"Arise, Africa, Our Motherland — Let the Earth Hear Your Song"
O Africa, cradle of kings and queens,
Your rivers shimmer with untapped dreams,
Your mountains hum with ancient songs,
Your soil, rich with the blood of the strong.
Arise from slumber, O Mother divine,
Awaken the wealth that lies in your spine —
Gold, oil, diamonds, fertile lands,
But greater still, the strength of your hands.
Let the deserts bloom and the cities rise,
Let knowledge and courage light up your skies.
No longer bow, no longer plead —
Stand firm, create, plant every seed.
Use your treasures, both seen and unseen,
For progress, for dignity, for a future pristine.
O Africa, hear destiny's drum —
Arise, our Motherland — your time has come!
By Jo Ikeji-Uju
https://afriprime.net/page...

A US Navy warship captain said the Red Sea conflict was a 'knife fight in a phone booth.' China would be way more challenging.

America's conflict with the Houthis gave the US Navy a taste of high-tempo air defense operations.

The Navy is using the conflict to inform planning for future maritime wars, like a clash with China.

One warship captain said a fight in the Pacific would be vastly different from the Red Sea battle.

The US Navy's exhausting shootout with the Iran-backed Houthis has given American military planners a clearer view into the complexities of high-tempo air defense operations.

The Red Sea conflict, now in the second month of a cease-fire, has been a heavy strain on the Navy, stressing warship crews and draining critical munitions. Though this fight has been a challenge, leaders within the service believe that it is but a taste of what a future war against China, which has far more sophisticated missiles than the Yemeni rebels, would look like.

And it's not just the missiles. Rather, it's a range of factors that would make a China confrontation significantly more difficult, but the Navy is learning key lessons from the Red Sea that it could apply to a future fight.

"In a lot of ways, the Red Sea — it's a knife fight in a phone booth," Cdr. Cameron Ingram, the commanding officer of the USS Thomas Hudner, told Business Insider aboard the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer during a recent underway in the English Channel.

"The geography is extremely tight, and that geography operating that close off of China-controlled territory would be very, very challenging," he said.

"That would be a much more long-distance fight," Ingram said. "Also, their long-range surveillance and tracking is much more advanced. Their intelligence community is much more advanced. And so there are still a lot more complexities and challenges that would make it very difficult in a China fight."

Navy warships and aircraft operating in the region have shot down many of the Houthi weapons, from drones to anti-ship missiles, in self-defense and in defense of Israel and merchant vessels. Thomas Hudner is one of America's ships with confirmed kills.

These interceptions — sometimes leveraging multimillion-dollar missiles to take down drones worth only thousands of dollars — have strained US stockpiles and raised concerns about readiness for potential future armed conflicts. In the case of China, which has been described as America's "pacing threat," naval air defense capacity is a priority; a potential conflict between the two would likely unfold primarily at sea.

China maintains a formidable arsenal of anti-ship weapons, including ballistic and cruise missiles, that are vastly more capable than what the Houthis have been employing, making it imperative that the Navy has enough interceptor missiles on hand; however, it has already expended hundreds of these battling the rebels.

Ingram said a China war would be challenging and complex for the Navy because of Beijing's advanced weaponry, long-range surveillance and tracking, and intelligence operations.

"That environment will have to be fought at a different level," he explained, adding that it would see engagements at longer distances than what the Navy experienced in the Red Sea.

Lessons learned-
The Navy has learned a great deal about air defense from the Red Sea conflict and tested by unprecedented engagements against dangerous threats such as anti-ship ballistic missiles.

Ingram spoke highly of the Aegis Combat System, which uses computers and radars to help warships track targets and intercept them. He said it has "operated probably better than most of us expected it to, as far as success rates of engagements."

The Red Sea conflict has also informed the Navy about its magazine capacity, reloading capabilities, and munitions inventory. The sea service has changed its firing policy and reconsidered the amount of ordnance warships ought to expend in attempts to neutralize a threat.

A big focus area is trying to drive down the cost ratio for air defense missions. Using a $2.1 million Standard Missile-2 to intercept a $20,000 drone isn't on the right side of that curve, but Ingram argues that it can be worth it to protect a $2 billion warship and hundreds of lives. The challenge, however, is sustainability.

The US and its NATO allies have demonstrated in the Red Sea that they can use cheaper air defense alternatives to take down the Houthi threats. American fighter jets, for instance, used guided rockets. Ingram said the Navy is working to bring the cost difference between threat and interceptor "a little bit closer to parity."

Ingram added that there is increased attention being directed at warships' five-inch deck guns, which have a much deeper magazine capacity than a destroyer's missile-launching tubes and have served as viable means of air defense in the Red Sea.

"If I can stay in the fight longer by shooting five-inch rounds, especially at a drone, maybe I should do that and save my higher-capacity weapons systems for larger threats," he said.

Rearming is another consideration. US warships have to travel to a friendly port with the necessary supplies to get more missiles, which takes up valuable time and keeps vessels off-station for extended periods. This could be a major issue in a high-tempo Pacific conflict. However, the Navy is looking to close the gap with its reloading-at-sea capabilities.

Ingram credited the Red Sea fight as being a resounding air defense success story that could affect China's calculus and military planning. On the home front, the conflict has given the Navy more confidence in its weapons systems and accelerated the development of its tactics, techniques, and procedures.

Ingram said it's difficult to predict what the future will look like, "but I think there are a lot of things that everyone has to consider based on what the Red Sea has been over the last 18-plus months."

Tehran on Saturday blasted U.S. President Donald Trump's travel ban on countries including Iran, saying it showed "deep hostility" toward Iranians and Muslims.

"The decision to ban the entry of Iranian nationals - merely due to their religion and nationality - not only indicates the deep hostility of American decision-makers towards the Iranian people and Muslims but also violates... international law," a senior foreign ministry official said in a ministry statement posted on the X platform.

Separately, Iran on Saturday condemned new sanctions imposed by the United States targeting more than 30 individuals and entities Washington said are part of a "shadow banking" network linked to Tehran that has laundered billions of dollars through the global financial system.

"The new U.S. sanctions ..., are illegal and violate international law, and are further evidence of the deep and continuing hostility of the U.S. ruling regime towards the Iranian people," foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement carried by state media.

Trump's travel ban will bar citizens from 12 countries: Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

The ban, which Trump said was necessary to protect against "foreign terrorists", was reminiscent of a similar move he implemented during his first term in office from 2017 to 2021, when he barred travellers from seven Muslim-majority nations.

Musk Is Suddenly Groveling to Get Back in Trump's Good Graces as He Realizes He's Made a Terrible Mistake.

Billionaire Elon Musk and president Donald Trump are seething on their respective social media platforms following a major escalation of long-simmering resentment between the two.

The gloves came off this week as the two enormous egos started taking public swings at each other. Trump threw particular gasoline on the fire when he threatened that Musk's "governmental subsidies and contracts" would be terminated, posing an existential risk to Musk's business empire.

In return, Musk vowed to cut off the United States' access to space by decommissioning SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft — only to change his mind hours later.

