’s self-declared yellow line in southern Lebanon, a day after the Israeli military announced it was expanding its ground incursions in the south. The town sits north of the Litani River, the boundary that Israeli forces are required to withdraw behind under the terms of the ceasefire. Israel orders forced displacement of 27 southern Lebanese towns and villages late Tuesday: The Israeli army issued forced displacement orders for 27 towns and villages across southern Lebanon just before 10 p.m. local time Tuesday, forcing families to rouse children and evacuate elderly and disabled relatives with only what they could immediately carry, journalist Courtney Bonneau reported. Netanyahu says Israel “deepening operation” in Lebanon”: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of a Security Cabinet meeting Tuesday that, “We are deepening our operation in Lebanon. The IDF is operating with large forces on the ground and seizing dominant terrain. We are fortifying the security zone to protect the communities of the north.” He added that the Security Cabinet is “leading a massive national effort to advance creative and innovative solutions against explosive drones,” in reference to the successful use of FPV drones by Hezbollah to target the Israeli military in Lebanon. Hezbollah claims sustained ground engagement with Israeli forces across southern Lebanon: Hezbollah described its day-long ground engagement with Israeli forces advancing on Zawtar al-Sharqiyah in the Nabatieh district, with its media outlet claiming the destruction of a Merkava tank and a Humvee with FPV drones, strikes on a Namera armored personnel carrier and a communications vehicle in Bint Jbeil, and drone strikes on Israeli tanks in Odaisseh. It also said that it shot down two Israeli drones over Srifa and Deir Kifa, and that it itself conducted multiple drone and rocket strikes on Biranit barracks inside Israel, where one strike, it claimed, hit an Iron Dome launcher platform. Palestine Israeli strikes kill 14 on eve of Eid Al-Adha: Israeli strikes killed at least 14 Palestinians on the eve of the Islamic holiday of Eid Al-Adha. A drone strike on a roundabout west of Khan Younis killed two Palestinian men in their vehicle. A 15-year-old girl also died of wounds sustained during an Israeli attack on Monday on Mawasi, Khan Younis. Israeli assassination strike on Al-Rimal neighborhood kills six: An Israeli strike on a residential tower in Gaza City killed six Palestinians and wounded at least 20 others, according to Al Jazeera Arabic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that the strike killed Mohammed Odeh, whom he described as the current commander of Hamas’s military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades following the recent assassination of his predecessor, Izz al-Din al-Haddad in an Israeli strike that killed six others, including three children, and wounded 50. Hamas confirmed Odeh’s death in a statement on Wednesday, saying that he was killed alongside his wife and two of his children in a “treacherous zionist bombing,” and adding that Israel’s “escalation of its crimes in assassination, siege, and starvation…will not succeed in achieving their goals that they have failed at, nor in breaking the will of our people and their resistance.” Israel Defense Minister Israel Katz also announced Odeh’s assassination on social media and added that “the voluntary emigration plan from Gaza will be implemented at the proper time and in the proper manner.” Israeli forces kill Palestinian man in Jenin raid: Israeli forces shot and killed a 45-year-old Palestinian man during a military raid in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said its crews recovered his body from inside the camp before transferring it to Jenin Government Hospital. Trump’s “Board of Peace” World Bank fund has received no donor money four months after launch: The World Bank fund established for Trump’s “Board of Peace” has received zero dollars from donors four months after its creation, the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing four people familiar with the matter. Donations have instead been routed through a JPMorgan account without transparency, according to the report. Morocco’s approximately $20 million has funded the office of High Representative Nickolay Mladenov and salaries for a Palestinian technocratic committee, while $100 million pledged by the UAE to train a Gaza police force remains frozen, with the program yet to begin. Member states had pledged $7 billion for the board’s Gaza relief package. President Donald Trump promised an additional $10 billion in U.S. funding, but two people familiar with postwar planning told the FT that not one U.S. dollar has been deployed for Gaza’s reconstruction, and no contracts for that reconstruction have been awarded. Israeli Knesset advances bill to seize control of antiquities sites across occupied territories: The Israeli Knesset is moving toward a final vote on legislation that would establish a “Judea, Samaria and Gaza Heritage Authority,” empowering the government to purchase or seize land across the occupied West Bank and Gaza—including Palestinian-run Areas A and B—under the guise of protecting historic sites. The Heritage Ministry, which would be given control over these lands, is presently controlled by Amichai Eliyahu, a member of extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who supports the bill, has stated that it aims to “strengthen our hold on the Land of Israel.” The bill was condemned by the Palestinian Authority which governs parts of the occupied West Bank. Gaza Health Ministry opens emergency center: Dr. Muneer Al-Boursh, head of Gaza’s Health Ministry, announced the opening of a new emergency and ambulance center in Halawa Camp in northern Jabalia, where more than 20,000 displaced Palestinians are living in deteriorating tents along the Israeli military boundary dividing Gaza. “Halawa Camp stands as a witness to one of the harshest humanitarian tragedies of our time,” al-Boursh said. “More than 20,000 people are living in worn-out fabric tents on land that was once covered with orange and lemon groves—an area once filled with greenery and life. Today, nothing green remains, except painful memories.” Al-Boursh also noted the nearby presence of an Israeli military position to the east, from which Palestinians have been “relentlessly” fired upon, and which resulted in casualties that ambulances were unable to reach. The center was established in tribute to paramedic Ibrahim Abu Saqr, who was killed while helping to set it up. As of February 5*,* and following intensive Israeli attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers in Gaza,none of the Strip’s 37 hospitals were fully operational, and only 19 were partially functioning, according to OCHA. U.S. News By Julian Andreone, with Ryan Grim. Have a tip on Capitol Hill? Email Andreone at [email protected]. Ken Paxton defeats Senator John Cornyn in Texas GOP Senate runoff: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated four-term incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in Tuesday’s Republican Senate runoff. Paxton overcame a narrow deficit from the March primary by relying on grassroots conservative support and surviving millions of dollars in attack ads from Cornyn highlighting his record of personal and political scandals, but the single factor that most likely facilitated his win was an endorsement he received from President Trump last week. Head-to-head polling shows Democratic nominee James Talarico holding a slight lead over Paxton in the November general election. Freshman Rep. Christian Menefee defeated 11-term incumbent Rep. Al Green on Tuesday in the Democratic primary runoff for Texas’ 18th Congressional District, an incumbent-on-incumbent race created by Republican redistricting that pushed Green out of his redrawn 9th District. Menefee, 38, who was sworn in earlier this year after winning a special election following the death ofRep. Sylvester Turner, benefited from more than $5 million in outside spending from Protect Progress, a super PAC aligned with cryptocurrency industry leaders. Menefee was also congratulated by AIPAC on his victory; Green condemned Israel’s genocide in Gaza in a 2025 statement. Democrat Johnny Garcia won Tuesday’s primary runoff in Texas’ newly redrawn 35th Congressional District, which stretches from Austin to San Antonio, defeating Maureen Galindo, who was disavowed by national Democratic leaders after her antisemitic social media posts. Galindo received over a million dollars from an opaque group linked to the GOP. Garcia will face Air Force veteran Carlos De La Cruz, who won the Republican primary runoff Tuesday with Trump’s endorsement, in a district Trump carried by 10.5 points in 2024. Texas State Sen. Mayes Middleton defeatedRep. Chip Roy on Tuesday in the Republican primary runoff for Texas attorney general. Roy has notably broken with President Donald Trump on occasion. Middleton, a wealthy Galveston oil businessman who loaned his campaign more than $16 million, positioned himself as the rightful heir to outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton’s conservative legacy. Trump made no endorsement in the race. Redistricting news: The Republican-led South Carolina Senate voted Tuesday against advancing a redrawn congressional map that would have eliminated the state’s sole majority-Black district, represented by DemocraticRep. James Clyburn, in a surprise defeat for President Donald Trump, who had urged lawmakers to pass it. Several Republican state senators reversed course, citing timing concerns after early voting had already begun for the June 9 primary, with state Sen. Richard Cash saying neither his “conscience nor common sense” would allow him to halt an election already underway. White House advisers said they were caught off guard by the failed vote, with one calling it a “betrayal,” and noted they received no advance warning from Republican Gov. Henry McMaster. A Florida circuit judge on Tuesday denied a request to temporarily block a new Republican-friendly congressional map signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this month. Judge Joshua Hawkes, a DeSantis appointee, ruled that challengers had not sufficiently proven partisan intent and cited the proximity of the primary—less than three months away—as grounds against introducing map changes, while leaving open the possibility of halting the map after a full ruling on the merits. The new map could affect as many as four Democratic incumbents in a delegation where Republicans already hold a 20-8 advantage. A three-judge federal panel blocked Alabama Republicans’ redrawn congressional map Tuesday, ruling it intentionally discriminates against Black voters in violation of the Constitution and that the Supreme Court’s recent decision narrowing the Voting Rights Act does not alter that finding. The panel—which notably included two Trump appointees alongside a Clinton appointee—ordered the state to continue using a court-drawn map that created a second majority-Black district, paving the way for Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures’ election. Federal appeals court temporarily blocks deportation of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil: The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on Tuesday, blocking the Trump administration from re-detaining and deporting former Columbia University graduate student and activist Mahmoud Khalil while he seeks a Supreme Court review of his case, ABC News reported. Khalil, a green card holder married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March 2025 after Secretary of State Marco Rubio alleged his Pro-Palestinian views “threatened U.S. foreign policy interests,” while acknowledging that his activity was “otherwise lawful.” AP: ICE detainees dying by suicide at an unprecedented rate: An investigation by the Associated Press has found that at least 10 ICE detainees have died by suicide since President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, a pace that far exceeds the growth in the detainee population. “Since October, seven deaths have been classified as suicides, a number that is already the most for any fiscal year in the agency’s history. ICE has usually recorded one or no such deaths annually,” AP wrote. Public health officials and jails experts told the AP that the unprecedented number of suicide deaths is an indication that authorities are failing to properly oversee the detention of tens of thousands of immigrants swept up in Trump’s immigration crackdown. “Staff in the facilities ignored signs of distress, delayed mental health treatment, and failed to monitor detainees who were already deemed at risk. They also permitted detainees to have access to materials that could be used for self-harm,” AP reported. Chemical tank implosion at Washington state paper facility kills at least one, injures multiple workers: A tank containing white liquor—a sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide solution used in paper pulp production—imploded Tuesday morning at a Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility in the Portland, Oregon suburb of Longview, Washington, killing at least one person and sending at least nine workers and one firefighter to hospitals with chemical burns and other injuries, authorities said. CDC scrambles to recruit airport screeners as Ebola outbreak spreads beyond remote areas into major regional cities: The CDC issued an urgent internal request Tuesday recruiting staff to screen passengers arriving from Central Africa for Ebola symptoms, as the International Rescue Committee warned the outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda is spreading faster than responders can contain it and risks becoming the deadliest on record, according to an internal email obtained by ABC News. The current strain of Ebola, Bundibugyo, has no approved vaccines or treatments, carries a case fatality rate of 30 to 50 percent, and is difficult to detect with standard Ebola tests.The Department of Homeland Security announced Tuesday that JFK International Airport would join Dulles, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta, and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental as designated entry points for travelers from affected countries, where CDC staff will conduct temperature checks and symptom observation. Trump administration proposes requiring federal workers to sign nondisclosure agreements: The Office of Personnel Management posted a draft rule Tuesday proposing that federal employees be required to sign nondisclosure agreements, citing the need to combat unauthorized disclosures to the media and protect confidential government information, with violations potentially resulting in civil and criminal penalties. The proposal, which sets off a 30-day public comment period after official publication Wednesday, would give individual agencies discretion over whether to implement the NDAs for new hires and current employees. Whistleblower attorney Mark Zaid said the NDA would not create new legal obligations or restrict lawful whistleblowing, but argued it appeared designed to “induce fear and intimidate the workforce.” The American Federation of Government Employees said it would oppose the rule, warning that OPM would pressure agencies to make it mandatory and fire employees who refuse to sign. Hasan Piker and Medea Benjamin deny receiving subpoenas, contradicting Fox News report: Political streamer Hasan Piker and Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin both told Drop Site News’ Ryan Grim that they have not been subpoenaed, contradicting a Fox News report claiming federal officials had served them subpoenas in connection with their recent trips to Cuba. Fox News had reported that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control issued administrative subpoenas as part of a sanctions-related investigation into activists involved in humanitarian aid convoys to Cuba. U.S. trade representative says tariffs on Mexico and Canada will remain: U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Tuesday that the Trump administration intends to maintain tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada even as formal renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement gets underway, telling a Council on Foreign Relations event that tariffs will remain in place “as long as we have a giant trade deficit.” U.S. and Mexican negotiators are meeting this week in Mexico City to launch the first formal negotiating rounds, covering revised rules of origin and economic security. Greer reserved sharper language for Canada, saying the administration’s issues with Ottawa go well beyond its “significant” trade issues and indicated it may be difficult for the two countries to resolve their differences in the near future. Federal firearm charge dropped against Las Vegas man accused of operating unlicensed biological storage facility: A federal firearms charge against Ori Solomon, 55, the Israeli-American property manager of a Las Vegas home found to contain what the FBI described as a biological storage facility, was dismissed earlier this month after prosecutors cited a review of evidence and information provided by the defense, according to court documents. Solomon still faces a felony state charge for improper disposal of hazardous waste and is due in court on June 4. The January raid on the home uncovered refrigerators containing vials of unknown liquids, human biological samples, compounds associated with influenza vaccines, and COVID and pregnancy test components. An LLC tied to Ori Solomon’s home address matches one involved in a case in California involving a Chinese citizen, who faces federal charges for manufacturing and selling misbranded biological devices. California DOJ report finds overcrowding, medical neglect, and excessive force at state ICE detention