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NIGERIA JUNE 12th-
June 12th: A Day of Reflection, Resistance, and Renewal for Nigeria. #June12 #NigeriaDemocracyDay #RememberMKO #NeverForget

Remembering the Past, Reclaiming the Future-

Introduction: The Echoes of a Nation's Pain and Promise
Every nation has its defining moments—times when its soul is tested, its people are divided, and its future stands uncertain. For Nigeria, two such moments are etched deep into our national memory: the Civil War of 1967–1970 and the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election.

While the Civil War tested our unity through bullets and blood, June 12 tested our democracy through silence and betrayal. Both moments are painful reminders of what happens when power is placed above people, and when the dreams of a nation are crushed by the decisions of a few.

June 12 is not just about a stolen election; it’s about a stolen opportunity—one that still calls us to act, rebuild, and unite.

The 1993 Elections: Nigeria’s Lost Chance at Progress
The June 12, 1993 presidential election was supposed to be a turning point. Conducted after years of military dictatorship, the election saw Nigerians from all ethnic, religious, and regional backgrounds unite behind a single candidate: MKO Abiola, running under the Social Democratic Party (SDP). His running mate, Babagana Kingibe from the North, symbolized a hope for national unity beyond tribal lines.

Despite overwhelming public support and an election that observers praised as transparent, the military government under General Ibrahim Babangida annulled the results. No official reason was given. Chaos followed—protests erupted, journalists were harassed, and civil society leaders were detained.

Abiola himself was arrested in 1994 after declaring himself president. He died in prison under suspicious circumstances on July 7, 1998, just weeks before he was expected to be released. Many still believe he was murdered.

Legacy of MKO Abiola: Democracy’s Martyr
MKO Abiola’s life was one of paradox: a wealthy businessman, yet deeply connected to the poor; a devout Muslim, yet loved across religious lines. He campaigned not as a tribal leader, but as a Nigerian. His campaign slogan, "Hope 93," was more than words—it captured the aspirations of a people tired of corruption, tribalism, and poverty.

Even in detention, Abiola remained a symbol of peaceful resistance. His death became the ultimate sacrifice for a dream deferred. June 12, therefore, is not just about the man—it’s about the mission.

From Civil War to June 12: Two Different Struggles, One National Lesson
While the Civil War of 1967–70 was rooted in ethnic tensions and failed attempts at power-sharing, June 12 was about the denial of the people’s political voice. Yet both episodes remind us of key national truths:

Unity cannot be forced—it must be earned through justice and inclusion.

Democracy is fragile when it serves only the elite.

The youth, often the biggest victims of bad governance, must not be silent.

In both instances, it was ordinary Nigerians—students, workers, market women, and civil society groups—who bore the burden of change. It is still that way today.

Today’s Nigeria: Democracy Under Stress
While the country now enjoys a multi-party democratic structure, the deeper values of democracy—transparency, accountability, and people-centered governance—are still largely missing. June 12 must push us to ask hard questions:

Why do elections still feel rigged despite “modern” technology?

Why are politicians richer after office while millions remain jobless?

Why do Nigerians flee their country despite its vast potential?

Why do security agencies still brutalize citizens with impunity?

June 12 isn’t just history—it’s a warning that unless we build institutions and hold leaders accountable, we could lose everything we’ve gained.

To Nigerians in the Diaspora: Your Voice Matters More Than Ever
With over 17 million Nigerians living abroad, the diaspora is a powerful force for change. You are not just sending money—you are shaping narratives, influencing policy, and raising the standard of what Nigerians should expect from leadership.

June 12 should remind you of your responsibility:

Speak out when Nigeria is misrepresented or mistreated.

Organize, not just socially but politically, to influence elections and reforms back home.

Support movements focused on education, technology, healthcare, and youth empowerment.

Vote, participate, and hold leaders accountable—even from afar.

You are the bridge between what is and what can be.