As the Wall Street Journal reported this morning, Trump is considering selling the flashy red Tesla Model S that he got as part of Musk's dumbfounding car salesman event that took place in front of the White House earlier this year.

As the spat unfolds, a clear dynamic is emerging: Musk is realizing that he's made a terrible mistake, and is groveling to get back in Trump's good graces — an eventuality that doesn't seem to interest Trump very much as he lets Musk blow in the wind.

Sources told Reuters that Trump is "not interested in talking to Elon Musk" following their escalating feud, even though Trump says the billionaire has been trying to get in touch to bury the hatchet.

"I'm not even thinking about Elon," Trump added smugly. "He's got a problem, the poor guy's got a problem."

Before coming to his senses, Musk lobbed insults at Trump that may be legitimately unforgivable to the two-time president.

On Thursday, he even accused Trump of being "in the Epstein files," referring to the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. "That is the real reason they have not been made public."

"Mark this post for the future," he tweeted in a follow-up. "The truth will come out."

One interesting data point: many Republicans are elated at the breakup.

"He's a complete joke," one House Republican vented to Axios. "He had no idea what the f*ck he was doing, whatsoever."

"Nobody really wanted him here," the lawmaker added. "We couldn't wait to get rid of him."

Meanwhile, Trump's former advisor and fellow felon, Steve Bannon, is seemingly trying to exploit the shattered bromance to get the government to seize control over Musk's SpaceX and have him deported.

Investors in Musk's EV maker Tesla are not impressed, indicating that neither his close relationship with Trump nor his dramatic about-face is good for business. The epic temper tantrum wiped out a staggering $152 billion in market cap, sending the company's shares plummeting on Thursday, the company's biggest hit ever.

It's a dramatic explosion of a close and off-puttingly personal relationship. Just last week, Musk showed up to his farewell party at the White House with a black eye.

"He’s one of the greatest business leaders and innovators the world has ever produced," Trump said at the time. "He stepped forward to put his very great talents into the service of our nation, and we appreciate it."

Less than a week later, Trump's tone took a stunning turn.

"Elon and I had a great relationship," Trump told reporters from the Oval Office. "I don’t know if we will anymore."

President Donald Trump once accused Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky of lacking “cards” to play in his country’s years-long fight against Russia, but now he’s paying far more attention to what might be in Zelensky’s hands.

In the wake of Ukraine’s brazen, and successful, attack on multiple Russian air bases over the weekend, Trump was reportedly left marveling at the ingenuity and sheer chutzpah of Kyiv’s counteroffensive using dozens of armed drones launched from trucks traveling deep inside Russia, swarming over military airfields across the country and raining down onto nuclear-capable long-range bombers.

According to Axios, Trump has privately described it as “strong” and “badass.”

One of the president’s advisers likened the audacious move to “a chihuahua inflicting some real damage on a much bigger dog."

Dubbed Operation Spiderweb, by Ukrainian authorities, was carried out by the SBU, the secret service of Ukraine, and destroyed more than 40 such planes, a significant portion of Moscow’s strategic bombing capability.

Ukraine has claimed the attack — a homegrown operation in which drones were concealed in false compartments within lorry roofs, smuggled into Russia, then launched en masse simultaneously many thousands of miles apart – and many thousands of miles behind enemy lines — destroyed 41 Russian aircraft, causing $7 billion worth of damage to long-range bombers that carried the cruise missiles Putin has been using against Ukraine.

The president’s laudatory characterization of the Ukrainian attack on the Russian bombers tracks previous reporting by The Independent on Trump’s uncharacteristic silence in the days between the drone strikes and his call with Putin.

People close to him have suggested that worldview, forged in the days of Cold War-era nuclear tensions between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., has long led Trump to Russia as a strong country and Putin as a strong leader — a “winner,” in his own parlance.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday inaugurated one of the most ambitious railway projects ever built in India, which will connect the Kashmir Valley to the vast Indian plains by train for the first time.

Dubbed by government-operated Indian Railways as one of the most challenging tracks in the world, the 272-kilometer (169-mile) line begins in the garrison city of Udhampur in Jammu region and runs through Indian-controlled Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar. The line ends in Baramulla, a town near the highly militarized Line of Control dividing the Himalayan region between India and Pakistan.

The line travels through 36 tunnels and over 943 bridges. The Indian government pegged the total project cost at around $5 billion.

One of the project’s highlights is a 1,315-meter-long (4,314-foot) steel and concrete bridge above the Chenab River connecting two mountains with an arch 359 meters (1,177 feet) above the water. Indian Railways compared the height to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, which stands 330 meters (1,082 feet), and said the bridge is built to last 120 years and endure extreme weather, including wind speeds up to 260 kph (161 mph).

Modi visited the Chenab bridge with tight security, waving an Indian tri-color flag before boarding a test train that passed through picturesque mountains and tunnels to reach an inauguration ceremony for another high-elevation bridge named Anji.

The prime minister also helped launch a pair of new trains called “Vande Bharat” that will halve the travel time between Srinagar and the town of Katra in Jammu to about three hours from the usual six to seven hours by road.

Modi travelled to Indian-controlled Kashmir on Friday for the first time since a military conflict between India and Pakistan brought the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of their third war over the region last month, when the countries fired missiles and drones at each other.

The conflict began with a gun massacre in late April that left 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for supporting the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied.

Addressing a public rally in Katra, Modi lashed out at Pakistan and alleged Islamabad was behind the massacre. He said the attack was primarily aimed at Kashmir’s flourishing tourism industry and meant to fuel communal violence.

“I promise you, I won’t let developmental activities stop in Kashmir,” Modi said, adding that local industries and businesses will get a boost from the new rail connectivity.

The railway project is considered crucial to boosting tourism and bringing development to a region that has been marred by militancy and protests over the years. The line is expected to ease the movement of Indian troops and the public to the disputed region, which is currently connected by flights and mountain roads that are prone to landslides.

India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India insists the Kashmir militancy is Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, a charge Islamabad denies. Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

On June 4, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump reportedly posted and deleted a Truth Social post about a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Numerous claims said the post appeared to show Trump revealing he spoke to Putin about Ukraine's recent drone attacks on Russian aircraft.

A number of X claims said Trump deleted the following Truth Social post about his phone call with Putin, while others noted that he deleted and then reposted the message.

Trump did indeed make the above statement on Truth Social and subsequently delete it. Around an hour after deleting the post, he posted it again. As such, we rate this claim as true.

We found evidence of the deleted post on Trump's Truth and Roll Call. Both websites have dedicated archives of Trump's Truth Social account.

Trump and Putin's call occurred after Ukraine carried out a drone attack on Russian airfields, destroyed warplanes, on June 1. Per the above post, Trump warned of Putin's response to Ukraine's attack and said their phone conversation would not lead to immediate peace. According to Trump, Putin also said he would participate in discussions with Iran on their nuclear weapons. According to the BBC, Russian officials declined to confirm the country's response to Ukraine's drone attack.

Trump Is Bleeding Hundreds of Millions Thanks to Musk’s War.

The explosion of Donald Trump’s once-cozy friendship with Elon Musk is hitting them hard where it hurts most—in the pocketbook.