facilities: A California Department of Justice report published May 15 found that overcrowding driven by the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign has led to inadequate medical care, food, and hygiene, as well as excessive use of force at the state’s ICE detention facilities, with Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) calling conditions “cruel, inhumane and unacceptable.” Inspectors found particularly severe conditions at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and Desert View Annex—both run by GEO Group, whose former executive David Venturella was recently appointed acting ICE director—where only 18 percent of detainees reported being able to see a doctor, and four people have died during the second Trump administration. At Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, run by CoreCivic, inspectors found the facility holding 1,433 detainees against a contractual maximum of 1,142, with overflow detainees sleeping on floor mats. A separate CoreCivic facility, California City Detention Facility, was found to have opened prematurely without sufficient staff. Other International News U.S. military kills one person in strike on vessel in Eastern Pacific: U.S. Southern Command announced Tuesday that it carried out another lethal strike on a vessel in the Eastern Pacific, killing one person and leaving two survivors as part of Operation Southern Spear, in which it has targeted “narco-terrorist organizations.” SOUTHCOM claimed, without evidence, that the vessel was “was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.” SOUTHCOM has killed more than 190 people in vessel strikes in the Pacific and Caribbean since they began eight months ago. Bolivia’s lower house repeals law limiting presidential emergency powers: Bolivia’s Chamber of Deputies voted Tuesday to repeal Law 1341, stripping away key restrictions on the president’s ability to declare a state of exception and deploy the military against internal unrest. The 2020 law had capped the president’s emergency powers at 60 days, required justification for suspending civil rights, and restricted military force against demonstrations. Human rights groups warned that the repeal gives President Rodrigo Paz. sweeping authority to impose a military crackdown on the country’s protest movement by decree. Protests and roadblocks, which have been ongoing for four weeks, continued across Bolivia on Tuesday, amid deaths that the government has denied. Sudanese army recaptures four areas in Blue Nile region: The Sudanese army’s Fourth Infantry Division announced Tuesday it had retaken four areas in the Blue Nile region—Abdaqla, Adi, Washimbu, Um Shanqar, and Kinshinkaru—within Qaysan locality, and continued pursuing Rapid Support Forces fighters to Sudan’s Ethiopian border. The advance comes two days after the army retook the Barka area and brings it closer to the town of Karamak, which fell in March to an alliance of RSF forces and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North. Fighting in the Blue Nile area has displaced around 50,000 people from Karamak, Bau, and Qaysan in recent months. Human Rights Watch report finds UAE helped deploy Colombian mercenaries to fight alongside Sudan’s RSF: A Human Rights Watch investigation released on Monday found that the UAE facilitated the deployment of hundreds of Colombian private military contractors to fight alongside Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces during the siege and fall of El Fasher. Witnesses in the city described white foreign fighters standing beside RSF troops during executions of civilians, including people with disabilities. An Abu Dhabi-linked security company, GSSG, reportedly recruited former Colombian soldiers who transited through UAE military facilities before being flown through Libya, Chad, and Somalia into Darfur. HRW said the evidence suggests UAE military stockpiles, aircraft networks, and proxy companies were used to support the RSF—which the report extensively documents committing war crimes, sexual violence, ethnic cleansing, and child soldier recruitment—and called for sanctions, arms embargoes, and investigations into Emirati officials and companies involved. Russia accuses U.S. of violating UN treaty after denying visa to deputy foreign minister: Russia accused the United States on Tuesday of breaching its obligations under the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement after Washington denied a visa to Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alimov, who had been set to represent Russia at a Security Council meeting in New York. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia also framed the denial as a slight against China, which chairs the Security Council presidency in May. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also canceled his participation in the same meeting due to U.S. visa issues. Brazilian presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro meets with Trump at White House: Brazilian Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro shared a photo Tuesday showing him alongside President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, as his presidential campaign works to recover from a scandal over allegations he sought funds from a fraud-convicted banker to finance a film about his father, former President Jair Bolsonaro. The younger Bolsonaro, who has emerged as the standard-bearer of Brazil’s political right and the leading challenger to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva ahead of October’s election, traveled to Washington without a guaranteed appointment. Recent polls show the scandal has allowed Lula to retake the lead after the two had previously been in a near-tie. Lula’s office announced the president was beginning treatment for early-stage skin cancer and would undergo 15 radiotherapy sessions. Chinese dissident detained in South Korea after fleeing China by boat: Dong Guangping, 68, a Chinese dissident and former police officer who has been imprisoned multiple times for criticizing the Chinese Communist Party, was detained by South Korean coast guard authorities late Monday after crossing the Yellow Sea on an inflatable boat. Rights group Human Rights in China said Dong lost consciousness by the time he reached South Korean waters and urged Seoul not to return him to China, where he faces “a grave risk of persecution and torture.” Dong’s escape attempts span more than a decade—he was previously intercepted attempting to swim to islands off the coast of Taiwan, deported from Vietnam, and deported from Thailand despite holding UN refugee status. His family has since resettled in Canada. His detention comes at a sensitive moment for South Korea, which is seeking improved relations with China, its largest trading partner. Armenia signs strategic partnership and transit corridor agreement with U.S.: Armenia signed a strategic partnership agreement with the United States on Tuesday, alongside a framework on critical minerals and a transit corridor deal during a visit by Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Yerevan. The 43-kilometer corridor, dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, would traverse southern Armenia and connect Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan and onward to Turkey. The agreements deepen Armenia’s westward pivot under Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is opposed by pro-Russia parties in the country’s June election. North Korea tests AI-guided cruise missiles and ballistic weapons: North Korea tested a combination of tactical ballistic missiles, long-range artillery rockets, and AI-guided precision cruise missiles, state news agency KCNA reported Wednesday. Leader Kim Jong Un said the tests confirmed the combat readiness of cruise missiles equipped with AI-guided control and deployed near its border, which are capable of striking targets within 100 kilometers—well within range of Seoul. Britain and Poland sign new defense and security treaty: The UK and Poland signed a new defense treaty Wednesday, amid Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s push to rebuild security ties with Europe in response to U.S. pressure for Europe to shoulder more of its own defense. The agreement, signed by Starmer and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, will deepen cooperation on air and missile defense, weapons production, border security, organized crime, cybersecurity, and counter-espionage. Both governments framed the pact around the threat from Russia, with Tusk saying the two countries view Moscow as a “strategic threat.” The deal follows similar UK agreements with France and Germany amid an effort to rebuild ties damaged by Brexit. More from Drop Site Drop Site’s Jeremy Scahill speaks with Dr. Foad Izadi, professor of American studies and international relations at University of Tehran on Iran’s negotiating position. Drop Site’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Scahill also speak with Eyad Amawi of the Gaza Relief Committee in Deir al-Balah about the escalating Israeli assault on Gaza and the growing hunger crisis.Watch the livestream here: If you want to continue getting this newsletter, you don’t have to do anything. But if this is too much—we do try to be mindful of your inbox—you can unsubscribe from this newsletter while continuing to get the rest of our reporting. Just go into your account here at this link, scroll down, and toggle the button next to “Drop Site Daily“ to the off setting. It looks like this: Subscribe now Leave a comment From Drop Site News via This RSS Feed.
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U.S. forces strike vessels near Bandar Abbas, Iran hits U.S. aircraft. Iran sends top delegation to Doha. Iranian media: $24B in frozen assets must be released as part of deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Iran deal could take “a few days.” Iran says it will not charge tolls in Hormuz. President Donald Trump demands countries in Iran negotiations sign Abraham Accords. At least 11 killed in Israeli strike on Lebanon on Tuesday. Israel orders displacement of entire city of Tyre and at least 10 other southern villages. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signals major escalation in Lebanon. Eight Palestinians killed early Tuesday. French flotilla activist offers testimony of sexual assault and beatings by Israeli soldiers while detained. Canada condemns treatment of flotilla participants as “appalling.” Texas runoffs on Tuesday pit Trump-backed Ken Paxton against Sen. John Cornyn. ICE pepper-sprays Sen. Andy Kim and protesters outside Newark detention center. Maine Sen. Susan Collins photographed alongside antisemitic far-right militia. Former Trump White House Latin American deputy exercising control over Venezuela’s president and economy, report says. Pope Leo XIV releases 42,000-word encyclical covering humanity’s struggle with technology. Bolivian president offers to halve his salary and cabinet pay amid protests. Russia warns of systematic strikes on Kyiv defense facilities, urges foreign citizens to leave. RSF drone strikes on markets in North Darfur kill at least 21 civilians over two days. Attacks on Ebola treatment facilities in eastern Congo force dozens of patients to flee. Suicide car bomb kills at least 24 in Pakistan’s Balochistan. Xi hails “unbreakable” China-Pakistan friendship. China ships first 15,000 tons of rice to Cuba. Turkish police ordered to remove opposition party leadership from headquarters. Bangladesh intensifies border patrols amid concerns India is illegally forcing people across the frontier. At least 400 Iraqi prisoners died in 2025, according to human rights group. FROM DROP SITE: Israel Has Physically Divided Gaza With Over 25 Kilometers of Earthen Barriers “The Occupation’s Conditions”: Trump’s Board of Peace Demands that Hamas Surrender to Netanyahu’s Gaza Agenda Israel Is on a Killing Spree of Paramedics and Rescue Workers in Lebanon Iranian Official Outlines Latest Proposal to End the U.S. War as Trump Weighs New Strikes VIDEO: Israel PANICS And Withdraws From Two Bases In Lebanon Drop Site is now live on WhatsApp. Get our latest reporting, podcasts, and breaking news, delivered directly. Join the channel here. This is Drop Site Daily, our free daily news recap. We send it Monday through Friday. Today’s edition is being sent to more than 750,000 subscribers. Help us grow that number by forwarding and recommending this newsletter. Subscribe now 🛒 Get your “Drop [Site] News/Not Bombs” Hoodie here: Get Your Hoodie Emergency workers use a stretcher to remove oxygen bottles from under the debris of a civil defense center destroyed in an Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh on May 24, 2026. Photo by Abbas Fakih / AFP via Getty Images Subscribe now Iran and Ceasefire U.S. forces strike vessels near Bandar Abbas, Iran hits U.S. aircraft: U.S. CENTCOM spokesperson Captain Tim Hawkins confirmed that American forces hadstruck vessels near the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Monday in “self-defense strikes.” Hawkins said in a statement that the strikes targeted missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to place mines, saying the strikes were conducted “to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces.” In Iran, the news website Tabnak reported that four had been killed in American strikes, according to the AP. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it shot down a MQ-9 Reaper drone that entered Iranian airspace. The IRGC forces “also fired upon an RQ-4 drone and an intruding F-35 fighter jet,” a statement said, without specifying when the incidents took place. Negotiation updates: Iran sends top delegation to Doha: Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, and Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati traveled to Doha on Monday evening for talks on a potential deal to end the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. Iranian media: $24B in frozen assets must be released as part of deal: A source close to Iran’s negotiating team told the Tasnim news agency that $24 billion of frozen Iranian assets must be released in any potential deal with the United States. The source said Tehran’s position is that half of the amount—$12 billion—must be released when a memorandum of understanding is announced and the remaining released within 60 days. Iranian official outlines Tehran’s terms to end the war: A senior Iranian official told Drop Site on Friday that Tehran had put forward a set of terms as a framework for a deal, including the provisional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz—contingent on an end to the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, the release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets, and a plan to compensate Iran for damages incurred in the war. The official also stated that the Iranian framework would require an agreement to permanently end the war first, followed by immediate negotiations to reach a deal over the nuclear program. Read the full report by Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain here. Rubio says Iran deal could take “a few days”: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that a potential deal to end the U.S.-Israel war on Iran could “take a few days.” During a visit to India, Rubio told reporters, “There were some talks going on in Qatar today, so we’ll see if we can make progress. I think it’s a lot of talking back and forth going on about specific language in the initial document, so it’ll take a few days.” He reiterated the American position that the Strait of Hormuz must remain open, calling its closure “unlawful, illegal, and unsustainable for the world,” and adding that it “will be open one way or the other.” Khamenei says U.S. Gulf allies cannot “shield” American bases: Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei marked Eid al-Adha with a written statement warning that regional countries “will no longer serve as shields for American bases.” He added that the conflict would perhaps push Gulf states away from their American allies. “Regional countries have now concluded that the military presence of the U.S. has not only failed to ensure their lasting security, but relying on America for security has been an unrealistic and ineffective notion,” Khamenei said in the statement carried on Iranian state television. Iran says it will not charge tolls in Hormuz: Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on Monday that the state will not impose tolls on ships using the Strait of Hormuz, but that any charges will be for maritime services and “environmental protection” measures in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. In the same press conference, he confirmed earlier reporting that Iranian negotiators had told their U.S. counterparts that “ending hostile action on all fronts, including Lebanon” was a necessary condition for an agreement. He said negotiations with the U.S. had been fruitful: “Most issues on the table have been agreed upon.” Trump demands countries in Iran negotiations sign Abraham Accords: President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Monday demanding that all countries involved in Iran negotiations simultaneously sign the Abraham Accords as a prerequisite for any deal, naming Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain. (The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain are already members, which he noted; Egypt and Jordan signed peace deals with Israel decades ago.) Trump warned that those who refuse “should not be part of this Deal, in that it shows bad intention.” He said it would be “special” if Iran signed onto the Abraham Accords. “It may be possible,” he conceded, “that one or two have a reason for not doing so, and that will be accepted, but most should be ready, willing, and able to make this Settlement with Iran a far more historic event than it would, otherwise, be.