What June 12 Demands of Us Today
Rather than simply observing June 12 with ceremonies or hashtags, let us:

Educate the next generation about the significance of this day.

Reflect on what democracy should look like in the Nigerian context.

Commit to civic participation—voting, community organizing, and policy dialogue.

Demand electoral reforms and transparent processes, especially for the 2027 elections.

Support pro-democracy movements and whistleblowers who risk everything for truth.

Conclusion: From Remembrance to Revolution of Values
June 12 is a mirror and a megaphone. It shows us where we failed, but it also shouts at us: “You can still rise!”

We must move beyond just mourning MKO Abiola. We must embody his courage, his hope, and his belief that Nigeria can be better.

Whether you’re in Enugu, Lagos, Kaduna, Johannesburg, London, or Atlanta, this is your fight too.

The democracy we celebrate today was watered with sweat, tears, and blood. The least we can do is protect it, perfect it, and pass it on stronger than we found it.

By Jo Ikeji-Uju
https://corkroo.com/
https://afriprime.net/

NIGERIA-
June 12th: A Day for Reflection and Resolve – Nigeria’s Unfinished Journey Towards Democracy and Unity.
#June12 #NigeriaDemocracyDay #RememberMKO #NeverForget

June 12th is not just a date on Nigeria’s calendar—it is a solemn reminder of a people’s unyielding hope for democracy and justice. Just like the scars left by the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970, June 12th demands national reflection and courage to build a future that heals old wounds. For Nigerians at home and abroad, this date represents both a tragedy and a triumph—a stolen mandate, a silenced voice, and yet, a powerful turning point in our democratic history.

Why June 12th Matters

On June 12, 1993, millions of Nigerians went to the polls in what is widely regarded as the freest and fairest election in the country’s history. Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola, a business mogul and philanthropist, was poised to lead the nation as president. However, the military regime under General Ibrahim Babangida annulled the results, plunging Nigeria into political turmoil.

For many Nigerians, especially in the South-West, this was more than electoral injustice—it was the suppression of a national dream. But more importantly, it sparked a pro-democracy movement that forced the military back into the barracks and birthed the Fourth Republic in 1999.

In 2018, the Nigerian government declared June 12th the official Democracy Day, replacing May 29th. This act was a long-overdue recognition of the sacrifices made in the pursuit of democratic freedom. Yet, the spirit of June 12th continues to call for more than just a holiday. It calls for national soul-searching.

Parallels With the Civil War (1967–1970)

Just like June 12th, the Nigerian Civil War was a defining chapter. It was born out of deep political mistrust, ethnic division, and failed dialogue. Over 1 million lives were lost, and while the war ended with the slogan "No victor, no vanquished," its wounds still linger.

Both events—June 12 and the Civil War—stemmed from crises of representation and inclusion. Both are reminders that Nigeria's unity must never be taken for granted, and that when justice is delayed or denied, the consequences echo across generations.

For Nigerians at Home: The Call to Action-

Nigeria’s democracy, though over two decades old, still struggles with credibility, corruption, voter apathy, and insecurity. On June 12, we must ask ourselves:

Are we living the ideals of that historic election?

Is our government truly reflective of the people’s will?

Do we treat every Nigerian, regardless of ethnicity or religion, as an equal stakeholder in the national project?

This is a time to demand accountability from leaders, to organize peacefully, and to resist tribal divisions. June 12 reminds us that democracy is not a destination—it is a fight we must renew every day.

For the Diaspora: The Role Beyond Borders

To Nigerians abroad, June 12th is not a memory left behind—it is a legacy to carry forward. You are ambassadors of Nigerian resilience and intelligence.

Whether you're in the UK, US, Canada, the UAE, Germany, or South Africa, you have the power to:

Support democratic institutions and civic education back home.

Advocate for good governance and human rights in international forums.

Invest in youth-driven innovation and development initiatives.