As reported Thursday, Musk’s personal fortune was cut by $26.6 billion after Tesla shares slumped by more than 14 percent, wiping a mind-boggling $150 billion off the EV giant’s market value.

But Trump isn’t escaping unscathed. According to Axios, Trump Media & Technology Group stock declined 8 percent, while his MAGA-fueled $TRUMP cryptocurrency tumbled 12 percent—bleeding him of more than a billion dollars.

The website reported that the 8 percent dip in Trump Media & Technology Group cost the president around $202 million.

‘He’s a bulldog’: the man behind the success of Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb.

It was unsurprising to those who know Vasyl Malyuk, the head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), that his statement announcing the success of Operation Spiderweb had a certain physicality to it.

The audacious drone attacks on distant bases hosting Russia’s strategic bombers was “a serious slap in the face to Russia’s power”, said Malyuk, 42, a sometime boxer and weightlifter. “Our strikes will continue as long as Russia terrorises Ukrainians with missiles and Shahed drones.”

Shaven-headed and with the physique and bearing of a stereotypical nightclub bouncer, Malyuk has led the SBU since the former holder of the office Ivan Bakanov, a childhood friend of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was fired in 2022 for apparent incompetence. Malyuk had been his deputy.

There have been high-profile successes over the last three years. One stunt – a photograph of Malyuk holding a bruised Dmitry Kozyura, the head of the SBU’s counter-terrorism department, by the scruff of the neck at the time of his arrest on suspicion of being a Russian double agent – attracted the coverage for which it was designed.

When Zakhar Prilepin, a Russian paramilitary leader, survived a suspected SBU sponsored assassination attempt, one of a series targeting Ukrainian foes at the time, Malyuk made headlines by commenting that Prilepin’s “pelvis and legs were severely injured, and, sorry, he lost his genitals”. “Therefore, it is God’s will that he continue to live and enjoy life”, he added drily.

Meanwhile, Sea Baby marine drones, the SBU’s own invention, are credited with striking 11 Russian military ships and pushing the Black Sea fleet “all the way to Novorossiysk”.

Though none of this compares to the global attention drawn by the 1 June attacks that were said to have been masterminded by Malyuk.

“I am confident that the SBU operations led by Vasyl Malyuk will be the subject of books and films,” said one SBU officer on condition of anonymity. “Because compared to what the security service is doing now, Hollywood is nervously smoking on the sidelines.”

The number of Russian aircraft permanently put out of action by the attack on four bases on Sunday is disputed, with Ukraine claiming to have destroyed 41. US intelligence officials suggest that 10 combat aircraft were destroyed and up to 20 damaged.

Whatever the physical cost, the footage of the 117 drones flying out from the top of lorries to strike deep into Russia, and without the aid of western weaponry, has struck a psychological blow.

Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, Sergiy Kyslytsya, claimed it had “changed the paradigm and dynamics” of the faltering peace talks with Russia in Istanbul on Tuesday. It was followed by a massive underwater blast targeting the key road and rail bridge connecting the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula to Russia, damaging its supports.

The attacks were serious enough for Vladimir Putin to inform Donald Trump in a transatlantic call that he would “respond”. Four people in Kyiv were killed in the early hours of Friday morning after that vengeance was delivered in the form of a heavy barrage and drone attack on the capital.

So who is the security chief who has got Putin’s attention?

“He’s a bulldog,” said one senior Ukrainian official who has worked closely with Malyuk. “He isn’t an intellectual, he doesn’t reflect, or hesitate. He is purposeful.”

Ukraine’s shock drone strike on Russia’s strategic bomber fleet this week has generals and analysts taking a new look at threats to high-value United States aircraft at bases in the homeland and abroad – and the situation is worrisome.

“It’s an eyebrow-raising moment,” Gen. David Allvin, the US Air Force chief of staff, said at a defense conference in Washington on Tuesday, adding that the US is vulnerable to similar attacks.

“There is no sanctuary even in the US homeland – particularly given that our bases back home are essentially completely unhardened,” Thomas Shugart, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), told CNN.

By “unhardened,” Shugart means there aren’t enough shelters in which US warplanes can be parked that are tough enough to protect them from airstrikes, be it from drones or missiles.

Ukrainian military officials said 41 Russian aircraft were hit in last Sunday’s attacks, including strategic bombers and surveillance planes, with some destroyed and others damaged.

Later analysis shows at least 12 planes destroyed or damaged, and reviews of satellite imagery were continuing.

The Ukrainian operation used drones smuggled into Russian territory, hidden in wooden mobile houses atop trucks and driven close to four Russian air bases, according to Ukrainian sources.

Once near the bases, the roofs of the mobile houses were remotely opened, and the drones deployed to launch their strikes.

The Russian planes were sitting uncovered on the tarmac at the bases, much as US warplanes are at facilities at home and abroad.

“We are pretty vulnerable,” retired US Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday.

“We’ve got a lot of high-value assets that are extraordinarily expensive,” McChrystal said.

The Ukrainians said their attacks destroyed $7 billion worth of Russian aircraft. By comparison, a single US Air Force B-2 bomber costs $2 billion. And the US has only 20 of them.

Shugart co-authored a report for the Hudson Institute in January highlighting the threat to US military installations from China in the event of any conflict between the superpowers.

“People’s Liberation Army (PLA) strike forces of aircraft, ground-based missile launchers, surface and subsurface vessels, and special forces can attack US aircraft and their supporting systems at airfields globally, including in the continental United States,” Shugart and fellow author Timothy Walton wrote.

War game simulations and analyses show “the overwhelming majority of US aircraft losses would likely occur on the ground at airfields (and that the losses could be ruinous),” Shugart and Walton wrote.

A report from Air and Space Forces magazine last year pointed out that Anderson Air Force Base on the Pacific island of Guam – perhaps the US’ most important air facility in the Pacific – which has hosted rotations of those $2 billion B-2 bombers, as well as B-1 and B-52 bombers, has no hardened shelters.

Allvin, the USAF chief of staff, admitted the problem on Tuesday.

“Right now, I don’t think it’s where we need to be,” Allvin told a conference of the CNAS.

McChrystal said the US must look at how to protect its bases and the aircraft on them but also how it monitors the areas around those facilities.

“It widens the spectrum of the threats you’ve got to deal with,” McChrystal said.

The cost of ‘playing defense’
But all that costs money, and Allvin said that presents the US with a budget dilemma.

Does it spend defense dollars on hardened shelters and ways to stop drones and missiles from attacking US bases, or does it use more resources on offensive weapons that take the fight to the enemy?

“If all we are doing is playing defense and can’t shoot back, then that’s not a good use of our money,” Allvin told the CNAS conference.

“We’ve always known that hardening our bases is something we needed to do,” Allvin said, but other items have been given budget priority.

Hardened aircraft shelters aren’t flashy and are unlikely to generate the headlines of other defense projects, including planes like the new B-21 bombers, each of which is expected to cost around $700 million.

And US President Donald Trump said recently the Air Force will build a new stealth fighter, the F-47, with an initial cost of $300 million per aircraft.

“The F-47 is an amazing aircraft, but it’s going to die on the ground if we don’t protect it,” Allvin said.

Meanwhile, a hardened shelter costs around $30 million, according to Shugart and Walton.