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei dismissed the offer, saying that “normalization” in the form of these accords “cannot grant legitimacy to an illegitimate entity, especially one that has committed genocide and violated international law.” Trump signals flexibility on Iran’s enriched uranium: President Donald Trump appeared on Monday to soften his previous demand that Iran surrender its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, outlining two options he claimed were acceptable to the United States in a Truth Social post: Iran either hands over its nuclear material to the United States to be destroyed, or—his stated preference—it is destroyed inside Iran in coordination with the Islamic Republic under the witness of the Atomic Energy Commission or equivalent body. The post marks a shift from Trump’s earlier position that Iran could not “keep” its enriched uranium unconditionally, and tracks with what Drop Site News first reported last week—that a senior Iranian official said Iran could offer dilution of uranium enriched above 20% inside Iran with the participation of mediators—though a senior Iranian diplomat confirmed to ISNA on Monday that the current memorandum of understanding draft contains no nuclear commitments whatsoever, with Iran’s position being that nuclear issues come only after the first-phase MOU is signed and confidence-building measures are implemented. Qatar denies offering $12 billion to Iran to secure deal: Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dr. Majed Al Ansari rejected on Monday earlier reports that Doha offered $12 billion to Iran to secure a U.S.-Iran agreement, calling the claims “utterly baseless” and accusing unnamed parties of circulating them to “sabotage the deal and undermine ongoing diplomatic efforts,” after Amwaj Media and Iran International reported that approximately $12 billion in Iranian frozen assets held in Qatar, Iraq, and Turkey were central to the negotiations. The distinction Qatar appears to be drawing is between facilitating access to Iranian funds already frozen in Qatari banks and actively offering money to Iran. Iran and Oman hold talks on Hormuz: Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister for International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi said Tehran and Muscat held talks on joint governance and security coordination over passage through the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, according to Fars News, with discussions focused on the “security and national sovereignty” of the strait’s coastal states Separately, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy announced that 33 vessels, including oil tankers, container ships, and other commercial ships, passed through the strait over the course of 24 hours on Sunday. The vessels reportedly obtained permission and received security-related coordination from the IRGC before doing so. Iran’s president orders internet access restored to pre-war levels: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has ordered the restoration of internet access to pre-January 2026 levels, according to a source in Iran’s Ministry of Communications cited by Fars News. This follows months of heavy restrictions imposed during the U.S. and Israeli campaign against the country. Iran executes man on espionage charges: Iran executed another man on charges of alleged espionage and intelligence cooperation with Israel, the Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday. Lebanon Casualty count: At least 3,213 people have been killed, and 9,737 wounded in Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Israeli attacks on Tuesday: At least 11 killed in Israeli strike; displacement order for Nabatieh: An Israeli airstrike on the town of Mashghara early Tuesday in the western Bekaa Valley killed at least 11 people, including two girls and a woman, and wounded 15 others, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. The ministry said the toll remains preliminary as rescue teams continue clearing rubble at the strike site. The Israeli military also issued Tuesday a forced displacement order for all residents of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, demanding they move north of the Zahrani River immediately ahead of planned strikes and ground operations, Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr reported. Attacks Sunday and Monday: Israeli strikes kill nine across southern Lebanon on Monday: Israeli drone strikes killed four people and wounded others across southern Lebanon on Monday, according to local media reports, including the son of a former president of the Wazzani municipal council, and two brothers killed in a strike on the Nabatieh-Jarmaq road. A fourth person was killed and another wounded in a separate strike on Shehabieh. Evening strikes on Mashghara in the western Bekaa killed at least 5 and wounded 11 others, including children, according to Press TV. Additional Israeli strikes on Monday also hit the Rashidieh Palestinian refugee camp near Tyre, targeting a water well supplying the northern section of the camp and a solar power system, according to L’Orient Today. Israel orders displacement of entire city of Tyre and at least 10 other southern villages: Israel issued forced displacement orders Monday for the entire city of Tyre and at least 10 villages across the Nabatieh and Jezzine districts, ordering residents to move at least 1,000 meters away ahead of expected strikes. Israeli forces escalate strikes across central and southern Lebanon, with more than 40 attacks reported Sunday: Israeli forces dramatically escalated airstrikes across central and southern Lebanon on Sunday, with more than 40 strikes reported since morning, Press TV correspondent Hadi Hoteit reported from the ground. Hoteit reported fresh strikes on Ansar, Al-Kharayb, and Kawthariyat Arroz—villages connecting central Nabatieh to the coast that journalists had been using as access routes—as the Israeli army issued mass warnings of bombings across the entire Nabatieh area toward the coast. Paramedic killed in Arabsalim: A double-tap strike targeted first responders rushing to aid the wounded in Arabsalim on Sunday, killing one, according to Cradle Media. Attacks on Arabsalim also wounded 10 others, including two paramedics from the Islamic Health Authority and four medics from the Al-Risala Scout Association, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry. In total, more than 120 health care workers have been killed and over 260 wounded in Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon since March 2. Journalist Katrine Dige Houmøller reported for Drop Site on this Israeli campaign of targeting paramedics and rescue workers in Lebanon. Read the full report here. Hezbollah drone kills Israeli soldier in southern Lebanon: A Hezbollah explosive drone struck an Israeli military armored personnel carrier near the Christian village of Debl in southern Lebanon on Sunday, killing a sergeant in the 601st Combat Engineering Battalion of the Iron Tracks Brigade and seriously wounding another soldier, according to Ynet and Israeli military reporting. A senior Hezbollah official, Wafiq Safa, later recounted the details of the operation to The Grayzone, saying that the group deliberately targeted the Israeli brigade commander after obtaining intelligence on his location, and that its low-cost FPV drones have exposed Israel’s inability to counter a simple weapon. The officer killed in Debl is the seventh Israeli soldier killed by an explosive drone in Lebanon since a ceasefire was agreed to on April 16. Netanyahu signals major escalation in Lebanon: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz held talks Monday and are leaning toward significantly expanding military attacks on southern Lebanon, according to Israel’s Channel 14. The Israeli military has reportedly prepared a broad strike plan targeting buildings and infrastructure it claims Hezbollah uses. Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir proposed striking buildings in Beirut. In a video on Telegram, Netanyahu told the Israeli public that “We are at war with Hezbollah, and we will intensify our strikes,” and relayed that he had instructed the Israeli military to “crush” the group, and not to “take its foot off the gas.” “On the contrary, I said to step on the gas even more,” he said. Separately on Monday, a report from Axios indicated that the Trump administration supports an escalation in the country, with a source quoted in the article claiming that Hezbollah “ignored repeated requests to stop firing.” According to that source, the administration blames Hezbollah entirely for the country’s conflict, despite continued Israeli strikes in Lebanon, and says that Israel “will never be required to passively absorb attacks” as a result of a ceasefire agreement. Hezbollah chief vows “third liberation” of Lebanon: Hezbollah Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem delivered a speech on Resistance and Liberation Day on Sunday, pledging the group’s continued resistance to Israel’s invasion and rejecting calls for disarmament, which he called “an Israeli project that must be reversed.” Hezbollah’s arms, Qassem said, “will remain in our hands until the Lebanese state is capable of carrying out its duties.” “The Lebanese authority tells us: help us strip you of your weapons so that Israel can later enter, kill you, and displace your people,” Qassem remarked about the Lebanese government, which he also accused of making “continuous concessions” to Israel and the United States. Qassem He also called for the release of 41 Shia scholars imprisoned by the Bahraini government over alleged ties to Iran. Palestine Casualty count: Over the last 24 hours, six Palestinians were killed—two in new attacks and four recovered from under the rubble following earlier attacks—and 34 were injured across Gaza. At least 20 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks since Friday. The total recorded death toll since October 7, 2023 has risen to 72,803 killed, with 172,855 injured. Since October 11, the first full day of the so-called ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 906 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 2,747, while 781 bodies have been recovered from under the rubble, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Eight Palestinians killed early Tuesday: At least eight Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday morning, according to WAFA. In central Gaza, five people were killed in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp after an Israeli-backed militia attempted to enter the camp and was confronted by residents, after which Israel struck the area, according to local reports. The incident was similar to another in April when at least 10 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded when Israel conducted airstrikes on the same camp following an attack by an Israeli-backed Palestinian militia. Read Drop Site’s coverage of that attack here. In southern Gaza, two more Palestinians were killed when an Israeli drone strike targeted a vehicle near the Abu Alaa roundabout west of Khan Younis. A 15-year-old girl also died from wounds sustained in an Israeli strike on the Al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis on Monday. Two killed in Gaza on Monday: An Israeli strike on a camp in Khan Younis killed two Palestinians on Monday, including a 6-year-old girl and a woman. Seventeen more were wounded in this attack, according to Palestine Online, including a one-month-old infant, whose foot was reportedly severed. Additional strikes and artillery shelling were described in the evening in Al-Nuseirat and east of Gaza City. Five Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Sunday: Five Palestinians were killed Sunday in Israeli attacks across Gaza, including a family of three in an Israeli bombardment of a residential apartment in Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, according to Al-Jazeera. One Palestinian was also killed by Israeli gunfire in northern Gaza, and the body of an eight-year-old boy was recovered inside a tent in the Al-Tawam area in northwestern Gaza after he went missing Saturday following Israeli shelling. Israel has built 25 kilometers of earthen barriers inside Gaza since “ceasefire”: Forensic Architecture, drawing on satellite imagery and other data, has found that Israel has constructed more than 25 kilometers of earthen berms physically dividing Gaza since the October 2025 ceasefire agreement—with much of the barrier running west of the “yellow line” and deeper into Palestinian territory. Israel’s military also operates 38 military bases east of the line, which it has fortified by clearing rubble, paving roads, and building higher berms in the areas, which it uses as firing positions against Palestinians in the western part of the strip. Israel, which was supposed to control 53% of Gaza under the ceasefire terms, now effectively controls over 60% of the territory. Read the latest report from Drop Site and Forensic Architecture here. Trump’s Board is rewriting the Gaza agreement to force a surrender of the Palestinian cause: More than seven months after Hamas and Israel reached a ceasefire agreement intended to end the war in Gaza, senior Palestinian resistance told Drop Site News that President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” is rewriting the October agreement to entrench Israeli control over Gaza and pressure Palestinians to abandon their national cause. Senior Hamas negotiator Basem Naim said the movement has fulfilled its obligations under the ceasefire, while Israel maintains its “continuous killing of Palestinians,” is blocking reconstruction materials, and expanding military operations. The resistance leaders rejected efforts to make Palestinian disarmament the central condition for reconstruction or political progress in Gaza with Naim charging that the “High Representative for Gaza” Nickolay Mladenov is attempting to manufacture public pressure on Hamas after failing to achieve a breakthrough in negotiations. Read the full report from Jeremy Scahill and Jawa Ahmad here. Gaza Health Ministry warns critical medicine shortages threaten thousands of patients: Gaza’s Health Ministry issued an urgent warning Sunday about a critical depletion of medicines and medical supplies which could threaten the lives of thousands of patients, including those of 250 kidney patients at risk of losing dialysis sessions due to a shortage of Bibag solution, 11,000 diabetic patients whose conditions could worsen considerably as a result of an insulin shortage, and 110 hemophilia patients already left in compounding daily pain without VACTOR treatment. The ministry issued an urgent appeal to all relevant parties to immediately replenish drug stockpiles, as Israel continues to block essential food and medical aid 228 days into the ceasefire. American nurse Ellie Burgos, who is currently volunteering at a hospital in Gaza, told Sahat News that “People are still dying,” and the only difference is that they are dying more “slowly” now. Her interview with Sahat is available here. French flotilla activist offers testimony of sexual assault and beatings by Israeli soldiers while detained: Meriem Hadjal, a French activist who was detained as part of Israel’s mass detention of participants in the Global Sumud Flotilla, spoke to French public broadcaster France Info about her experience in detention. Hajdal said that she and other detainees were stripped of warm clothing and taken individually into a dark shipping container, where she recalls being repeatedly groped, slapped, beaten, kneed in the ribs, and sexually assaulted by multiple Israeli soldiers. Hadjal’s account adds to other accounts of similar treatment in Israeli custody, with the Flotilla’s organizers reporting that at least 15 of the 480 detained activists recounted incidents of sexual assault at the hands of Israeli officials. Canada condemns treatment of flotilla participants as “appalling”: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the treatment of flotilla participants detained by Israel “appalling” and demanded an independent investigation into the mistreatment of these activists during a phone call on Monday with Israeli President Isaac Herzog. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand separately told her Israeli counterpart, Gideon Saar, that Ottawa would provide Israel with evidence of the mistreatment of Canadian citizens aboard the flotilla. She said denying Canadian citizens consular access during detention “violates the Vienna Convention and must never happen again.” Carney, unlike his counterparts in France, Italy, and Poland, did not announce any new forms of pressure on or sanctions against Israel’s government; the latter three recently announced punitive measures including sanctions and a ban on the entry of Israeli minister Ben Gvir to their territories in response to a video of the minister taunting and abusing flotilla detainees. U.S. News By Julian Andreone, with Ryan Grim. Have a tip on Capitol Hill? Email Andreone at [email protected]. Texas runoffs Tuesday pit Trump-backed Ken Paxton against Senator John Cornyn: RepublicanSen. John Cornyn of Texas faces a high-stakes runoff Tuesday against Attorney General Ken Paxton, who narrowly finished behind Cornyn in the March primary and received the president’s backing last week. The winner will face former State Rep. and Democratic Nominee James Talarico in November. Tuesday’s ballot also features a generational clash in Houston between 11-term incumbent Democrat Al Green, 78, and Rep. Christian Menefee, 38, who has received considerable support from the crypto lobby. In the 35th Congressional District, national Democrats are backing Bexar County sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia in a runoff against left-wing activist Maureen Galindo, who has received nearly $900,000 from a secretive super PAC with Republican ties after making antisemitic remarks. Rubio aide Mike Needham promoted to deputy national security adviser: Mike Needham, a longtime aide to Secretary of State Marco Rubio who most recently served as his State Department counselor, has been promoted to assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser, replacing Robert Gabriel, according to Axios. Because Rubio also serves as national security adviser (having replaced Tulsi Gabbard over the weekend), Needham’s move to the White House keeps him in close contact with Rubio, who said in a statement that Needham “will continue to implement the President’s America First agenda.” ICE pepper sprays Sen. Andy Kim and protesters outside Newark detention center: Sen. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) was pepper-sprayed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers on Monday while joining Gov. Mikie Sherrill and several House Democrats for an oversight visit to Delaney Hall detention center in Newark, where around 300 migrants are holding a hunger and work strike over conditions, including lack of due process, poor food, and mistreatment. Kim said ICE responded to the demonstration by deploying an armored vehicle and armed agents who tackled protesters and fired pepper balls into the crowd. Maine Sen. Susan Collins photographed alongside antisemitic far-right militia: Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine posted a Memorial Day message Monday featuring a photo alongside members of the “Maine Militia,” an armed, far-right paramilitary group, Drop Site’s Julian Andreone reported. The militia has previously described the MAGA movement as a “Jewish psyop” and has written that it does not “worship Blacks and Jews.” Progressive challenger with AI research background takes on AIPAC-backed Rep. Auchincloss in Massachusetts primary: Rep. Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts faces a primary challenge from Evan Poulos, a computational political scientist and former Scale AI contractor whose platform centers on Medicare for All, universal basic income, and corporate taxes on automation—and who has criticized Auchincloss for accepting AIPAC money, voting to send weapons to Israel, and supporting expanded surveillance authorities. Poulos has raised little money against Auchincloss’s war chest ahead of the state’s September primary. Pro-Israel donors using new fundraising vehicle to covertly back Democratic candidates in contested primaries: Pro-Israel donors aligned with AIPAC appear to be channeling money to Democratic primary candidates through a newly formed umbrella group called the Better Blue Fund, which has raised nearly $300,000 in under two months from longtime AIPAC donors—including a $31,500 contribution from an investor who gave $250,000 to Democratic Majority for Israel last cycle. Better Blue Fund is backing eight candidates facing progressive challengers over their support for military aid to Israel. More on “Better Blue Fund” from The Lever, here. Former White House official exercising control over Venezuela’s president and economy, report says: Mauricio Claver-Carone, the Cuban-American operative who helped oversee the Trump administration’s hardline Latin America policies during his first and second terms, is reportedly functioning as a de facto gatekeeper over Venezuela’s post-Maduro government despite holding no official title, according to The Grayzone and the Washington Post. A source close to Trump and Rubio confirmed the report to Drop Site. The Grayzone’s sources said that President Delcy Rodríguez “is taking instructions” from Claver-Carone and that he is “calling the shots on private sector economic positions” while raising capital for his Miami-based Lara Fund investment firm. Other International News Pope Leo XIV releases 42,000-word encyclical covering humanity’s struggle with technology: The Chicago-born pope released his first papal encyclical calling out the dangers of artificial intelligence and urging the safeguarding of the human person. “We must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them,” the pope writes. The “technological transformation” of our age, he says, is having a profound impact on both truth—through the ability of AI to mimic and distort reality and shape communications—and conditions of work, where the pope urged an economy that treats humans with dignity. The encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, is here. Bolivian president offers to halve his salary and cabinet pay amid protests: Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz Pereira announced Monday he would cut his salary and those of his cabinet ministers in half as a gesture of “commitment to the country,” amid a growing political crisis in the country now entering its fourth week, with protests and roadblocks causing severe shortages of food, fuel, and medicine in La Paz and El Alto. Protesters, subject to violent repression, are pushing Paz’s centrist government to roll back austerity measures, restore a fuel subsidy that had kept prices at 2006 levels, and address rising living costs. As of Sunday evening, the protests were ongoing, with tens of thousands of indigenous Kataristas marching from El Alto to La Paz, according to Drop Site contributor Joseph Bouchard. Bolivia’s Senate votes to lift limits on martial law and lethal force: Bolivia’s Senate voted Sunday to overturn legal limits on the government’s ability to declare martial law and authorize lethal force by security forces, according to local reports, fueling fears that the government in La Paz could declare a state of emergency. Bolivian vice president breaks with president: Bolivian Vice President Edman Lara publicly broke with Paz on Sunday, demanding an end to what he characterized as government repression during the protests, after a protester was allegedly killed during a state operation to forcibly clear roadblocks. In a public statement, Lara accused the government of responding to “hunger, fear, and the exhaustion of the people” with “repression and arrest warrants.” Paz’s government has denied responsibility for the killing. Russia warns of systematic strikes on Kyiv defense facilities, urges foreign citizens to leave: Russia is planning a “series of systematic strikes” on defense industrial facilities in Kyiv where drones are “designed, manufactured, programmed, and prepared for use,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned, while urging foreign citizens to leave the capital. Last week, a Ukrainian drone strike on a student dormitory in Starobilsk in the occupied Luhansk region killed at least 18 and wounded 42. Ukraine’s military denied targeting civilians, saying it had struck an elite drone command unit. In strikes on Kyiv on Sunday, four people were reportedly killed, and 60 wounded. Russia said it had used an Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile, marking the third use of the nuclear-capable weapon in the four-year war. RSF drone strikes on markets in North Darfur kill at least 21 civilians over two days: Rapid Support Forces drone strikes on markets in the North Darfur towns of Al-Tina and Kornoi killed at least 21 civilians and wounded dozens, local sources told Sudan Tribune. That number includes 14 killed Sunday in Al-Tina—a key commercial and humanitarian corridor on the Chad border—and five killed Monday in Kornoi. The strikes coincide with reports of a major RSF buildup in Saraf Omra, Kebkabiya, El Geneina, and Kulbus that observers believe signal preparation for ground assaults on army positions along the border with Chad. Attacks on Ebola treatment facilities in eastern Congo force dozens of patients to flee: At least three attacks on health facilities treating Ebola patients have occurred in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo province of Ituri since the weekend, including two strikes on the Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital that caused 25 patients to flee. The attackers are reportedly motivated by a desire for the hospitals to release the bodies of deceased Ebola patients for burial—unsafe given that the virus remains transmissible after death—or by suspicion or doubt about the virus. The outbreak of the rare Bundibugyo strain of Ebola is the third-largest on record, with the World Health Organization now reporting more than 900 suspected cases and 220 suspected deaths. Tensions between Taiwan and China escalate in the Taiwan Strait: Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday it detected 29 Chinese aircraft—including fighter jets—and seven warships operating around the island as part of the second “joint combat readiness patrol” conducted by China within the span of a week. In response to the encroachment, Taiwan’s National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu accused Beijing of being “the sole source of instability in the Indo-Pacific.” Last week, after Trump’s visit to China, the U.S. paused a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan, reportedly to conserve munitions for its war on Iran. Suicide car bomb kills at least 24 in Pakistan’s Balochistan: A suicide car bomb attack on a train carrying soldiers in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, killed at least 24 and wounded more than 50 on Sunday. The Balochistan Liberation Army claimed responsibility for the strike. Xi hails “unbreakable” China-Pakistan friendship: Chinese President Xi Jinping hailed Beijing’s “unbreakable traditional friendship” with Pakistan as he met Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in the Chinese capital on Monday. Xi expressed appreciation for Islamabad’s “constructive role in mediating peace in the Middle East.” Iran-Pakistan chamber accuses UAE of sabotaging Iran’s bid to join China-Pakistan trade corridor: The Iran-Pakistan Chamber of Commerce, a private, bilateral business group, accused the United Arab Emirates of actively obstructing Iran’s integration into the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a 15-year, $62 billion Chinese-Pakistani infrastructure project connecting Pakistan’s provinces to Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea, in a bid to prevent Gwadar from rivaling Dubai, according to Fars News. Iran is seeking rail connectivity between Chabahar, Zahedan, and Mirjaveh to position itself as a strategic hub for trade between China, Central Asia, and the Caucasus—but that project is now stalled. Read Drop Site’s report on Pakistan’s realignment toward Washington in full here. China ships first 15,000 tons of rice to Cuba: Cuba received the first installment of an expected 60,000-ton rice donation from China on Saturday, with President Miguel Díaz-Canel confirming the shipment’s arrival in Havana and expressing “deep gratitude” to Beijing. The island has been contending with near-total blackouts and a collapse in public services since the Trump administration escalated the U.S. blockade on the island in January. Díaz-Canel addressed Trump’s “maximum pressure strategy” on Sunday, saying that it is “intended to justify the false narrative of an impending collapse, and thereby pave the way for military intervention.” Cuba publishes names of thousands given amnesty in April: On Monday, theCuban government published the names of thousands of prisoners covered by a sweeping amnesty decree signed by President Miguel Díaz-Canel on April 3, describing the releases as a “humanitarian and sovereign gesture,” in the country’s largest such amnesty in years. Turkish police ordered to remove opposition party leadership from headquarters: Turkish authorities ordered riot police to remove the leadership of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) from its Ankara headquarters, enforcing a court ruling that annulled Özgür Özel’s 2023 election to party chairman. Özel, who has condemned the ruling as a “judicial coup” and vowed to remain “day and night” at headquarters while pursuing legal appeals, was separately elected leader of the party’s parliamentary group by CHP lawmakers on Saturday. Bangladesh intensifies border patrols amid concerns India is illegally forcing people across the frontier: Bangladesh’s Border Guard has intensified patrols along the border with India, Reuters reports, warning residents via loudspeaker to remain alert to illegal crossings. India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has made reducing immigration from Bangladesh a political priority, and reportedly pushing people back across the border in violation of formal, bilateral repatriation procedures. Suspected bandits abduct at least 25 in two raids in Nigeria’s Kwara State: Suspected bandits launched an early-morning attack on a police station in Nigeria’s Kwara state on Sunday, abducting 10 and setting sections of the Emir of Yashikira’s palace ablaze after officers repelled the assault on the divisional headquarters, according to Reuters. In a separate attack late Friday, gunmen opened fire on a night prayer vigil, killing three worshippers and abducting 15 others, as security forces deployed military units, vigilantes, and a drone unit to search nearby forests and suspected hideouts for the victims. At least 400 Iraqi prisoners died in 2025, according to human rights group: The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights warned of a “dangerous escalation” in human rights violations, recording at least 400 prisoner deaths across Iraqi detention facilities in 2025—with 140 cases closed without any cause of death disclosed to families. The death toll is attributed to severe overcrowding, medical neglect, and torture, including electric shocks, prolonged suspension, and sleep deprivation used to extract forced confessions. Iraq’s prisons currently hold around 67,000 detainees, with some facilities exceeding capacity by 300%. If you want to continue getting this newsletter, you don’t have to do anything. But if this is too much—we do try to be mindful of your inbox—you can unsubscribe from this newsletter while continuing to get the rest of our reporting. Just go into your account here at this link, scroll down, and toggle the button next to “Drop Site Daily“ to the off setting. 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Komunitas
lemmygrad.ml
(This takes 2⅓ minutes to read.) The Partisans liberated Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, on April 6, 1945, and continued their pursuit of the retreating German and Croat troops to the north and west, the direction of Odžak. The precise details of what ensued are difficult to verify, as two competing narratives dominate the historiography. The post-war Yugoslav authorities had an interest in downplaying the events, as it ran counter to their efforts to reconcile the divided country. For Croatian nationalists, exaggerating the disparity in manpower, equipment and casualties inflicted serves to turn the battle into a tale of heroism and sacrifice in the name of independence akin to the Alamo. What is clear, however, is that a 26-year-old Ustaša commander, Petar Rajkovačić, chose to stay and make a last stand in his hometown, Odžak, rather than attempt the long march to Austria. Estimates of the strength of Rajkovačić’s force vary, from around 1,800 men to 4,000, but historians agree that it was well-equipped, had plenty of ammunition and had time to fortify its positions. With sizeable rivers to the north and east, Rajkovačić could focus his defenses. Trenches were dug, bunkers built and barbed wire and minefields were laid. The Partisans initially bypassed the area around Odžak, focussing on harrying the German retreat, but by the middle of April they had encircled Rajkovačić’s position. Initial Partisan efforts to take ground were fruitless, and came at a considerable cost. With no artillery, armor or air support, the Partisans were limited to containing the Ustaša forces and launching probing attacks until they surrendered. On V.E. Day — May 8, the day [that the Third Reich] capitulated to the Allies — Allied authorities hoped that the defenders of Odžak would follow. Rajkovačić, however, refused to surrender, and on May 9 the Partisans, in a tactic worthy of the trenches of World War I, brought artillery and bombarded the Ustaša positions before launching a disastrous frontal assault, which was met with an Ustaša counter-attack. When the Croatian armed forces surrendered on May 15, Rajkovačić again insisted on fighting on. The Battle of Odžak remained an attritional contest until May 23, when the Partisan leadership dispatched two squadrons from its newly established air force. The introduction of air power broke the stalemate, and within two days the Partisans broke through the Ustaša lines and captured Odžak — 16 days after World War II had formally ended. The cost for both sides is in dispute. Some sources claim the Partisans lost around 1,200 fighters, while others contend that up to 10,000 were killed. Historians agree, however, that most of the Ustaša forces — approximately 1,500 men — perished. It wasn’t until 1971 that a Belgrade weekly, NIN, published an article on the battle, revealing a story that until that point had been known only to Yugoslav authorities and the people who witnessed it first-hand. Despite this battle’s obvious historic importance, finding English sources thereon (and particularly good ones) has proven frustrating. We purportedly buried this history for decades because it ‘didn’t fit in’ with the narrative that we wanted to promote of a unified Yugoslavia. This explanation sounds suspiciously contrived. It is likelier that the Yugoslavs were simply one of the many Eurasians eager to put World War II behind them and did not want to prioritize minutely researching battles such as this one (nor could they). Unless somebody has governmental sources confirming otherwise, that suggestion is easier to believe than the stereotypic accusation that we consciously tried to erase it from history.