Challenge the narratives that paint Nigeria as a land of only corruption and chaos.

Many in the diaspora have tasted what functional governance looks like—use that perspective to challenge mediocrity and demand better for your homeland.

June 12: Not Just a Remembrance, But a Recommitment-
Let us not allow June 12th to become a ceremonial date devoid of meaning. It is a mirror to Nigeria’s past and a map to her future. It teaches us that true power lies not in government houses or military tanks, but in the collective will of a people ready to stand for justice.

Conclusion
From the gunfire of the Civil War to the silent disenfranchisement of June 12, Nigeria has walked through fire and survived. But survival is not enough—we must now thrive. Whether at home in Lagos or Kano, or abroad in Houston or London, this June 12, let us reflect, remember, and rise—together.

Because if democracy was once stolen from us, we must never again let it slip away.
And if unity was once torn apart, we must now weave it back with every choice we make.

By Jo Ikeji-Uju
https://corkroo.com/
https://afriprime.net/

A Chinese-backed militia is protecting new rare earth mines in eastern Myanmar, according to four people familiar with the matter, as Beijing moves to secure control of the minerals it is wielding as a bargaining chip in its trade war with Washington.

China has a near-monopoly over the processing of heavy rare earths into magnets that power critical goods like wind turbines, medical devices and electric vehicles. But Beijing is heavily reliant on Myanmar for the rare earth metals and oxides needed to produce them: the war-torn country was the source of nearly half those imports in the first four months of this year, Chinese customs data show.

Beijing's access to fresh stockpiles of minerals like dysprosium and terbium has been throttled recently after a major mining belt in Myanmar's north was taken over by an armed group battling the Southeast Asian country's junta, which Beijing supports.

Now, in the hillsides of Shan state in eastern Myanmar, Chinese miners are opening new deposits for extraction, according to two of the sources, both of whom work at one of the mines. At least 100 people are working day-to-night shifts excavating hillsides and extracting minerals using chemicals, the sources said.

Two other residents of the area said they had witnessed trucks carrying material from the mines, between the towns of Mong Hsat and Mong Yun, toward the Chinese border some 200km away. Reuters identified some of the sites using imagery from commercial satellite providers Planet Labs and Maxar Technologies.

Business records across Myanmar are poorly maintained and challenging to access, and Reuters could not independently identify the ownership of the mines.

The mines operate under the protection of the United Wa State Army, according to four sources, two of whom were able to identify the uniforms of the militia members.

The UWSA, which is among the biggest armed groups in Shan state, also controls one of the world's largest tin mines. It has long-standing commercial and military links with China, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace, a conflict resolution non-profit.

Details of the militia's role and the export route of the rare earths are reported by Reuters for the first time.

University of Manchester lecturer Patrick Meehan, who has closely studied Myanmar's rare earth industry and reviewed satellite imagery of the Shan mines, said the "mid-large size" sites appeared to be the first significant facilities in the country outside the Kachin region in the north.

"There is a whole belt of rare earths that goes down through Kachin, through Shan, parts of Laos," he said.

China's Ministry of Commerce, as well as the UWSA and the junta, did not respond to Reuters' questions.

Access to rare earths is increasingly important to Beijing, which tightened restrictions on its exports of metals and magnets after U.S. President Donald Trump resumed his trade war with China this year.

While China appears to have recently approved more exports and Trump has signalled progress in resolving the dispute, the move has upended global supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers and semiconductor companies.

The price of terbium oxide has jumped by over 27% across the last six months, Shanghai Metals Market data show. Dysprosium oxide prices have fluctuated sharply, rising around 1% during the same period.

CHINESE INFLUENCE-
A prominent circular clearing first appears in the forested hills of Shan state, some 30 km (18.6 miles) away from the Thai border, in April 2023, according to the satellite images reviewed by Reuters.

By February 2025 - shortly after the Kachin mines suspended work - the site housed over a dozen leaching pools, which are ponds typically used to extract heavy rare earths, the images showed.