US issues new Iran-related sanctions targeting over 35 entities.

The United States has issued a new round of Iran-related sanctions targeting 10 individuals and 27 entities, according to a post on the US Treasury Department website on Friday.

The sanctioned entities have ties to the "Shadow Banking Network," which is involved in money laundering on behalf of Iran, according to a State Department press release.

The network has laundered billions of dollars through Iranian exchange houses and foreign front companies, according to the release.

The Zarringhalam brothers and their associates used front companies based in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong to help certain Iranians generate revenue from the sale of petroleum and other commodities used to build nuclear weapons.

At the same time, the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Department updated an advisory to provide information on forms of illegal financing, as well as red flags associated with Iranian oil smuggling, shadow banking, and procurement of weapons and dual-use components.

The sanctions, which also target some entities in the United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong, come as US President Donald Trump's administration is working to get a new nuclear deal with Tehran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Friday that Iran will respond to the American proposal in the coming days.

This follows a Wall Street Journal report alleging that Iran ordered thousands of tons of ballistic missile ingredients from China to rebuild its nuclear and military capabilities.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson denied knowledge of the deal in a statement, asserting that China has “always exercised strict control over dual-use items in accordance with China’s export control laws and regulations and its international obligations.”

NATO's dilemma: how Zelenskiy can attend summit without provoking Trump.

Officials organising a NATO summit in The Hague this month are expected to keep it short, restrict discussion of Ukraine, and choreograph meetings so that Volodymyr Zelenskiy can somehow be in town without provoking Donald Trump.

Though the Ukrainian president is widely expected to attend the summit in some form, NATO has yet to confirm whether he is actually invited. Diplomats say he may attend a pre-summit dinner but be kept away from the main summit meeting.

Whether the brief summit statement will even identify Russia as a threat or express support for Ukraine is still up in the air.

The careful steps are all being taken to avoid angering Washington, much less provoking any repeat of February's White House blow-up between Trump and Zelenskiy that almost torpedoed the international coalition supporting Kyiv.

NATO's European members, who see Russia as an existential threat and NATO as the principal means of countering it, want to signal their continued strong support for Ukraine. But they are also desperate to avoid upsetting a volatile Trump, who stunned them at a summit seven years ago by threatening to quit the alliance altogether.

If Zelenskiy does not attend in some form, it would be "at least a PR disaster", acknowledged a senior NATO diplomat.

Since Russia's invasion three years ago, Zelenskiy has regularly attended NATO summits as the guest of honour, where alliance members pledged billions in weapons and condemned Russia for an illegal war of conquest. Leaders repeatedly promised that Ukraine would one day join NATO.

But since Washington's shift under Trump towards partly accepting Russia's justifications for the war and disparaging Zelenskiy, the 32-member alliance no longer speaks with a single voice about Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two. Trump has taken Ukraine's NATO membership off the table, unilaterally granting Moscow one of its main demands.

After dressing down Zelenskiy in the Oval Office in February, Trump cut vital U.S. military and intelligence support for Ukraine for days.

Since then, the two men publicly mended fences in a meeting in St Peter's Basilica for the funeral of Pope Francis. But mostly they have spoken remotely, with Zelenskiy twice phoning the White House on speakerphone while surrounded by four friendly Europeans -- Britain's Keir Starmer, France's Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Friedrich Merz and Poland's Donald Tusk.

SPENDING BOOST-
Trump is expected to come away from The Hague with a big diplomatic victory as NATO members heed his longstanding complaints that they do not spend enough on defence and agree a much higher target.

They are expected to boost their goal for traditional military spending to 3.5% of economic output from 2%. A further pledge to spend 1.5% on related expenses such as infrastructure and cyber defence would raise the total to 5% demanded by Trump.

But the summit itself and its accompanying written statement are expected to be unusually short, minimising the chances of flare-ups or disagreements. A pledge to develop recommendations for a new Russia strategy has been kicked into the long grass.

Meanwhile, Zelenskiy may have to be content with an invitation to a pre-summit dinner, hosted by Dutch King Willem-Alexander, diplomats say.

Unlike at NATO’s previous two annual summits, the leaders do not plan to hold a formal meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Council, the official venue for talks between the alliance and Kyiv. The senior NATO diplomat said a working dinner with either foreign ministers or defence ministers could instead serve as an NUC.

'PROPERLY REPRESENTED'
On Wednesday, NATO boss Mark Rutte said he had invited Ukraine to the summit, but sidestepped a question on whether the invitation included Zelenskiy himself.

After meeting Rutte on Monday, Zelenskiy said on X that it was "important that Ukraine is properly represented" at the summit. "That would send the right signal to Russia," he said.

U.S. and Ukrainian officials did not reply to questions about the nature of any invitation to Ukraine.

Some European countries are still willing to say in public that they hope to see Zelenskiy invited as the head of the Ukrainian delegation.

Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur said he would like to see a "delegation led by President Zelenskiy". Asked about an invitation for Zelenskiy, German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said "I, for my part, strongly welcome the invitation" without giving further details.

But diplomats have tried to play down the importance of the formal status of Zelenskiy's role: "Many allies want to have Zelenskiy at the summit, but there is flexibility on the precise format that would allow his presence," said a second senior NATO diplomat.

A senior European diplomat said: "We should not get stuck on ‘NUC or no NUC’. If he comes to the leaders’ dinner, that would be the minimum."

'He will not return alive': Hamas publishes new threat on hostage Matan Zangauker.

The Gazan terror group has previously killed hostages in response to nearby IDF operations.

Hamas military spokesperson Abu Obeida said that the IDF is besieging the area where Israeli hostage Matan Zanguaker is being held and that its operations are endangering his life, in an announcement on Telegram on Saturday.

"Urgent warning to those concerned... The occupation forces are besieging a place where the Zionist prisoner 'Matan Zangauker' is being held. We unequivocally affirm that the enemy will not be able to recover him alive. If this prisoner is killed during an attempt to free him, the occupation army will be responsible for his death, after we preserved his life for a year and eight months. He who warns is excused...," the statement read.

The IDF said there were no current operations attempting to rescue Matan.

Hamas's execution of hostages
The Gazan terror group previously murdered the "Beautiful Six" in response to IDF operations near where they were being held.The bodies of hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Ori Danino were recovered from a tunnel in Rafah.

"Netanyahu and the occupation army alone bear full responsibility for the deaths of the prisoners. They deliberately obstructed any prisoner exchange deal for their own narrow interests, and furthermore, intentionally killed dozens of prisoners through direct airstrikes," Obaida said at the time. "Let it be clear to everyone that, following the incident in Nuseirat, new instructions have been issued to the Mujahideen tasked with guarding the prisoners. These instructions outline how to handle the situation if the occupation army approaches the location where the prisoners are being held."

The Nuseirat incident refers to Operation Arnon, in which four hostages were rescued from the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza, which led to the deaths of at least 100 people, according to IDF estimates, and nearly 300, according to Hamas estimates.

The rescued hostages were Noa Argamani, 26; Andrey Kozlov, 27; Almog Meir Jan, 21; and Shlomi Ziv, 40.