Komunitas
news.abolish.capital
By Clodovaldo Hernández – May 18, 2026 VA columnist Clodovaldo Hernández lays out the challenges faced by Chavismo and the opposition in the post-January 3 political scenario As far as we know, the US invading forces that attacked the country on January 3 did not plant any mines on Venezuelan soil. But, figuratively speaking, they did, because every day, here and there, a situation erupts that is clearly a consequence of the bombing and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Some of these explosions even appear far more precise than the military operation – a term its proponents insist on using to describe it, despite the fact that it left more than a hundred people dead and caused significant material damage. In the four months that have passed since that traumatic morning, the country has witnessed what appear to be controlled demolitions at the very foundations of Venezuela’s 21st-century anti-hegemonic policy: the return of the US embassy; visits by high-ranking officials (including the head of the CIA); reintegration into the International Monetary Fund; reforms to fundamental laws; and even actions that appear motivated by a desire for symbolic humiliation, such as the removal of uranium from a historic but decommissioned nuclear reactor located on the outskirts of Caracas or Donald Trump’s alleged intention to annex Venezuela as the 51st state. Every “mine” that explodes deepens a wound that, strictly speaking, is far from healing because it was inflicted on Venezuelan pride and hurts, above all, the Chavista base, but also people from other political camps who share a strong sense of nationalism. Managing this systematic destruction of icons has been one of the most demanding challenges for the acting government, especially in terms of responding to its own supporters and to real internal power brokers, both within the sphere of popular power and within the military and police forces. Peace and continuityOne of the most surprising aspects of the political period marked by the events of January 3 is that the country – which was invaded, bombed, and had its president kidnapped – has managed to maintain internal peace. Even more astonishing is that Chavismo, subjected to such a decapitation operation, has remained in power and has swiftly reestablished diplomatic and even cordial relations with the aggressor power. This strange phenomenon was immediately exploited by internal and external opponents of the Bolivarian Revolution to disseminate accusations of treason. Those accused have responded by arguing that this was not a voluntary compromise, but rather concessions that any rational person would make in a hostage situation and under the threat of even worse attacks and reprisals. In an unusual move, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres weighed in on this debate, voicing his suspicion that there was internal collusion in the military operation against Maduro. A significant portion of Chavismo understands the need to reject these hypotheses and agrees that national peace is well worth the sacrifice of some of the slogans that propelled this movement to rise and remain at the pinnacle of political power. The conflict arises when it becomes clear that, for many revolutionary activists, these slogans embody fundamental principles and values. The controversy surrounding this issue lies dormant beneath the surface, like a geological fault line that became active following the bombing. At times, it surfaces in the form of minor tremors, through the critical attitudes of figures associated with Chavismo. The ground also trembles from the doubts and unanswered questions in the daily lives of sectors affiliated with or sympathetic to the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). One of the voices that has been speaking out from the ranks of the organic intelligentsia is that of Luis Britto García, who has raised objections to the reforms of the Hydrocarbons and Mining Laws, which, in his view, will allow for the unfettered plundering of Venezuela’s abundant natural resources and enable any disputes to be settled by foreign courts. He also rejects the return of the IMF, given the role that this and other multilateral organizations have played in imposing economic policies that are fundamentally anti-popular. Britto García is unwavering in his ideological and legal objections, but he is also extremely careful not to present himself as an internal opponent of the acting president. Drawing on his immense moral authority, he has taken on the role of being the public voice for many who lack the ability or opportunity to express their views. Meanwhile, some who clearly do not wish to be named say they have chosen to contribute through their silence, as the timing is highly inappropriate for taking sides. Others, however, have chosen to openly dissent. Prominent among them is journalist Mario Silva, who built his career as an opinion-maker on the provocative television show La Hojilla and was later elected to the 2017 National Constituent Assembly and the 2021–2025 National Assembly. With his opposition to the oil and mining reforms as well as amnesty policies for opposition figures who participated in insurrections and riots, Silva has stirred up controversy, particularly among segments of the grassroots Chavista movement that identify with his dramatic and incisive style, which was once strongly supported by Commander Hugo Chávez. In the vacuous yet highly topical realm of social media influencers, “dissidents” have also emerged, such as Diego Omar Suárez, “Michelo,” an Argentine YouTuber and TikToker who moved to Venezuela in 2024 and had been a key figure in the online discourse on these and other social media platforms, supporting the government of Nicolás Maduro and, in the early weeks, that of Delcy Rodríguez. However, he changed his stance to speak out against treason and collusion with the US. (1) Delcy Has Overthrown Chavismo The Pilgrimage strategyThese disruptions have further obstructed the path of the interim government, which is grappling with a very difficult economic situation; they have become additional “landmines” along the way, forcing the government to move forward with extreme caution while navigating these threats. One of the strategies designed to maintain popular support and mobilization has been the Pilgrimage against the blockade and the unilateral coercive measures or sanctions imposed by the US and its allies. The Pilgrimage sought to mobilize support from the Chavista parties, which in the days immediately following January 3 had taken to the streets demanding the return of the presidential couple. That demand was redirected toward calling for a Venezuela free of economic sanctions. Beyond giving new momentum to the Chavista camp, the mobilization sought to broaden the government’s support base by prioritizing the elimination of the blockade and sanctions. To achieve this new consensus, the acting president has capitalized on the groundwork laid by the Amnesty Law, the Program for Peace and Democratic Coexistence, and other reconciliation initiatives, such as the one established for labor issues, which allowed her to get through May 1 by decreeing increases in bonuses without committing to meaningful wage hikes. Fundamental in this regard has been the willingness of Chavismo to cede institutional spaces – such as the Office of the Ombudsman, the Ministry of Higher Education, several vice ministries, and several embassies – to figures from the moderate opposition. It is clear that the support obtained outside the Chavista camp has been the result of these prior concessions. **What about the opposition?**In this complex political landscape, the opposition forces appear, now more than ever, to be watching the game from the sidelines, standing around the table, while the pieces are moved by the acting government and the United States. The moderate opposition, which participated in the 2025 parliamentary elections and entered the new National Assembly that began its term on January 5, has since January 3 wavered between capitalizing on the moment by supporting the so-called “reinstitutionalization” of the country and reverting to old obstructionist tactics that are largely ineffective given the overwhelming majority that Chavismo holds in the national legislature. From the perspective of public opinion, everything seems to indicate that this opposition faction has failed to present itself to the country as a genuine option for change, with a platform capable of rallying the masses to follow its leaders. At the other extreme is the faction led by María Corina Machado, clearly identified as the one that demanded (and continues to demand) most vehemently that the country be sanctioned, blockaded, and attacked militarily, based on the premise that she would automatically be called upon to head a de facto government resulting from the bombing and the kidnapping of the constitutional president. Donald Trump’s surprising support for Delcy Rodríguez’s government has left Machado high and dry. Neither her obsequious submission to the US president nor her lobbying of the Western corporate elites has done her any good so far, as she remains relegated to the sidelines – a situation that must be particularly humiliating for her. Under the current circumstances, Machado appears more a part of the internal US political diatribe than of the Venezuelan political scene. Following her failed efforts to secure Trump’s endorsement (to whom she gifted her Nobel Prize), she seems to be actively working with the Democrats and elements of the Deep State with the aim of inflicting a defeat on the Republican president in the midterm elections. It seems her allegiances have shifted, creating a bizarre paradox: Venezuela’s radical opposition is betting against Trump, while Chavismo feels more secure if the president who ordered the brutal military aggression does not emerge too battered from the November contest. It appears, then, that the “metaphorical landmines” planted by the US during its brief invasion are also exploding, one after another, on the grounds of the right and the far right. (1) Editor’s note: this article was written before the May 16 handover of former minister and diplomatic envoy Alex Saab to US authorities. (Venezuelanalysis) From Orinoco Tribune via This RSS Feed.
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As far as we know, the US invading forces that attacked the country on January 3 did not plant any mines on Venezuelan soil. But, figuratively speaking, they did, because every day, here and there, a situation erupts that is clearly a consequence of the bombing and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Some of these explosions even appear far more precise than the military operation – a term its proponents insist on using to describe it, despite the fact that it left more than a hundred people dead and caused significant material damage. In the four months that have passed since that traumatic morning, the country has witnessed what appear to be controlled demolitions at the very foundations of Venezuela’s 21st-century anti-hegemonic policy: the return of the US embassy; visits by high-ranking officials (including the head of the CIA); reintegration into the International Monetary Fund; reforms to fundamental laws; and even actions that appear motivated by a desire for symbolic humiliation, such as the removal of uranium from a historic but decommissioned nuclear reactor located on the outskirts of Caracas or Donald Trump’s alleged intention to annex Venezuela as the 51st state. Every “mine” that explodes deepens a wound that, strictly speaking, is far from healing because it was inflicted on Venezuelan pride and hurts, above all, the Chavista base, but also people from other political camps who share a strong sense of nationalism. Managing this systematic destruction of icons has been one of the most demanding challenges for the acting government, especially in terms of responding to its own supporters and to real internal power brokers, both within the sphere of popular power and within the military and police forces. Peace and continuity One of the most surprising aspects of the political period marked by the events of January 3 is that the country – which was invaded, bombed, and had its president kidnapped – has managed to maintain internal peace. Even more astonishing is that Chavismo, subjected to such a decapitation operation, has remained in power and has swiftly reestablished diplomatic and even cordial relations with the aggressor power. This strange phenomenon was immediately exploited by internal and external opponents of the Bolivarian Revolution to disseminate accusations of treason. Those accused have responded by arguing that this was not a voluntary compromise, but rather concessions that any rational person would make in a hostage situation and under the threat of even worse attacks and reprisals. In an unusual move, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres weighed in on this debate, voicing his suspicion that there was internal collusion in the military operation against Maduro. A significant portion of Chavismo understands the need to reject these hypotheses and agrees that national peace is well worth the sacrifice of some of the slogans that propelled this movement to rise and remain at the pinnacle of political power. The conflict arises when it becomes clear that, for many revolutionary activists, these slogans embody fundamental principles and values. The controversy surrounding this issue lies dormant beneath the surface, like a geological fault line that became active following the bombing. At times, it surfaces in the form of minor tremors, through the critical attitudes of figures associated with Chavismo. The ground also trembles from the doubts and unanswered questions in the daily lives of sectors affiliated with or sympathetic to the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). One of the voices that has been speaking out from the ranks of the organic intelligentsia is that of Luis Britto García, who has raised objections to the reforms of the Hydrocarbons and Mining Laws, which, in his view, will allow for the unfettered plundering of Venezuela’s abundant natural resources and enable any disputes to be settled by foreign courts. He also rejects the return of the IMF, given the role that this and other multilateral organizations have played in imposing economic policies that are fundamentally anti-popular. Britto García is unwavering in his ideological and legal objections, but he is also extremely careful not to present himself as an internal opponent of the acting president. Drawing on his immense moral authority, he has taken on the role of being the public voice for many who lack the ability or opportunity to express their views. Meanwhile, some who clearly do not wish to be named say they have chosen to contribute through their silence, as the timing is highly inappropriate for taking sides. Others, however, have chosen to openly dissent. Prominent among them is journalist Mario Silva, who built his career as an opinion-maker on the provocative television show La Hojilla and was later elected to the 2017 National Constituent Assembly and the 2021–2025 National Assembly. With his opposition to the oil and mining reforms as well as amnesty policies for opposition figures who participated in insurrections and riots, Silva has stirred up controversy, particularly among segments of the grassroots Chavista movement that identify with his dramatic and incisive style, which was once strongly supported by Commander Hugo Chávez. In the vacuous yet highly topical realm of social media influencers, “dissidents” have also emerged, such as Diego Omar Suárez, “Michelo,” an Argentine YouTuber and TikToker who moved to Venezuela in 2024 and had been a key figure in the online discourse on these and other social media platforms, supporting the government of Nicolás Maduro and, in the early weeks, that of Delcy Rodríguez. However, he changed his stance to speak out against treason and collusion with the US. (1) The Pilgrimage strategy These disruptions have further obstructed the path of the interim government, which is grappling with a very difficult economic situation; they have become additional “landmines” along the way, forcing the government to move forward with extreme caution while navigating these threats. One of the strategies designed to maintain popular support and mobilization has been the Pilgrimage against the blockade and the unilateral coercive measures or sanctions imposed by the US and its allies. The Pilgrimage sought to mobilize support from the Chavista parties, which in the days immediately following January 3 had taken to the streets demanding the return of the presidential couple. That demand was redirected toward calling for a Venezuela free of economic sanctions. Beyond giving new momentum to the Chavista camp, the mobilization sought to broaden the government’s support base by prioritizing the elimination of the blockade and sanctions. To achieve this new consensus, the acting president has capitalized on the groundwork laid by the Amnesty Law, the Program for Peace and Democratic Coexistence, and other reconciliation initiatives, such as the one established for labor issues, which allowed her to get through May 1 by decreeing increases in bonuses without committing to meaningful wage hikes. Fundamental in this regard has been the willingness of Chavismo to cede institutional spaces – such as the Office of the Ombudsman, the Ministry of Higher Education, several vice ministries, and several embassies – to figures from the moderate opposition. It is clear that the support obtained outside the Chavista camp has been the result of these prior concessions. What about the opposition? In this complex political landscape, the opposition forces appear, now more than ever, to be watching the game from the sidelines, standing around the table, while the pieces are moved by the acting government and the United States. The moderate opposition, which participated in the 2025 parliamentary elections and entered the new National Assembly that began its term on January 5, has since January 3 wavered between capitalizing on the moment by supporting the so-called “reinstitutionalization” of the country and reverting to old obstructionist tactics that are largely ineffective given the overwhelming majority that Chavismo holds in the national legislature. From the perspective of public opinion, everything seems to indicate that this opposition faction has failed to present itself to the country as a genuine option for change, with a platform capable of rallying the masses to follow its leaders. At the other extreme is the faction led by María Corina Machado, clearly identified as the one that demanded (and continues to demand) most vehemently that the country be sanctioned, blockaded, and attacked militarily, based on the premise that she would automatically be called upon to head a de facto government resulting from the bombing and the kidnapping of the constitutional president. Donald Trump’s surprising support for Delcy Rodríguez’s government has left Machado high and dry. Neither her obsequious submission to the US president nor her lobbying of the Western corporate elites has done her any good so far, as she remains relegated to the sidelines – a situation that must be particularly humiliating for her. Under the current circumstances, Machado appears more a part of the internal US political diatribe than of the Venezuelan political scene. Following her failed efforts to secure Trump’s endorsement (to whom she gifted her Nobel Prize), she seems to be actively working with the Democrats and elements of the Deep State with the aim of inflicting a defeat on the Republican president in the midterm elections. It seems her allegiances have shifted, creating a bizarre paradox: Venezuela’s radical opposition is betting against Trump, while Chavismo feels more secure if the president who ordered the brutal military aggression does not emerge too battered from the November contest. It appears, then, that the “metaphorical landmines” planted by the US during its brief invasion are also exploding, one after another, on the grounds of the right and the far right. (1) Editor’s note: this article was written before the May 16 handover of former minister and diplomatic envoy Alex Saab to US authorities. Clodovaldo Hernández is a journalist and political analyst with experience in higher education. He won the National Journalism Prize (Opinion category) in 2002. He is the author of the booksReinventario*(poetry and short stories)De genios y de figuras(journalistic profiles) andEsa larga, infinita distancia(novel).* The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelan editorial staff. The post The Post-January 3 Minefield in Venezuela appeared first on Venezuelanalysis. From Venezuelanalysis via This RSS Feed.