Six km away, across the Kok river, another forest clearing was captured in satellite imagery from May 2024. Within a year, it had transformed into a facility with 20 leaching pools.

Minerals analyst David Merriman, who reviewed two of the Maxar images for Reuters, said the infrastructure at the Shan mines, as well as observable erosion levels to the topography, indicated that the facilities "have been producing for a little bit already."

At least one of the mines is run by a Chinese company using Chinese-speaking managers, according to the two mine workers and two members of the Shan Human Rights Foundation, an advocacy group that identified the existence of the operations in a May report using satellite imagery.

An office at one of the two sites also had a company logo written in Chinese characters, said one of the workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters.

The use of Chinese operators in the Shan mines and transportation of the output to China mirrors a similar system in Kachin, where entire hillsides stand scarred by leaching pools.

Chinese mining firms can produce heavy rare earth oxides in low-cost and loosely regulated Myanmar seven times cheaper than in other regions with similar deposits, said Neha Mukherjee of London-based Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. "Margins are huge."

Beijing tightly controls the technology that allows for the efficient extraction of heavy rare earths, and she said that it would be difficult to operate a facility in Myanmar without Chinese assistance.

The satellite imagery suggest the Shan mines are smaller than their Kachin counterparts but they are likely to yield the same elements, according to Merriman, who serves as research director at consultancy Project Blue.

"The Shan State deposits will have terbium and dysprosium in them, and they will be the main elements that (the miners) are targeting there," he said.

STRATEGIC TOOL-
The UWSA oversees a remote statelet the size of Belgium and, according to U.S. prosecutors, has long prospered from the drug trade.

It has a long-standing ceasefire with the junta but still maintains a force of between 30,000 and 35,000 personnel, equipped with modern weaponry mainly sourced from China, according to Ye Myo Hein, a senior fellow at the Southeast Asia Peace Institute.

"The UWSA functions as a key instrument for China to maintain strategic leverage along the Myanmar-China border and exert influence over other ethnic armed groups," he said.

Some of those fighters are also closely monitoring the mining area, said SHRF member Leng Harn. "People cannot freely go in and out of the area without ID cards issued by UWSA."

Shan state has largely kept out of the protracted civil war, in which an assortment of armed groups are battling the junta. The fighting has also roiled the Kachin mining belt and pushed many Chinese operators to cease work.

China has repeatedly said that it seeks stability in Myanmar, where it has significant investments. Beijing has intervened to halt fighting in some areas near its border.

"The Wa have had now 35 years with no real conflict with the Myanmar military," said USIP's Myanmar country director Jason Towers. "Chinese companies and the Chinese government would see the Wa areas as being more stable than other parts of northern Burma."

The bet on Shan's rare earths deposit could provide more leverage to China amid a global scramble for the critical minerals, said Benchmark's Mukherjee.

"If there's so much disruption happening in Kachin, they would be looking for alternative sources," she said. "They want to keep the control of heavy rare earths in their hands. They use that as a strategic tool."

Southern Baptists vote to endorse a ban on gay marriage-

Let me know "Wrong or Right" If not devil's work of dirty mindset.

What's a man looking in a fellow man's anus?

Southern Baptists overwhelmingly endorsed a ban on gay marriage — including a call for a reversal of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 10-year-old precedent legalizing it nationwide.

They also called for legislators to curtail sports betting and to support policies that promote childbearing.

The votes came at the gathering of more than 10,000 church representatives at the annual meeting of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

A proposed resolution says legislators have a duty to “pass laws that reflect the truth of creation and natural law — about marriage, sex, human life, and family” and to oppose laws contradicting “what God has made plain through nature and Scripture.”

A wide-ranging resolution calls for the “overturning of laws and court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, that defy God’s design for marriage and family.” A reversal of Obergefell wouldn’t in and of itself be a ban.