The war mongers at work. Fight your war and don't call America. EU and NATO agreed not to extend to it's borders but Britain, France and Germany forced Russian border countries to join EU and NATO.
Russia is at war with Britain, the US is no longer a reliable ally and the UK has to respond by becoming more cohesive and more resilient, according to one of the three authors of the strategic defence review.

Fiona Hill, from County Durham, became the White House’s chief Russia adviser during Donald Trump’s first term and contributed to the British government’s strategy. She made the remarks in an interview with the Guardian.

“We’re in pretty big trouble,” Hill said, describing the UK’s geopolitical situation as caught between “the rock” of Vladimir Putin’s Russia and “the hard place” of Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable US.

Hill, 59, is perhaps the best known of the reviewers appointed by Labour, alongside Lord Robertson, a former Nato secretary general, and the retired general Sir Richard Barrons. She said she was happy to take on the role because it was “such a major pivot point in global affairs”. She remains a dual national after living in the US for more than 30 years.

“Russia has hardened as an adversary in ways that we probably hadn’t fully anticipated,” Hill said, arguing that Putin saw the Ukraine war as a starting point to Moscow becoming “a dominant military power in all of Europe”.

As part of that long-term effort, Russia was already “menacing the UK in various different ways,” she said, citing “the poisonings, assassinations, sabotage operations, all kinds of cyber-attacks and influence operations. The sensors that we see that they’re putting down around critical pipelines, efforts to butcher undersea cables.”

The conclusion, Hill said, was that “Russia is at war with us”. The foreign policy expert, a longtime Russia watcher, said she had first made a similar warning in 2015, in a revised version of a book she wrote about the Russian president with Clifford Gaddy, reflecting on the invasion and annexation of Crimea.

“We said Putin had declared war on the west,” she said. At the time, other experts disagreed, but Hill said events since had demonstrated “he obviously had, and we haven’t been paying attention to it”. The Russian leader, she argues, sees the fight in Ukraine as “part of a proxy war with the United States; that’s how he has persuaded China, North Korea and Iran to join in”.

Putin believed that Ukraine had already been decoupled from the US relationship, Hill said, because “Trump really wants to have a separate relationship with Putin to do arms control agreements and also business that will probably enrich their entourages further, though Putin doesn’t need any more enrichment”.

India and five central Asian countries have expressed interest in joint exploration of rare earths and critical minerals, they said in a joint statement on Friday after the fourth meeting of the India-Central Asia Dialogue, held in New Delhi.

The announcement comes amid global alarm over China's decision to curb exports of rare earth alloys, mixtures and magnets, spooking industries ranging from automobiles and clean energy to defence.

India and the central Asian countries - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan - also called upon "relevant authorities" for an early meeting of the India-Central Asia Rare Earth Forum, which last met in September.

"The ministers also encouraged exchange of delegations to explore new areas of cooperation in critical minerals," the statement said, adding the sides had agreed to hold their next meeting in 2026.

Rare earths are a group of 17 elements whose most key uses include creation of magnets that power motion for cars, cellphones, missiles, and other electronics.

China mines about 60% of the world's rare earths and makes 90% of rare earth magnets, but announced export restrictions on these in April as part of its sweeping response to U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.

India is holding talks with companies to establish long-term stockpiles of rare earth magnets by offering fiscal incentives for domestic production, as it looks to reduce dependence on shipments from China, Reuters had reported on Thursday.

The South Asian nation also plans to launch incentives for recycling 24 critical minerals - a plan that is in the final stages of approval - as it looks to secure the minerals needed for green energy transition.

Elon Musk has hit back at Steve Bannon after the longtime MAGA hardliner called on President Donald Trump to “seize” SpaceX.

Following this week’s nuclear fall-out between Trump and top campaign donor Musk—who until last week was also one of the president’s most important advisers—Bannon slammed Musk’s government cost-cutting efforts and called for him to be deported.

During Thursday’s episode of his War Room podcast, he also referred to a social media exchange between the former allies in which Trump threatened to cancel Musk’s government contracts, and Musk responded that SpaceX would “begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately.

“When he threatens to take one of the big programs out of SpaceX, President Trump tonight should sign an executive order calling for the Defense Production Act to be called and seize SpaceX tonight before midnight,” Bannon said.

Generally speaking, the 1950 act doesn’t give the government the power to “seize” companies. Instead, it allows the president to control domestic industries during emergencies by ordering companies to prioritize orders from the federal government, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The president also has the power to allocate materials, services and facilities for production, make loans or loan guarantees to companies, and prevent hoarding of necessary supplies.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have routinely used the act to place military orders, bolster domestic production of critical materials, and increase production of medical supplies during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the CFR.

Rather than point any of this out, Musk responded to Bannon by calling him a slur favored by middle-school bullies—and MAGA culture warriors.

China Makes It Clear: Trump Begged for Call With Xi...

Trump finally got his call with China.

After Trump repeatedly told Americans that it was China that was so desperate to get him on the phone to discuss a trade deal, a recent post from the Chinese Embassy all but confirms the opposite. It is Trump, not President Xi Jinping, who was sitting by the phone waiting day and night for a call that didn’t come for months.

“Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday held phone talks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the latter’s request,” China’s U.S. Embassy posted from its X account on Thursday.

The “at the latter’s request” is certainly intentional. Since “Liberation Day,” Trump has insisted that he has the leverage, that countries far and wide will be lining up, eager to kiss the ring and make a deal with us. But still, China, the Asian powerhouse that faced the most aggressive tariffs from Trump, has shirked a potential deal-making phone call with the president, halting his visions of a sweeping agreement on trade, TikTok, and fentanyl export. The administration has nudged China to initiate the call since April, but to no avail until today. If you have to call someone just to tell them to call you, who really has the leverage?

“I just concluded a very good phone call with President Xi, of China, discussing some of the intricacies of our recently made, and agreed to, Trade Deal. The call lasted approximately one and a half hours, and resulted in a very positive conclusion for both Countries.... Our respective teams will be meeting shortly at a location to be determined,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday. “During the conversation, President Xi graciously invited the First Lady and me to visit China, and I reciprocated. As Presidents of two Great Nations, this is something that we both look forward to doing. The conversation was focused almost entirely on TRADE. Nothing was discussed concerning Russia/Ukraine, or Iran.

Elon Musk continued his social media spat with Donald Trump on Thursday, June 5, digging up the president's old tweets to use his own words against him.

Musk, who is angry over the price tag of Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill," reposted one 2013 tweet in which Trump criticized Republicans for "extending the debt ceiling," adding: "Wise words."

Minutes after resurfacing Trump's old posts, the president broke his silence on how he feels about Musk's behavior.

Elon Musk's feud with President Donald Trump escalated on Thursday, June 5, as the pair continued to trade passive-aggressive barbs.

Following days of criticism about Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill" — which began almost immediately after he departed his White House position on May 30 — Musk went back into the Twitter archives to use Trump's own words against him.

In a post from January 2013, the start of President Barack Obama's second term, Trump tweeted, "I cannot believe the Republicans are extending the debt ceiling—I am a Republican & I am embarrassed!"