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Bullets: China has monopolies on supply chains and manufacturing of industrial drones. Drones are suddenly and widely in use by non-NATO countries across the world, and wreak havoc on weapons platforms and fixed targets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The War Department is scrambling to close the gap with China, and is looking for suppliers for thousands of suicide drones. To clear the way for US companies, Washington has banned new imports of Chinese drones, which are popular in American small businesses, heavy industry, and in fire and police departments. But even if the Pentagon can eventually buy and deploy drones at low cost, drones cannot be defended against at low cost. Inside China / Business is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Report: Good morning. China has monopolies on the manufacturing of drones, and on the supply chains for drones. That’s because China, before anyone else, was building drones for industrial and commercial markets. That’s where the demand is. There will always be a lot more people who use drones for peaceful means and ends, compared to the population of people who want them for war. The civilian market is also where cost and quality matter. The Pentagon is indifferent to cost; money is no object. That point of view is not prevalent in businesses. And here we are taking just a handful of examples, how small businesses are using drones in industry, and even to create new industries. Here operators are using drones to feed fish in offshore farms. In South Florida alone, there are a dozen companies that use drones to power-wash roofs and buildings 40 stories high. Those drones cost $6,000 - $15,000 each to buy from Chinese factories—so they’re not cheap—but they replace a whole crew of guys dangling from cables, off the sides of buildings. Cleanings can be done more often, and obviously more safely. Empower Field is where the Denver Broncos play, and they’re not hurting for money, and they use drones there to clean the stadium. That’s a new industry. It didn’t exist even just five years ago. Drones are heavily used now in construction, and in mining. Mining companies are using drones to do surveying work, in blast management, and in search and rescue of trapped miners. We know that drones are already in heavy use by hobbyists and videographers, but when affordable tools become available, industry and business people are clever in asking how they can be used in their own trades, to do their jobs better, and less expensively, and safer. Chinese companies are way ahead of everyone else on drones, because those are the markets that Chinese companies build for: civilian users. Militaries across the world have learned the hard way that drones are also ruthlessly effective in warfare, at low cost. The Pentagon and other Western militaries are trying to catch up, and to dominate with drones in the same way they did in the past, with other transformative technologies. But the Chinese are already there in drones, and getting away from China won’t happen fast, and won’t happen cheap. China has a strong hold on everything in this industry, from end-to-end. This Ukrainian unit was taking apart a Russian FPV quadcopter. The batteries, the motors, and the brain came from China, and it “could not have been built without” Chinese parts. Here’s a money quote: “(China) has already won World War III because everything is in its hands”. That won’t change soon, and it won’t change later: Our group has done several reports on Chinese drones, and the problems they are posing for other countries, and ironically even for China itself. The Chinese have strict export bans on these technologies, which restrict their intended use as weapons. And in the case of Russia and Ukraine, both sides are dependent on getting Chinese parts for their drones. The Pentagon has a $1 billion plan to break China’s grip on the industry, called “Drone Dominance. “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” was an executive order from last June, and the idea is to build drones that are completely domestic, and not reliant on parts from foreign countries. A week later the Secretary of War shared this on X, which became one of the worst-ratioed videos in the history of the internet: And this program is another example of political rhetoric, which just falls apart in the face of objective reality. There is no “American drone dominance” to unleash. It doesn’t exist. China dominates the drone industry. Chinese companies build 90% of the world’s drones, and even drone makers outside China source their parts from here, for assembly elsewhere. For each and every component, there is no getting away from China: Brushless motors—China controls at least 90% of the motors used in drones. Antennas—there are companies outside China who build them, but they cost a lot more, and Chinese-made antennas work smoothly with other Chinese components. Next is the camera. There are Japanese and American companies of sensory equipment, but assembly of the whole camera is a Chinese industry. Precision lenses – those are also all China. Batteries for drones is the same as every other battery—China owns the entire supply chain. Flight Stacks illustrate the problem, even where non-Chinese alternatives are available. The technical barriers to entry are low, but US suppliers cannot compete on price, because there is no demand, and thus no reason to mass-produce them. Drones are not complex; they’re simple. Technically anyone can build them. The China problem is the economies of scale on the manufacturing side, and the supply chains that feed the factories. China’s cost advantages are total, may as well say: The Chinese build quadcopters for civilian users across the world; an American company using non-Chinese components cannot build one for under $15,000, over three times as much. There is, again, a Chinese monopoly on batteries and motors. The batteries come from minerals on the critical supply lists, and Chinese companies monopolize the supply chains for most of them. Getting new mines opened, and then the infrastructure scaled up for mass production would take at least ten years. That’s the supply chain problem. Then there’s the demand side: DJI is the largest producer in the world for commercial drones, and DJI and a handful of other Chinese companies have 80% market share in the United States. Their drones are high quality, high performance, and don’t cost much. Nature photographers, YouTubers, and other content producers are the ones most people think of first, when we imagine who the buyers for drones are. But they’re big in real estate, civil engineering and surveying, inspection, and search and rescue operations by first responders. And there we see, again, that there is a far bigger market for people using drones to save people, instead of blowing them up. American drone companies cannot compete against DJI and Autel on price or quality, so the Pentagon is a godsend for US companies. Now they finally have a customer who doesn’t care about cost, and is probably indifferent as to the quality too. That’s not true of municipal governments, usually anyway, and certainly not in industry. The military is the only client. The Pentagon promised to buy 340,000 first-person- view drones over the course of several years. It hopes that order size is sufficiently large that the US supply chain will grow, competitors will come in, and the cost will fall. If that does happen, it will be the first time, in the history of the universe, that Pentagon contractors’ prices fall over time. $2,300 is the cost for a high-quality right now, from DJI. So the intended audience for that paragraph is someone who doesn’t know, for example, that the Pentagon pays $90,000 for bolts and screws and fasteners that cost a hundred bucks at Home Depot: Then there’s a simple problem of politics. It will take years for American companies to learn how to produce the raw materials for these parts at all, let alone manufacture them at scale, and every presidential administration has an end date. There will be a new war secretary in January of 2029, at the latest, and the drone program itself is only funded through next year, 2027. The War Department is trying to build an industry that already exists—the current industry is already high quality and low cost. So, the only way forward is to get DJI and Autel and the other Chinese drone makers completely out of the way, so US companies can compete. That was a relief to Skydio, and to a handful of others. This is Blake Resnick, age 25, whose company builds drones for police departments. BRINC knows they would have a lot more sales as soon as DJI drones are banned. He can sell a lot more drones to police departments who are happy with the DJI drones they’re using now. And when the FCC did announce the ban, drone operators across the United States were furious. Immediately they began stocking up on DJI drones and parts. These are American small business owners who will be put out of business, because American drones cannot compete. They cost more, they don’t work as well, and now that they’re building for the Pentagon there’s no reason to make their products attractive to industrial or small-business users. Companies are buying drones, batteries and parts to push out the day they’ll be out of business. 43% of pilots – these are Americans – say the effect of the ban will be extremely negative and threatens their survival. 85% said their business would last for just two years or less. There are simply no alternatives for these thousands of small companies across the United States. Now Chinese companies are banned from selling new models in the American market, and the Pentagon is buying up drones for military and weapons testing. Thousands of those higher-cost American drones are being bought for the US military, by the Department of Government Efficiency: The jokes write themselves sometimes. The strategy there is to spur production of small attack drones, and scale the US industrial base to build suicide drones. Again—there is no industrial market for that. There is no business case for a one-way drone, where a good day is launching a drone that costs thousands of dollars, that doesn’t come back. War Secretary: It’s a “new era of cheap and disposable drones.” But the only buyers in the world for “disposable” drones are militaries. And if it’s the American military, they won’t be cheap. The Pentagon announced an event fair, where up to a dozen companies will be picked to supply 1,000 drones each, for delivery in a few months. The risk to that, of course, is that drone models from different companies will function differently, and users need to be trained to do that safely every time. They will be outfitted with explosives, after all. And another risk is that the Pentagon will buy thousands of units that are obsolete by the time they get delivered to the field. The War Department has a lot of problems, then, when it comes to going into the drone business. The only way they can get a dozen American companies competing for contracts to build suicide drones, it to deliberately bankrupt thousands of companies across the United States who use drones in their business. And to tell hundreds of local governments and police and fire departments across the country that they cannot buy affordable drones to catch bad guys, or put out fires. That is the cost, American population-wide; that is the cost to society. But the Pentagon has got another problem, even if they do manage to build a domestic drone industry, where they are again the only client. And that is that they will not, ever, have a monopoly on that industry outside the United States. It’s already too late for that–the idea that the United States can be the first to get this technology figured out and deployed to the battlefield. This is a mature industry, right now, and drones are in wide use, right now, by military units in the fight, right now. That poses yet another problem: even if the Pentagon can eventually buy drones at a low cost, drones cannot be defended against at low cost. That was a real failure of imagination, by Washington. We watched Russia and Ukraine use tens of thousands of low-cost drones to attack each other, and destroy armored vehicles and equipment that are a hundred times more costly than the drone itself. But for some reason nobody thought that Iran might be watching too. Iran used low-cost drones to blow up American naval bases, and radars that cost hundreds of millions of dollars each. Aircraft totaling a billion or so more. And when Iran says that no ships are going through the Hormuz without their green light first, it’s with the implication that one of their drones costing a few thousand dollars could be sent toward a ship costing a few hundred million dollars, with another few hundred million dollars’ worth of crude oil in the tanks. Nobody is even close to solving that problem yet. In the first four days of the War on Iran, the Pentagon sent up $5.7 billion worth of interceptors to shoot down very-low-cost Iranian ballistics and drones. Just in the first four days. One Patriot missile costs millions of dollars each and takes years to build, while drones are mass-produced and cost a thousand times less. The good news, such as it is, is that some companies are hoping to build interceptor missiles that only cost tens of thousands of dollars each, instead of hundreds of thousands. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency might see that as a win these days, but we’ve just moved the decimal point over one spot. An Iranian drone costs a few thousand dollars, and these new interceptors—which haven’t been built yet—will hopefully cost just ten to twenty times that, plus remember that usually two or more interceptors are fired against a single inbound. So we’re back to the same problem as before. Iran, in the case today, wins these engagements no matter what happens. If their drone is intercepted, it is at the cost of twenty times what Iran paid to launch their drone. If the drone is not intercepted, it may go on to blow up a headquarters building, or a radar system, or a supertanker. That’s the real lesson, and that’s the real problem posed by drones overall. They cannot be stopped. Iran proved it. The Pentagon’s budget is a trillion dollars. Iran’s military spending for the past year was just one fiftieth of that–$23 billion. Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, or aircraft carriers, or stealth bombers. Those things aren’t important. That’s the quote from the very beginning. Iran is friendly with China, Iran builds a lot of drones. And that is all that matters. In end, this could be very good news. Instead of merely transforming modern warfare, drones may just end modern warfare completely. Be good. Resources and links: How are Drones Revolutionizing the Mining and Surveillance Industry https://karkhana.io/how-are-drones-revolutionizing-the-mining-and-surveillance-industry/ Drones and laser scanning revolutionize blast monitoring with enhanced safety and precision https://www.miningdoc.tech/2025/09/25/drones-and-laser-scanning-revolutionize-blast-monitoring-with-enhanced-safety-and-precision/ DJI still dominates the 2025 drone market — and new data proves it https://www.thedronegirl.com/2025/11/06/2025-drone-market-dji/ Drones Can Help Mining Companies Rescue Their Workers After a Mine Collapse https://dronearticles.com/drones-can-help-mining-companies-rescue-their-workers-after-a-mine-collapse/ The U.S. Wants to Break China’s Drone Dominance. Here’s Where It Will Struggle. https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/the-u-s-wants-to-break-chinas-drone-dominance-heres-where-it-will-struggle-39e69e18 America Downs Cheap Drones With Million-Dollar Missiles. A Fix Is In the Works. https://www.wsj.com/world/america-downs-cheap-drones-with-million-dollar-missiles-a-fix-is-in-the-works-2afff48a At the Pentagon, DOGE Mission to Cut Costs Includes Buying Drones https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/at-the-pentagon-doge-shifts-from-cutting-programs-to-buying-drones-9efc1861 Drone Makers Looking to Steer Clear of China Fear Beijing’s Wrath https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/drone-makers-looking-to-steer-clear-of-china-fear-beijings-wrath-8fea8508 U.S. Bans New China-Made Drones, Sparking Outrage Among Pilots https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/u-s-bans-new-china-made-drones-sparking-outrage-among-pilots-1624e32a China is restricting export of drones that can be used for military purposes and some drone features https://apnews.com/article/china-drones-export-restrictions-eb7acb88b84d97cf5fc1cbafdb650d43 China optimizes export control measures for drones, bans export intended for military purposes https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202407/1317107.shtml America’s farmers and first responders love Chinese drones. And that’s about to be a big problem. DJI drones used to feed fish https://www.facebook.com/reel/1116979861490174 VIRAL MOMENT: Michael Waltz Confronts Air Force Officials With Staggeringly Expensive Components DJI still dominates the 2025 drone market — and new data proves it https://www.thedronegirl.com/2025/11/06/2025-drone-market-dji/ Drones Can Help Mining Companies Rescue Their Workers After a Mine Collapse https://dronearticles.com/drones-can-help-mining-companies-rescue-their-workers-after-a-mine-collapse/ The Pentagon wants to build millions of drones without Chinese parts. It’s off to a bad start. Iranian strikes on bases used by US caused $800m in damage, new analysis shows https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cddq7j48p35o Iranian Strikes Have Destroyed $2.7 Billion Worth of High Value U.S. Anti-Missile Radars https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iranian-strikes-destroyed-antimissile-radars Attack On US Navy Fifth Fleet Headquarters In Bahrain https://www.military.com/feature/2026/02/28/attack-us-navy-fifth-fleet-headquarters-bahrain.html Footage Confirms Iranian Drone Strike Took Out U.S. Army’s Most High Value Air Defence Radar From THAAD System https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iranian-drone-destroy-radar-thaad Attack on US radar plane at Saudi base raises concern over Iran’s capabilities https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/31/destruction-us-radar-plane-saudi-base-raises-surveillance-concerns UNLEASHING AMERICAN DRONE DOMINANCE https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/unleashing-american-drone-dominance/ Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance This 25-Year-Old Founder Wants To Kick Chinese Drones Out Of American Skies https://www.forbes.com/sites/zoyahasan/2025/12/03/this-25-year-old-founder-wants-to-kick-chinese-drones-out-of-american-skies Inside China / Business is a reader-supported publication. 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Yesterday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif told the Sunday Times that Pakistan serving as a mediator in the U.S.-Iran war is “one of the shining moments in our history.” “We are in seventh heaven and on cloud nine and it’s intoxicating,” the former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. Masood Khan concurred. “I’ve had a long diplomatic career and I have never seen Pakistan on such a high pedestal.” “When I went to Washington as ambassador in 2022, it was an uphill task,” he continued. “Yet now Pakistan is playing the role the UN should have been—it’s a very delicate task and we are doing it well.” For some, Pakistan may have appeared as an unexpected mediator in the negotiations to end the Iran war. But the country, taken over by a military regime after the ouster of populist PM Imran Khan, has recently been making a major play on the world stage. Drop Site has been a lone voice in producing independent investigations on Pakistan—a country of over 200 million people with nuclear weapons and without freedom of the press. We’re able to do so because—as a reader-funded independent news outlet—we operate free from the influence of governments and corporate backers. This is essential to our mission: to report on what matters most, beholden only to the truth. In that spirit, we made a commitment to ensure that our journalism is free for everyone, not locked behind a paywall. But that means we rely on the voluntary support of our community of readers. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our work today. Support Drop Site Today U.S. Vice President JD Vance shakes hands with Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during their meeting on April 11, 2026 at Islamabad, Pakistan. Photo by Jacquelyn Martin - Pool/Getty Images. On the afternoon of Friday, April 24, as markets in the United States were closing for the weekend, the Trump administration saw some welcome news: Axios published a story indicating that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was headed to Islamabad, with the potential to restart the failed talks with the U.S. to end the war. If all went well, Araghchi would meet that Monday with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. “A trilateral meeting with the U.S. will be assessed after our meeting with Araghchi,” a source described as a “Pakistani official” told Axios’s Barak Ravid. At the same time, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media arm of Pakistan’s ruling military, sent out a private message on WhatsApp to reporters. The message, the ISPR told reporters, was “Attributable to Government Sources”—obscuring the military’s role—and informed reporters of Araghchi’s impending visit. “Following important discussions with the Pakistani mediation team, a second round of Islamabad peace talks between the United States and Iran is expected, government sources say,” the ISPR suggested. “A U.S. logistics and security team is already present in Islamabad to facilitate the negotiation process.” The claim flew around the world and stocks popped at the close, as reporters copied the ISPR message and pasted it on their Twitter accounts. Pakistani mediators basked in adulation from the Western press, which marveled at the Phoenix-like rise of the military-run government, now a central player on the world stage. Subscribe now And yet, surprising nobody who had been following the situation closely, the story quickly unraveled. As Drop Site reported in real time, Araghchi was not going to Islamabad to re-open talks and would most certainly not be meeting with Witkoff and Kushner. Trump called off their trip, saying the Iranians could phone them if they wanted. By Sunday, Ebrahim Rezaei, an Iranian national security spokesperson, had seen enough. “Pakistan is a good friend and neighbor of ours, but it is not a suitable intermediary for negotiations and lacks the necessary credibility for mediation,” Rezaei said on Twitter. “They always take Trump’s interests into account and do not say a word against the Americans’ wishes.” Listing a litany of instances where Pakistan had simply deferred to Trump and overlooked his violation of agreements, he added, “A mediator must be impartial, not always leaning to one side.” Pakistan has continued assisting the talks, including by lending an official plane to Araghchi for a short flight to Oman for a brief diplomatic tour last month. But the very mercenary nature of the regime, which allowed it to position itself so effectively as a tool for American interests, also diminishes its value in the role as peacemaker. At the same time, other parties, including Oman, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey have also begun to try their hands at shaping the diplomatic outcome of the war. How Pakistan got to this point is a story of steady American pressure applied in a variety of ways and a testament to the Pakistan military’s uncanny survival instincts. After engineering former prime minister Imran Khan’s removal in 2022, blatantly rigging a national election in 2024, and continuing to govern in the face of sustained public opposition, the generals have only tightened their hold at home and their standing in Washington. Leaked documents obtained by Drop Site News, as well as interviews with former civilian and military officials, the sequence of events that shaped the U.S.-Pakistan relationship over the past five years and brought Washington and Islamabad from mutual suspicion into a political embrace. This budding relationship, despite bearing hopes to reshape the region, may yet be brought down by the shaky foundation on which it was built. To hear the recent laudatory profiles of Pakistan tell it, Pakistan’s diplomatic position is a product of effective lobbying by the Pakistani government in D.C. But the true story has been much longer in the making. Burns in Islamabad In June 2021, CIA Director William J. Burns flew to Islamabad to meet with then-Prime Minister Imran Khan. He waited a full day to see Khan, according to reports from the time. But the meeting never happened. Khan’s office informed Burns by phone that the prime minister, citing protocol, would only take calls from his counterparts. His counterpart was President Joe Biden, who, since taking office that January, had declined repeated requests for a direct call. Biden’s refusal to meet Khan personally marked a stinging reversal from the previous administration. In July 2019, Khan had been invited for a brief meeting in the White House during the Trump administration that wound up lasting longer than 90 minutes. Trump and Khan enjoyed a warm relationship and had much in common: They were both celebrities in the ‘80s and ‘90s who became populist politicians around the same time. They met again in September 2019 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meetings and again in January 2020 in the White House. For the Biden administration, Khan was merely the Donald Trump of Pakistan. Burns had come to secure Pakistani territory for U.S. drone bases to use against targets in Afghanistan after the planned American withdrawal. He left with neither the bases nor an audience with the prime minister. If there was any confusion on the matter, Khan cleared it up later that month in an interview with Axios’s co-founder Jonathan Swan. “Absolutely not. There is no way we are going to allow any bases, any sort of action from Pakistani territory into Afghanistan. Absolutely not,” he said. Within weeks, Kabul fell to the Taliban, and the U.S. evacuation descended into chaos that damaged the Biden administration’s standing at home and abroad. Donald Trump and Imran Khan meet in the Oval Office at the White House on July 22, 2019 in Washington, DC. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images. In the months prior, Khan’s government had helped broker the final agreement between the Taliban and the Trump administration. Even so, ties between Washington and Islamabad were already deeply frayed. For two decades, U.S. officials had accused Pakistan of sheltering the Taliban while accepting billions of dollars in American aid as a nominal ally. Pakistan’s military faced further scrutiny after U.S. Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 in Abbottabad, a garrison town home to Pakistan’s military academy, a raid conducted without Islamabad’s knowledge. By the early 2020s, the prevailing view in U.S. policy circles was that Washington should leave Afghanistan and cut Islamabad loose. The dismissal of Burns’s request and the collapse of Kabul set off a chain reaction. Leaked documents reviewed by Drop Site News show that in the same period, Saudi Arabia was pressing Pakistan for a mutual defense pact—an overture Khan’s government was also rebuffing, according to the documents. In principle, Khan’s government was drawing diplomatic red lines with both Washington and the Gulf Cooperation Council, but the Pakistani military concluded he was isolating the country. In July 2021, without the prime minister’s knowledge, the military quietly retained a former CIA Islamabad station chief as a lobbyist in Washington, an early sign that Pakistan’s generals were beginning to move independently of their own elected government. READ MORE: Leaked Documents Reveal Details of the Secret Saudi Arabia–Pakistan Mutual Defense Pact All Will Be Forgiven In February 2022, Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. Driving back Russia became the Biden administration’s overriding foreign policy priority almost overnight. U.S. diplomats pressed capitals across the world to pick a side. As the world began to fracture over the conflict, Pakistan unexpectedly found itself in the center of the maelstrom. On February 24, the day Russian forces crossed into Ukraine, Imran Khan was in Moscow for a long-scheduled meeting with President Putin. Days before that fateful meeting, Jake Sullivan, national security advisor to Biden, had called his Pakistani counterpart, Moeed Yusuf, urging him to persuade Khan to cancel the trip. The details of that call, later leaked to Drop Site, show Sullivan warning against the visit and pressing Islamabad to side clearly with the U.S. in the Ukraine war. Khan ignored the warning. Photographs of Putin and Khan shaking hands went viral on social media the same day the news of the invasion hit the timelines. Pakistani officials said the trip had been planned for months and could not be cancelled. Yet the incident was not viewed innocently in Washington. Days later, Pakistan abstained from a United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning the invasion, joining China, India, and much of the Global South. U.S. diplomats, already furious over the Moscow visit and Khan’s refusal to clearly align with Washington, began telling Pakistani interlocutors privately that the relationship could not continue on its existing terms. On March 7, 2022, Pakistan’s ambassador in Washington, Asad Majeed Khan, met with Donald Lu, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs. That conversation, documented in a classified diplomatic cable that would later be leaked, became the inflection point of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship. According to the cable, Lu told the ambassador that Washington’s grievances with Khan’s government could be set aside, “all will be forgiven,” in the phrase the Pakistani ambassador would later cite, if Khan were removed from office through a no-confidence vote. (The authors of this article previously published the contents of the cable, known as a cypher in Pakistan, but had withheld the memo itself for source protection reasons. The cypher can now be published in full, so it can be a part of the historical record. It is now available here.) Khan was removed on April 9, 2022, in a no-confidence vote backed by Pakistan’s military. His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, was subsequently outlawed, stripped of its electoral symbol ahead of the 2024 general election, and barred from fielding candidates under its own banner. Members who won seats as independents were denied certification. Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were jailed on a series of corruption, contempt, and national security charges. Both remain in prison to this day, Khan under solitary confinement since last year. Under the new government, installed with the military’s backing, Islamabad began delivering to Washington what it had refused to deliver under Khan. Within months, Pakistan emerged as a quiet but significant supplier of artillery shells and other munitions to Ukraine. Leaked documents showed the weapons were routed through U.S. defense contractors and third-country intermediaries, easing shortages in Ukrainian stockpiles during the first year of the war. Former U.S. and Pakistani officials stated at the time that American support for Pakistan’s next International Monetary Fund program was explicitly linked to the continuation of the weapons pipeline. In July 2023, the IMF approved a $3 billion standby arrangement for Pakistan. In February 2024, both the European Union and United States looked away as the military massively rigged elections and installed a suitable government in Islamabad. During the U.S. Presidential elections the same year, the Pakistani diaspora in the United States overwhelmingly supported the Trump campaign. The reason, cited almost unanimously, was the Biden administration’s support for the military junta in Pakistan. Many prominent Pakistani-Americans and groups such as PAKPAC declared their support for the Republican campaign due to this. When Trump took office in January 2025, the question of what to do about Pakistan became an early flashpoint inside his administration. Drop Site News reported at the time that the new State Department, under Secretary Marco Rubio, clashed with the Pentagon over the direction of U.S. policy toward Islamabad, a dispute that would shape everything that followed. The Pentagon and CIA finally won and took over the relationship. The Republican promises to the Pakistani diaspora were used by the Trump administration to scare the Pakistani government into submission. The Pakistani government also proceeded to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in public relations spending during this period according to publicly available FARA filings. The Nuclear State On April 9, 2022, the day Khan’s government was toppled, Pakistan conducted a missile test. The missile was the Shaheen III, Pakistan’s longest range ballistic missile with a range of almost 3,000 kilometers. While Pakistan’s missile program has been focused on India, the test was essentially a validation that Islamabad’s missiles also had the capacity to reach Israel. That fact reflected a longstanding anxiety in Washington. After Khan was removed by General Qamar Javed Bajwa, Pakistan’s army chief at the time, Bajwa travelled to D.C. in October 2022 in an effort to reset ties. During the visit, which also marked his last month in office, Bajwa met with top Biden officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. In those talks, he assured the U.S. that Pakistan would limit the ranges of its missiles to just fall short of Israel. Seeking to curry even more favor, Bajwa also assured his American interlocutors that Pakistan wanted to rein in its military, limit its nuclear program, and move away from China. In October 2022, soon after General Bajwa’s return to Pakistan, Bajwa called the head of the Strategic Plan Division (SPD), the military division overseeing Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. According to a source aware of the details of the conversation, General Bajwa ordered the head of SPD to allow an American delegation to visit and inspect some sensitive nuclear sites in the country. In the hierarchy of Pakistan’s nuclear command, the head of SPD reports directly to the Joint Chief of Staff Committee (JCSC), who in turn reports to the prime minister, not to the army chief. Using this excuse, the SPD head refused General Bajwa at the time, according to sources, showing that the military chief was not completely in charge of the country’s nukes. Later the same month President Biden gave a statement claiming that, “Pakistan may be one of the most dangerous nations in the world” because the country has “nuclear weapons without any cohesion.” The statement, coming seemingly out of nowhere, stunned many observers. But according to sources privy to the internal communications over the matter, Biden’s statement was related to Bajwa’s inability to provide American inspectors access to Pakistan’s sensitive nuclear sites. Bajwa stepped down a month later, putting General Asim Munir in charge in November 2022. In 2025, after three tumultuous years heading the military-led government, Munir promoted himself to the rank of Field Marshall, created a new office of Chief of Defence Forces’ for himself, and abolished the role of JCSC through a constitutional amendment. The series of bureaucratic maneuvers—unprecedented in Pakistani history—also had the effect of placing Munir personally in charge of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. For the first time, the checks and balances surrounding Pakistan’s nuclear command had been unified under a single person: the country’s staunchly pro-U.S. army chief. A checkpoint next to large screen displaying Pakistan’s Army Chief and Field Marshal Syed Asim Munir in Islamabad on April 18, 2026. Photo by Aamir QURESHI / AFP via Getty Images. Asim Munir’s Second Act To Trump, Asim Munir is “my favorite Field Marshal.” He relishes the title, musing regularly about the delightfulness of the moniker. It was never a given that Munir would wind up in such an exalted position. In April 2019, while Munir was director general of the ISI, the country’s powerful spy service, he traveled with then-Prime Minister Khan to Tehran for discussions with Iranian officials as well as officials with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Munir, according to people close to Khan, battled with the Iranians over the long-simmering insurgency in the Baloch region that is split by the Iran-Pakistan border. According to a former PTI official, Munir “used undiplomatic language in Iran and deviated from the strategy the Pakistani government had discussed internally prior to the trip,” which is characteristic of Munir’s style. A source who served in Khan’s inner circle confirmed the account to Drop Site. Pakistan and Iran cooperating to stamp out the insurgency in the Baloch region would be a step toward closer relations and run contrary to Washington’s efforts to isolate Iran. Munir, whether on orders from the U.S. or by instinct, by disrupting that relationship, was doing a strong favor for the Americans. Iranian leadership complained to Khan about Munir’s outburst and in June 2019, Khan sacked Munir over the incident, sources with knowledge of his decision making said. At eight months, it was a remarkably short tenure atop the ISI. When Bajwa initially put forward a list of successors for the position of Army chief, Munir wasn’t on it. Khan later alleged that Munir traveled to London after his firing and met with Nawaz Sharif—the former Pakistani Prime Minister who, by late 2019, was living in self-imposed exile in London after being permitted to leave Pakistan for medical treatment in the middle of a corruption sentence. According to Khan, that meeting marked the beginning of what he would later, from prison, call “the London Plan,” an alleged understanding between Munir, Sharif, and members of Pakistan’s senior judiciary under which Munir would be elevated to army chief in exchange for the political and judicial dismantling of Khan’s government and his party. Munir was appointed army chief on November 24, 2022, in a process that was widely reported to have involved extensive consultations with Nawaz Sharif. Within months of the appointment, Khan was arrested and convicted in a series of corruption, contempt, and national security cases, which have repeatedly fallen apart under scrutiny, only to be replaced with new charges. Sharif returned to Pakistan in October 2023; the bulk of his outstanding convictions were vacated within weeks. By February 2024, his younger brother, Shehbaz Sharif, was again prime minister, and Munir was the most powerful figure in the country. Khan remains in prison and this month three Islamabad High Court judges, Mohsin Akhtar Kayani, Babar Sattar, and Saman Rafat Imtiaz, were transferred out of the capital and into provincial high courts in Lahore, Peshawar, and Karachi, scattering the bench that had been hearing his appeals. Stopping China For most of the past decade, Pakistan’s relationship with China stood as the one constant in its foreign policy. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, launched in 2015 as the flagship of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, brought tens of billions of dollars in highways, power plants and port infrastructure to a country that had struggled to attract foreign investment. Senior officials in Islamabad described the relationship in language reserved for no other partner, calling it “all-weather,” and “deeper than the deepest sea.” Under Munir, that relationship has slowed almost to a halt. Of the roughly 90 projects originally envisioned under CPEC, only 38 have been completed. Twenty-three remain under construction. About a third have not been started. The last major project to be delivered, the Gwadar East Bay Expressway, was finished in 2022. No flagship project has been added to the pipeline since. ML-1, the upgrade of Pakistan’s main north-south rail line and once the centerpiece of CPEC’s planned second phase, has been deferred repeatedly. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif left Beijing empty-handed after a 2024 visit intended to secure new funding. Pakistan’s unpaid dues to Chinese power producers have ballooned into a recurring source of friction. Beijing’s ambassador in Islamabad, Jiang Zaidong, took the unusual step of using a public seminar in 2024 to accuse the Pakistani state of failing to protect Chinese workers, 21 of whom have been killed in attacks since CPEC’s launch. The relationship was even colder behind the scenes. In 2024, Drop Site News reported that Pakistan had given Beijing private assurances it would permit China to convert the deep-water port at Gwadar into a permanent Chinese military facility, a longstanding ambition by Beijing that Pakistan had declined for more than a decade. According to classified Pakistani military documents reviewed by Drop Site News, Pakistani negotiators presented Beijing with a list of demands in exchange for that base. They asked China to indemnify Pakistan against any U.S. political, economic or diplomatic retaliation for hosting the facility. They also asked China to provide modernization assistance to keep Pakistan’s military and intelligence capabilities competitive with India. Most consequentially, they asked Beijing to provide Pakistan with a sea-based nuclear second-strike capability, the most sensitive element of any nuclear power’s deterrent, and a capability Pakistan has spent two decades trying to develop on its own. China refused. According to sources with knowledge of the talks, Beijing concluded that the second-strike request would amount to direct Chinese participation in nuclear proliferation in South Asia, and therefore would violate Beijing’s own nonproliferation commitments and expose China to international consequences disproportionate to the strategic value of the Gwadar facility. The Chinese side described the demand as unreasonable, and the negotiations ended on a bitter note. READ MORE: Pakistan Promised China a New Militarized Naval Base, Leaked Documents Reveal In an August 2025 interview, Munir told a journalist, “We will not sacrifice one friend for the other,” referring to Pakistan’s relationship with Washington and Beijing. However, in an effort to realign itself, Pakistani military leadership has ended up doing just that. CPEC’s second phase, which would have deepened Pakistan’s economic dependence on Beijing, was intentionally allowed to atrophy, and Chinese requests for permanent security arrangements covering its workers, a long-running Beijing demand that would have placed Chinese personnel on Pakistani soil under Chinese command, were quietly deflected. These moves had more geopolitical significance for Washington than Pakistan’s participation in the Trump family’s crypto schemes, and did more to make Munir Trump’s “favorite field marshal.” Web of Alliances In September 2025, Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia committing each country to come to the other’s aid in the event of war, an agreement Khan’s government had refused to sign three years earlier. Throughout the same period, Pakistan’s new military-led government, working in close coordination with the Pentagon, set about cultivating the new Trump administration. When the Trump family moved into cryptocurrency, Islamabad followed, establishing the Pakistan Crypto Council. Within weeks of the body’s creation, the leadership of World Liberty Financial, the decentralized finance platform launched in September 2024, and majority owned by the Trump family, landed in Islamabad. The April 26 delegation was led by Zach Witkoff, the chief executive of World Liberty and son of Steve Witkoff, and included co-founders Zak Folkman and Chase Herro. By the end of the visit, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb, in presence of Field Marshal Asim Munir, had signed a memorandum committing Pakistan to route a share of its $36 billion in annual remittances through the Trump-family-owned firm’s USD1 stablecoin. When concerns about U.S. dependence on Chinese rare earth mineral supply chains became a recurring theme in administration messaging, Pakistan announced a sweeping rare earths agreement with U.S. partners. The September 2025 deal, signed by the military-run Frontier Works Organization and a Missouri-based firm called U.S. Strategic Metals, promised $500 million in American investment in exchange for Pakistani antimony, copper, tungsten, and rare earth elements. Beyond a symbolic first consignment dispatched a few weeks later, no commercial-scale shipments have moved under the deal in the months since. And when the Trump administration sought a Muslim-majority country to commit troops to its proposed international stabilization force in Gaza, the Pakistani military volunteered. Throughout this Trump presidency, Pakistan has found a way to stay relevant and in the headlines, promising much but delivering little. Despite being ceaselessly hyped by Islamabad, the current efforts at mediating an end to the war seem to have reached a familiar impasse. While Munir initially touted the idea of signing an “Islamabad Accord” that would not only put an end to the current fighting but lead to a new era of peace between Iran and the U.S. At present those efforts appear to have stalled. While Pakistan officially retains its role as a mediator, the prospects of a negotiated deal brokered by Islamabad appear more remote than they did one month prior. Meanwhile, there is increasing pressure on President Trump from pro-Israel voices in the United States to drop Pakistan as a mediator in the Iran talks and reassess Islamabad’s growing political and military proximity to the administration. Following a report by CBS News, newly purchased by pro-Israel mogul David Ellison, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) questioned Pakistan’s legitimacy as a mediator and accused it of “double-dealing” by allegedly providing safe harbor to an Iranian jet. Pakistan insists that the plane was part of the Iranian delegation, which stayed in Pakistan a few extra days in anticipation of the talks. But the denial did not stop Graham from pressing War Secretary Pete Hegseth on the matter at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday; Hegseth declined to respond. Trump was not so evasive. When the same question was put to him by a reporter later that day, he replied, “They’re great. I think the Pakistanis have been great. The field marshal and the prime minister of Pakistan have been absolutely great.” Leave a comment Share From Drop Site News via This RSS Feed.
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oh man, I can’t even deal with a TV running, let alone cable news. last time I was subjected to that was probably 7 years ago I was visiting a friend (lib) who was intently watching Zakaria, with his $300 hair it in a $4000 suit sit on a modernist barstool with one leg cocked and relaxed in front of the calming chromakeyed infinite blue horizon. he was blathering authoritatively about how Trump’s cluster bombing of some airfield in central Asia under Russian control was when Trump became “presidential” and signaled an intent for America to reclaim it’s recently lost moral authority. I spent the next minutes yelling at the TV questioning any perceived historical existence of America’s moral authority, or that such a thing could be built by bombing infrastructure on the other side of the planet. and railing against libs as warmongering for being eager to grant trump a pass for everything else, simply because he went ahead and blew some shit up to fuck with the Russians. friend complained he couldn’t hear zakeed’s “analysis” over me. I think hearing that guy’s voice kills brain cells.