The resolution calls “for laws that affirm marriage between one man and one woman.”

There was no debate on the marriage resolution.

The two-day annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention began Tuesday with praise sessions and optimistic reports about growing numbers of baptisms.

But casting a pall over the gathering is the recent death of one of the most high-profile whistleblowers in the Southern Baptists’ scandal of sexual abuse.

Jennifer Lyell, a onetime denominational publishing executive who went public in 2019 with allegations that she had been sexually abused by a seminary professor while a student, died Saturday at 47. She “suffered catastrophic strokes,” a friend and fellow advocate, Rachael Denhollander, posted Sunday on X.

Friends reported that the backlash Lyell received after going public with her report took a devastating toll on her.

Several abuse survivors and advocates for reform, who previously had a prominent presence in recent SBC meetings, are skipping this year’s gathering, citing lack of progress by the convention.

Two people sought to fill that void, standing vigil outside of the meeting at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas. The pair held up signs with photos of Lyell and of Gareld Duane Rollins, who died earlier this spring and who was among those who accused longtime SBC power broker Paul Pressler of sexual abuse.

“It’s not a healthy thing for them (survivors) to be here,” said Johnna Harris, host of a podcast on abuse in evangelical ministries. “I felt like it was important for someone to show up. I want people to know there are people who care.”

The SBC Executive Committee, in a 2022 apology, acknowledged “its failure to adequately listen, protect, and care for Jennifer Lyell when she came forward to share her story.” It also acknowledged the denomination’s official news agency had not accurately reported the situation as “sexual abuse by a trusted minister in a position of power at a Southern Baptist seminary.”

SBC officials issued statements this week lamenting Lyell’s death, but her fellow advocates have denounced what they say is a failure to implement reforms.

The SBC’s 2022 meeting voted overwhelmingly to create a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse. That came shortly after the release of a blockbuster report by an outside consultant, which said Southern Baptist leaders mishandled abuse cases and stonewalled victims for years.

But the denomination’s Executive Committee president, Jeff Iorg, said earlier this year that creating a database is not a focus and that the committee instead plans to refer churches to existing databases of sex offenders and focus on education about abuse prevention. The committee administers the denomination’s day-to-day business.

Advocates for reform don’t see those approaches as adequate.

It is the latest instance of “officials trailing out hollow words, impotent task forces and phony dog-and-pony shows of reform,” abuse survivor and longtime advocate Christa Brown wrote on Baptist News Global, which is not SBC-affiliated.

In a related action, the Executive Committee will also be seeking $3 million in convention funding for ongoing legal expenses related to abuse cases.

As of Tuesday afternoon, attendance was at 10,456 church representatives (known as messengers). That is less than a quarter of the total that thronged the SBC’s annual meeting 40 years ago this month in a Dallas showdown that marked the height of battles over control of the convention, ultimately won by the more conservative-fundamentalist side led by Pressler and his allies.

That conservative consensus remains in the convention. This year’s convention will be asked to approve resolutions lamenting “willful childlessness” and calling for bans on same-sex marriage and pornography and restrictions on sports betting.

Messengers will also debate whether to institute a constitutional ban on churches with women pastors and to abolish its public-policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — which is staunchly conservative, but according to critics, not enough so.

LA protests far different from '92 Rodney King riots...

The images of cars set ablaze, protesters tossing rocks at police and officers firing nonlethal rounds and tear gas at protesters hearkens back to the last time a president sent the National Guard to respond to violence on Los Angeles streets.

But the unrest during several days of protests over immigration enforcement is far different in scale from the 1992 riots that followed the acquittal of white police officers who were videotaped beating Black motorist Rodney King.

President George H.W. Bush used the Insurrection Act to call in the National Guard after requests from Mayor Tom Bradley and Gov. Pete Wilson. After the current protests began Friday over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of 4,100 National Guard troops and 700 Marines despite strident opposition from Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Trump cited a legal provision to mobilize federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit Monday saying Trump had overstepped his authority. On Tuesday, Newsom filed an emergency motion in federal court to block the troops from assisting with immigration raids in Los Angeles.