Musk, 53, reposted it on his social media platform, now renamed X, and added the commentary, "Wise words."

The Tesla CEO also reshared a July 2012 Trump tweet that read, "No member of Congress should be eligible for re-election if our country's budget is not balanced---deficits not allowed!"

"I couldn’t agree more!" Musk added on X.

Taiwan is offering aid to its lone Central American diplomatic ally, Guatemala, as it attempts to stave off efforts by China to win away its last remaining partners.

During a meeting Thursday with his visiting Guatemalan counterpart Bernardo Arevalo, President Lai Ching-te said the two countries would “strengthen exchanges and cooperation as well as scholarship programs for young people, provide training for high-tech and information and communication talents.so as to push forward prosperity and development.”

Arevalo identified public health, education, agriculture, technology and infrastructure as key areas where Guatemala was seeking to increase its capacity.

”In the future, we shall continue to strengthen bilateral relations based on the solid foundations built in the past,” the president said.

Such assistance is key as Taiwan attempts to hold the line against advances by China, which typically offers big-ticket items such as highways, railways and stadiums to lure away Taiwan's allies, often expecting repayment at market rates.

Winning over Taiwan's allies brings China closer to its goal of diplomatically isolating Taiwan in order to demoralize the population and aid Beijing in its goal of “peacefully unifying” with the island it claims as its own territory.

Taiwan's offerings tend to be more modest and pragmatic, largely because it is a parliamentary democracy where all such spending must be approved by the legislature. It also offers the model of a functioning democracy in a world increasingly leaning toward hardline authoritarian regimes.

Still, China has steadily reduced the number of Taiwan's diplomatic allies to just 12 after launching campaigns in the Caribbean and Central America to win over countries such as Peru.

Bannon: Musk should be ‘deported from the country immediately’

MAGA insider and former White House adviser Steve Bannon called on President Trump to investigate Elon Musk’s immigration status and deport the South African tech billionaire after the bitter implosion of the president’s relationship with Musk on Thursday.

“They should initiate a formal investigation of his immigration status because I am of the strong belief that he is an illegal alien, and he should be deported from the country immediately,” Bannon, a frequent critic of Musk, told The New York Times on Thursday.

Musk and Trump spent much of Thursday afternoon trading barbs after their dispute over Trump’s agenda-setting One Big Beautiful Bill Act erupted into a blistering public feud.

During an appearance on his “Bannon’s War Room” live webcast, Bannon continued to lob attacks at the former head of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“Elon Musk is illegal, and he’s got to go,” Bannon said. “He’s illegal? Deport immediately.”

“You’re going to ship these other people home. Let’s start with the South Africans, OK?” he added, alluding to the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

Musk, one of the largest donors to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign at roughly $250 million, was born and grew up in South Africa before he emigrated to Canada and later moved to the U.S., where he became a citizen while growing his tech empire, which includes SpaceX, the social platform X, Tesla and other endeavors.

The Washington Post reported last year that Musk worked in the country illegally before gaining citizenship, prompting questions from Bannon and others about whether Musk’s citizenship is legal.

Bannon also noted Musk’s reported drug usage as potential ammo for prompting his deportation. The New York Times reported last week that Musk’s alleged use of ketamine and other substances on the campaign trail sparked concerns in Trump circles, but Musk denied the claims.

“The drug thing is going to be investigated,” Bannon said.

Trump and Musk’s relationship began to sour in recent days as Musk lashed out over the Trump-backed megabill currently under review in Congress. Musk called it a “disgusting abomination,” while Trump pushed back and defended the bill.

Bannon said he supports Trump’s latest suggestion that Musk’s massive government contracts should be pulled.

“It needs dramatic action. I would pull all the contracts immediately,” Bannon said.

He also blasted Musk’s abrupt and abrasive attacks against Trump, which escalated Thursday to a series of accusatory posts on his X platform that attempted to link Trump to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and claim credit for Trump’s election win.

“President Trump empowered him more than anyone has ever been empowered in this government, had his back, promoted this guy, even when people like me said, ‘You’re making a mistake. This is a bad guy. He’s going to turn on you. He’s not with us. He’s also totally incompetent,'” Bannon said on War Room. “Then as soon as President Trump comes out today, and President Trump saying it in the nicest way possible about the bill … the guy gets up and starts tweeting the most vicious stuff you can tweet.”

Three of President Donald Trump's top aides will face their Chinese counterparts in London on Monday for talks to resolve a trade dispute between the world's two largest economies that has kept global markets on edge.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will represent Washington in the talks, said Trump, who announced the talks in a post on his Truth Social platform but provided no more details.

It was not immediately clear who would represent China. The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for more details.

"The meeting should go very well," Trump wrote.

The scheduling of the meeting comes a day after Trump spoke to Chinese President Xi Jinping in a rare leader-to-leader call amid weeks of brewing trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals.

Trump and Xi agreed to visit one another and asked their staffs to hold talks in the meantime.

Both countries are under pressure to relieve tensions, with the global economy under pressure over Chinese control over the rare earth mineral exports of which it is the dominant producer and investors more broadly anxious about Trump's wider effort to impose tariffs on goods from most U.S. trading partners. China, meanwhile, has seen its own supply of key U.S. imports like chip-design software and nuclear plant parts curtailed.

The countries struck a 90-day deal on May 12 in Geneva to roll back some of the triple-digit, tit-for-tat tariffs they had placed on each other since Trump's January inauguration.

U.S. and Chinese officials traded barbs at a celebration held by a U.S. business chamber in Shanghai on Friday, as the chamber appealed to both countries to provide more certainty to American businesses operating in China.

Scott Walker, consul general of U.S. consulate in Shanghai, told a gathering of U.S. businesses aimed at celebrating the 110th anniversary of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Shanghai that the U.S.-China economic relationship had been unbalanced and non-reciprocal "for far too long."

"We want an end to discriminatory actions and retaliation against U.S. companies in China," he said.

In a speech that directly followed Walker's, Chen Jing, a Shanghai Communist Party official who is also the president of the Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, countered Walker's view.

"I believe the consul general's view is prejudiced, ungrounded and not aligning with the phone call of our heads of states last night," he said.

The interaction reflects the continued strained relationship between both countries as the trade war continues to simmer.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke over a long anticipated call on Thursday, confronting weeks of brewing trade tensions and a battle over critical minerals. Trump later said they agreed to further talks.

It came in the middle of a dispute between Washington and Beijing in recent weeks over "rare earths" minerals that threatened to tear up a fragile truce in the trade war between the two biggest economies.

The countries struck a 90-day deal on May 12 to roll back some of the triple-digit, tit-for-tat tariffs they had placed on each other since Trump's January inauguration but the deal has not addressed broader concerns that strain the relationship and Trump has accused China of violating the agreement.

Eric Zheng, president of AmCham Shanghai which counts over 1,000 companies among its membership, told reporters on the sidelines of the event that many companies had put their decision-making on pause due to the uncertainty.

"People are looking for some more definitive, durable statements on both sides that enable businesses to feel more secure," he said.

"Our number one ask from the two governments is to give us some certainty so that we can plan accordingly."