Unlike the 1992 riots, protests have mainly been peaceful and been confined to a roughly five-block stretch of downtown LA, a tiny patch in the sprawling city of nearly 4 million people. No one has died. There's been vandalism and some cars set on fire but no homes or buildings have burned.

More than 100 people have been arrested over the past several days of protests. The vast majority of arrests were for failing to disperse, while a few others were for assault with a deadly weapon, looting, vandalism and attempted murder for tossing a Molotov cocktail.

Several officers have had minor injuries and protesters and some journalists have been struck by some of the more than 600 rubber bullets and other “less-lethal” munitions fired by police.

Outrage over the verdicts on April 29, 1992 led to nearly a week of widespread violence that was one of the deadliest riots in American history. Hundreds of businesses were looted. Entire blocks of homes and stores were torched. More than 60 people died in shootings and other violence, mostly in South Los Angeles, an area with a heavily Black population at the time.

The 1992 uprising took many by surprise, including the Los Angeles Police Department, but the King verdict was a catalyst for racial tensions that had been building in the city for years.

In addition to frustration with their treatment by police, some directed their anger at Korean merchants who owned many of the local stores. Black residents felt the owners treated them more like shoplifters than shoppers. As looting and fires spread toward Koreatown, some merchants protected their stores with shotguns and rifles.

-----------------------------------------------------------

The National Guard Was Sent to L.A. in 1992. This Is Different.

More than three decades before President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles in response to protests over immigration raids, another President called up the military to quell civil unrest in the same city. But the circumstances are very different this time around.

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush mobilized the National Guard to Los Angeles due to riots that broke out following the acquittal of white police officers who were charged with assaulting Rodney King, an unarmed Black man.

The National Guard’s deployment came at the request of California’s then-Gov. Pete Wilson and Mayor Tom Bradley, as multiple days of rioting caused extensive damage in the city and left dozens dead.

Compared to the destruction and violence in 1992, the damage resulting from the demonstrations thus far against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been minor. And President Donald Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles against the wishes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, marking the first time a President has done so without the governor’s consent in six decades.

Here’s what to know about the National Guard’s mobilization in 1992—and how it differs from the current situation.

Why was the National Guard deployed to Los Angeles in 1992?
The city of Los Angeles descended into widespread unrest on April 29, 1992, after a jury acquitted four police officers who were videotaped beating Rodney King.

Over the course of several days, more than 60 people died, while another 2,000 were injured. More than 1,000 buildings were defaced, leading to damages that amounted to some $1 billion.

Bush called up the National Guard under the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the President to deploy the typically state-controlled military force in certain situations involving invasions or insurrections, on the third day of the riots

“What followed Wednesday's jury verdict in the Rodney King case was a tragic series of events for the city of Los Angeles: Nearly 4,000 fires, staggering property damage, hundreds of injuries, and the senseless deaths of over 30 people,” Bush said in an address at the time. He went on to announce the commitment of thousands of additional troops to the city “to help restore order” at the behest of the governor and mayor, and the federalization of the National Guard.

Why is Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard different?
Demonstrations began in Los Angeles on Friday in response to immigration raids targeting undocumented workers. The Los Angeles Police Department on Saturday referred to the protests as “peaceful,” though some escalated as rocks and Molotov cocktails were thrown and cars were set on fire.

The city’s mayor, Karen Bass, downplayed the extent of the demonstrations in an interview with CNN. “This is not citywide civil unrest taking place in Los Angeles. A few streets downtown – it looks horrible,” she said, adding that people who committed acts of vandalism would be arrested and prosecuted.

But on Saturday, Trump deployed 2,000 members of the National Guard to the city. Rather than the Insurrection Act, which Bush used, he invoked Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code.