China and France have agreed to resolve their trade disputes through dialogue, China's foreign ministry said on Friday, though there was no indication that agreement had been reached in talks on lifting Chinese levies on European brandy.

Talks to resolve the cognac dispute accelerated this week with China's commerce minister Wang Wentao meeting his French counterpart in Paris on the sidelines of an OECD conference, and technical talks on the matter taking place in Beijing.

The latest round of negotiations have raised hopes of a settlement, two industry sources with knowledge of the discussions said.

"The two sides have reached consensus on resolving economic and trade issues through dialogue and consultation", the Chinese foreign ministry said after a call between the Chinese and French foreign ministers.

Chinese anti-dumping measures that applied duties of up to 39% on imports of European brandy - with French cognac bearing the brunt - have strained relations between Paris and Beijing.

The brandy duties were enforced days after the European Union took action against Chinese-made electric vehicle imports to shield its local industry, prompting France's President Emmanuel Macron to accuse Beijing of "pure retaliation".

The Chinese duties have dented sales of brands including LVMH's Hennessy, Pernod Ricard's Martell and Remy Cointreau.

Beijing was initially meant to make a final decision on the duties by January, but extended the deadline to April and then again to July 5.

China is seeking to strengthen trade ties with the 27-member bloc as relations with the United States have soured in the escalating trade war.

"France will not compromise on ... the protection of its industries, such as cognac," French trade minister Laurent Saint-Martin said after talks with Wang on Wednesday.

Chinese officials, meanwhile, signalled to industry officials during three rounds of technical meetings in Beijing this week they wanted to settle the matter, one of the sources said, but added some sticking points remained.

With annual imports of around $1.7 billion last year, China is the French brandy industry's most important measured by value and the second-largest by volume after the United States.

China is taking further steps towards high seas boarding of fishing boats in the Pacific for the first time, risking tensions with Taiwanese fleets and U.S. Coast Guard vessels that ply the region, Pacific Islands officials told Reuters.

The Chinese Coast Guard demonstrated the capabilities of one of its largest ships, used to enforce maritime law in the Taiwan Strait, to Pacific Island ministers last week. It is also actively involved in debates on the rules of high seas boarding, according to documents and interviews with Pacific fisheries officials.

The fisheries officials said it was anticipated China will soon begin patrols in a "crowded" fisheries surveillance space.

"Hosting the leaders, demonstrating their capabilities in terms of maritime operations, those kind of things are indications they want to step into that space," said Allan Rahari, director of fisheries operations for the Forum Fisheries Agency, in an interview with Reuters.

The agency runs enforcement against illegal fishing for a group of 18 Pacific Island countries, with assistance from navy and air force patrols by Australia, the United States, France and New Zealand.

The biggest fishing fleets in the Pacific, attracting the most infringement notices by inspectors, are Chinese and Taiwanese.

But China is also the largest fisheries partner to some Pacific Island countries, and Rahari said agreements for Chinese coast guard patrols in coastal waters could be struck under security deals with these countries.

China registered 26 coast guard vessels with the Western & Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in 2024 for high seas boarding and inspections in a vast region where the U.S. and Australia have the biggest inspection fleets.

The U.S. in recent days suspended licenses for nuclear equipment suppliers to sell to China's power plants, according to four people familiar with the matter, as the two countries engage in a damaging trade war.

The suspensions were sent to companies by the U.S. Department of Commerce, the people said, and affect export licenses for parts and equipment used with nuclear power plants.

Nuclear equipment suppliers are among a wide range of companies whose sales have been restricted over the past two weeks as the U.S.-China trade war shifted from negotiating tariffs to throttling each other's supply chains. It is unclear whether a Thursday call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping would affect the suspensions.

The U.S. and China agreed on May 12 to roll back triple digit, tit-for-tat tariffs for 90 days, but the truce between the two biggest economies quickly went south, with the U.S. claiming China reneged on terms related to rare earth elements, and China accusing the U.S. of "abusing export control measures" by warning that using Huawei Ascend AI chips anywhere in the world violated U.S. export controls. On Friday, Trump said U.S. and Chinese officials would meet again on June 9.

The U.S. Department of Commerce did not respond to a request for comment on the nuclear equipment restrictions. On May 28, a spokesperson said the department was reviewing exports of strategic significance to China.

"In some cases, Commerce has suspended existing export licenses or imposed additional license requirements while the review is pending," the spokesperson said in a statement.

U.S. nuclear equipment suppliers include Westinghouse and Emerson.

Westinghouse, whose technology is used in over 400 nuclear reactors around the world, and Emerson, which provides measurement and other tools for the nuclear industry, did not respond to requests for comment.

Tech mogul Elon Musk offered a modest sign of peace toward the White House late Thursday after an all-out social media war with his ally, President Trump.

The peace signal was small and came in the form of a reply to an post on the social platform X by Bill Ackman, the CEO of Pershing Square and an ally of both men who has sought to cool tensions on the right on various issues before.

Musk posted the reply of “true” to a post by Ackman that said: “I support realDonaldTrump and elonmusk and they should make peace for the benefit of our great country. We are much stronger together than apart.”

Trump earlier in the day had ripped Musk on camera and on social media, as the man who funneled hundreds of millions to Trump’s presidential campaign unleashed a fusillade against him.

Thursday night, however, Trump was quiet, and Politico reported that White House aides were arranging a phone call between the two men Friday as an attempt to settle the waters.

But NewsNation, citing a White House official, reported that as of early Friday morning, Trump and Musk had not spoken and a phone call was not planned.

A complete reconciliation looks tougher after Thursday, when Musk called for Trump’s impeachment and insulted Trump by saying he was in the files of Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sex crimes offender.

And there were signs overnight that even if Musk was offering one positive sign with Trump, he was far from ready to make nice.

The pinned post at the top of Musk’s account on his social platform X remains a poll asking whether a third party should be started in the United States, a crystal clear sign of his antipathy toward Trump.

Russia launched a deadly mass missile and drone attack against Ukraine on Thursday night, hitting Kyiv and western regions including the cities of Ternopil and Lutsk.

At least five people were killed in the capital and a further 20 injured as multiple drones hit apartment blocks and other civilian infrastructure.

Homes, schools and government buildings were hit in Lutsk, with authorities reporting at least five people injured.

Russian cruise missiles were seen using decoy flares to evade Ukrainian air defences and bombard the city.

Three missiles were seen tearing through the dawn sky, firing off bright, white-hot flares, before exploding close to each other among apartment blocks and industrial buildings.

Another flew low over blocks of flats, shooting off decoys en route to the city centre.

Locals in Ternopil were urged to seek shelter from a high concentration of toxic substances in the air after a fire.

Ukraine said Russia fired a total of 452 projectiles, and that its air defence units shot down 406 of them.

The attacks came days after Donald Trump, the US president, said Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart, told him that he would need to respond to Ukraine’s audacious attacks on Russian airfields on Sunday.

Kyiv claimed it hit over 40 aircraft – including some of Moscow’s nuclear-capable strategic bomber fleet – in the daring operation, which saw drones released from modified shipping containers parked near four air bases deep inside Russia.

Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin press secretary, said the overnight strikes on Ukraine were carried out “in response to terrorist acts by the Kiev regime”.

Former White House chief strategist and MAGA stalwart Steve Bannon leaned into his tirade against Elon Musk after the world’s richest person got into a public feud with President Trump, warning the tech billionaire that “we’re going to go to f‑‑‑ing war.”

“The president treated him almost like a son. He invited his family to Christmas dinner. He let him sleep over. He let him walk in and out of meetings,” Bannon, an ardent skeptic of Musk, said in an interview with Politico that was published late Thursday. “The president went to the max informality to welcome this guy.”

“You’re going to tell me we should allow some f‑‑‑ing punk to sit there and say he should be impeached and [VP] JD [Vance] should step in? F‑‑‑ you, dude,” the “War Room” podcast host continued. “We’re going to go to f‑‑‑ing war, and I’m going to rip your f‑‑‑ing face off.”

Hostilities between Musk and Trump were on public display Thursday with the two men trading blows on social media after the Tesla CEO slammed the GOP-backed megabill full of the president’s legislative priorities as an “abomination.”

Trump blasted Musk during Germany Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to the White House for criticizing the “big, beautiful bill” — the massive piece of legislation currently moving through Congress.

Musk fired back at Trump on the social platform X, which he purchased in 2022, backing calls for the president to be impeached and Vice President Vance to take over as his successor. The tech mogul also accused Trump of being named in convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein’s files.

Trump threatened to cut off billions of dollars of federal contracts with Musk’s companies, while the entrepreneur wrote that he would decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft.

Bannon told Politico that he hopes White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is “drafting executive orders even as we speak [to] implement the Defense Production Act to seize both SpaceX and Starlink and put them under government management until that time that all investigations into Musk are complete.”

As the bitter implosion was unfolding earlier in the day, Bannon called for Musk’s immigration status to be investigated and for the billionaire, who was born in South Africa, to be deported.

The man picked by Beijing as the second highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism pledged adherence to the ruling Communist Party's dictates Friday during a rare face-to-face meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, state media reported.

Gyaltsen Norbu, who is rarely seen in public, met behind closed doors with Xi Jinping in Zhongnanhai, the government compound in the center of Beijing, about 3,700 kilometers (about 2,300 miles) from his home monastery of Tashilhumpo, high on the Tibetan steppe.

Gyaltsen Norbu, 35, said he would “firmly support the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and resolutely safeguard the unity of the motherland and national unity,” the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The Chinese government appointed Gyaltsen Norbu as the Panchen Lama of Tibetan Buddhism in 1995 at age 5 after followers of the Dalai Lama recognized a different boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the Panchen’s incarnation.

That boy and his family disappeared in 1995 in what the U.S. government has alleged was an abduction by the Chinese government, and the Dalai Lama, 89, has refused to recognize the Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama.

The Chinese government says Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is now a college graduate living a private life and working at a stable job, while producing no evidence.

The Chinese-appointed Panchen Lama was quoted Friday by Xinhua as saying that he would “contribute to promoting national unity and progress, systematically promote the sinicization of religion in China, and promote the modernization of Tibet."

Xi's government uses the term “sinicization” to mean that all religions including Christianity and Islam must take their orders from the Communist Party, reduce their non-Chinese aspects and limit their role in society.

Xi was quoted as telling the Chinese government's Panchen that he should continue Tibetan Buddhism’s “strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, systematically advancing the sinicization of religion in China, and promoting the modernization of Tibet.”

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement marking the 30th anniversary of the disappearance of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, saying he and his family had been abducted by the Chinese government.

“Chinese authorities should release Gedhun Choekyi Nyima immediately and stop persecuting Tibetans for their religious beliefs,” Rubio’s statement read.

The position of Panchen Lama is especially sensitive since he is expected to take part in the recognition of a new Dalai Lama and serve as his tutor, a religious process that the officially atheist Communist Party is determined to control.

The meeting Friday also reflected Xi’s focus on economic and political stability within China’s borders, where an economic slump has raised concerns of anti-government outbursts and control over minority groups is an overwhelming obsession.

China claims Tibet has been part of China for centuries, but many Tibetans say they were effectively independent for much of that time and that Beijing is now seeking to destroy their human rights, language and Buddhist culture.

The Dalai Lama fled into exile in India in 1959 after an abortive uprising against Chinese forces and has long been vilified by Beijing as a separatist. The government denies his traditional right to recognize reincarnated lamas.

If history is any guide, and there is a lot of history, the explosive new falling-out between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk is not going to end well for the former White House adviser and world’s richest man.

The political battlefield is littered with the scorched remains of some of Trump’s former allies who picked a fight with him or were on the receiving end of one.

Lawyer Michael Cohen. Political adviser Steve Bannon. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. John Bolton, John Kelly and Chris Christie, to name just a few.

“If what happened to me is any indication of how they handle these matters, then Elon is going to get decimated,” said Cohen, the former long-term Trump lawyer and fixer who once said he’d “take a bullet” for his boss. Musk, he said, "just doesn't understand how to fight this type of political guerrilla warfare."

“They're going to take his money, they're going to shutter his businesses, and they're going to either incarcerate or deport him,” Cohen said. “He's probably got the White House working overtime already, as we speak, figuring out how to close his whole damn thing down.”

Cohen had perhaps the most spectacular blowup, until now, with Trump. He served time in prison after Trump threw him under the bus by denying any knowledge of pre-election payments Cohen made to a porn actress to keep her alleged tryst with Trump quiet before the 2016 election.

Cohen felt so betrayed by Trump that he titled his memoir “Disloyal,” but the Trump administration tried to block its publication. Cohen ultimately fought back, becoming a star witness for the government in the state “hush money” case and helped get Trump convicted by a Manhattan jury.

China has signalled for more than 15 years that it was looking to weaponise areas of the global supply chain, a strategy modelled on longstanding American export controls Beijing views as aimed at stalling its rise.

The scramble in recent weeks to secure export licences for rare earths, capped by Thursday's telephone call between U.S. and Chinese leaders Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, shows China has devised a better, more precisely targeted weapon for trade war.

Industry executives and analysts say while China is showing signs of approving more exports of the key elements, it will not dismantle its new system.

Modelled on the United States' own, Beijing's export licence system gives it unprecedented insight into supplier chokepoints in areas ranging from motors for electric vehicles to flight-control systems for guided missiles.

"China originally took inspiration for these export control methods from the comprehensive U.S. sanctions regime," said Zhu Junwei, a scholar at the Grandview Institution, a Beijing-based think tank focused on international relations.

"China has been trying to build its own export control systems since then, to be used as a last resort."

After Thursday's call, Trump said both leaders had been "straightening out some of the points, having to do mostly with rare earth magnets and some other things".

He did not say whether China committed to speeding up licences for exports of rare earth magnets, after Washington curbed exports of chip design software and jet engines to Beijing in response to its perceived slow-rolling on licences.

China holds a near-monopoly on rare earth magnets, a crucial component in EV motors.

In April it added some of the most sophisticated types to an export control list in its trade war with the United States, forcing all exporters to apply to Beijing for licences.

That put a once-obscure department of China's commerce ministry, with a staff of about 60, in charge of a chokepoint for global manufacturing.