That provision allows the President to call in the National Guard in situations where authorities can't execute the country’s laws with “regular forces,” or if an invasion or rebellion is underway or there is the threat of one.

It also specifies that “orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States or, in the case of the District of Columbia, through the commanding general of the National Guard of the District of Columbia.”

Far from asking for the National Guard to be mobilized, Newsom requested that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “immediately rescind” the federal order and “return the National Guard to its rightful control by the State of California, to be deployed as appropriate when necessary.”

The governor sued Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday, claiming that the act surpassed the federal government’s authority and violated the Tenth Amendment. “Let me be clear: There is no invasion. There is no rebellion. The President is trying to manufacture chaos and crisis on the ground for his own political ends,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a Monday statement.

Bass, too, has vocally opposed the National Guard’s deployment, calling it a “chaotic escalation.”

“The fear people are feeling in our city right now is very real – it’s felt in our communities and within our families and it puts our neighborhoods at risk. This is the last thing that our city needs,” the mayor said in a Sunday post on X.

Trump further escalated the mounting tensions over the mobilization on Monday by suggesting that Newsom should be arrested over his handling of the demonstrations in Los Angeles.

U.S. Northern Command announced later in the afternoon that 700 Marines have also been deployed to the city.

Newsom criticized that move as well in a post on X, calling Trump “dictatorial.”

“U.S. Marines have served honorably across multiple wars in defense of democracy,” he wrote. “They are heroes. They shouldn't be deployed on American soil facing their own countrymen to fulfill the deranged fantasy of a dictatorial President. This is un-American.”

The dispute between Donald Trump and Elon Musk was triggered by months of intense stress on both sides, and the public battle between the U.S. president and the billionaire donor needs to stop, Musk's father told Reuters on Monday.

Trump and Musk began exchanging insults last week on social media, with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO describing the president's sweeping tax and spending bill as a "disgusting abomination".

Asked whether he thought his son had made a mistake by engaging in a public clash with the president, Errol Musk said people were sometimes unable to think as clearly as they should "in the heat of the moment."

"They've had five months of intense stress," Musk told Reuters at a conference in Moscow organised by conservative Russian tycoons.

"With all the opposition cleared and two people left in the arena, all they have ever done is get rid of everything and now they are trying to get rid of each other - well that has to stop."

Asked how it would end, he said: "Oh, it will end on a good note - very soon."

Neither the White House nor Musk could be reached for comment outside normal U.S. business hours.

Trump said on Saturday his relationship with Musk was over and that there would be "serious consequences" if the world's richest man decided to fund U.S. Democrats running against Republicans who vote for the tax and spending bill.

Musk bankrolled a large part of Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Trump named Musk to head an effort to downsize the federal workforce and slash spending.

Musk's father told reporters he was standing by his son.

"Elon is sticking to his principles but you cannot always stick to your principles in the real world," Musk's father said. "Sometimes you have to give and take."

Speaking beside sanctioned Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeyev, Musk's father praised President Vladimir Putin as a "very stable and pleasant man." He accused "fake media" in the West of projecting "complete nonsense" about Russia and for casting it as an enemy.

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."

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."

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.

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”.

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."

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.

Elon Musk escalates feud with Trump: 'Time to drop the really big bomb'

Elon Musk alleged that President Donald Trump's name is mentioned in undisclosed classified files related to the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a feud between Trump and the world's richest man devolved into deeply personal attacks.

"Time to drop the really big bomb," Musk said in a June 5 post on X. "realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!"

Trump did not respond to shouted questions from reporters about Musk’s Esptein claim following a White House event with Attorney General Pam Bondi and members of the National Fraternal Order of Police.

The White House sent USA TODAY a statement from Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt in response to the Epstein allegations. "This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted. The President is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again," Leavitt said.
Musk provided no evidence for his allegation but wrote: "Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out."

His attack came after Trump, in posts on Truth Social, threatened to end government contracts with Musk's companies and said Musk left the White House's Department of Government Efficiency because Trump asked him to leave.
After hyping up the release of declassified government files on Epstein, Bondi on Feb. 27 disclosed about 200 pages of documents that implicated no one else in Epstein's orbit other than Epstein, who died in a federal prison in 2019.

The “Epstein list,” and the scandal surrounding the multimillionaire’s exploitation of teenage girls offers plenty of red meat for partisans on the right and left. Trump and Epstein were filmed and photographed together at parties, and in 2002 he praised the wealthy businessman as a "terrific guy.”

One of the most powerful alliances in American politics appears to be over.

President Donald Trump and Elon Musk explosively sparred on their respective social media platforms Thursday – with the president floating the idea of cutting the tech billionaire’s various government contracts and Musk going nuclear at one point and saying Trump’s name was in the so-called Epstein files.

Thursday’s drama started when Trump confirmed the deterioration of his relationship with Musk, saying he was “very disappointed” in the tech billionaire after he repeatedly blasted the president’s sweeping domestic agenda bill in recent days.

“Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will anymore,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, less than one week after the two exchanged effusive praise on Musk’s last day as a special government employee.
Shortly after, Musk responded on his social media platform X that Trump could not have won the 2024 election without him – a jab that appeared to further irritate the president and significantly intensify the fight, which played out on dueling social media platforms owned by the two men.

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk said. He added: “Such ingratitude.”

Musk had initially started the public feud Tuesday, calling a mammoth GOP bill on taxes, spending cuts, energy and the border a “disgusting abomination” due to projections it will greatly increase the deficit. The bill narrowly passed the House last month and is being considered by the Senate, and the tech billionaire has made it clear he’s aiming to sink it or prompt Republican lawmakers to rewrite it significantly. Trump and Musk have not spoken since Musk’s initial outburst, multiple sources told CNN.

The back-and-forth between Trump and his megadonor, former “first buddy” and surrogate-turned-special-government-employee marked a very public breakup of a former center of power for the second Trump administration. The president had fully empowered Musk to take dramatic steps through his so-called Department of Government Efficiency to transform the size and scope of the federal government, which Musk carried out with varying levels of success. But the friendship quickly soured upon his departure as Musk railed against Trump’s most critical agenda item.

The situation further devolved through the afternoon. Trump threatened to “terminate Elon’s Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,” a move that could have devastating impacts on his businesses, and even major implications for the International Space Station.

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Chinese Web Around U.S. Military Bases Worries Americans; Is Ukraine’s ‘Shock’ Attack On Russia A Wake-Up Call For Trump?

The surprise Ukrainian drone attack on Russia, facilitated by the smuggling of drones inside trucks, has rattled the world at large. American analysts and lawmakers are now concerned that Chinese cargo ships that dock at U.S. ports could potentially carry out a similar stunt against the United States.

The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, launched the drone attacks on multiple Russian military bases on June 1 under ‘Operation Spiderweb.’ The operation involved 117 First Person View (FPV) drones that were smuggled into Russia, concealed in wooden containers with remotely operated roofs mounted on trucks.

These trucks, driven by individuals reportedly unaware of the cargo they were carrying, were positioned near the target air bases to ensure precision strikes.

Russia couldn’t have fathomed that an infiltration like that was taking place right under its nose. The strikes, meticulously planned over 18 months, humiliated Russia’s military by exposing the gaps in its intelligence architecture and the vulnerabilities in its air defenses.

Caught unaware, the Russian military sustained losses of billions of dollars. In the aftermath of the incident, several pro-Russian military bloggers said it was Russia’s Pearl Harbor, a reference to the surprise Japanese attack on the US Pearl Harbor port during World War II, that destroyed multiple US warships and aircraft.

The attack, perhaps the most significant demonstration of asymmetric warfare in recent times, will have far-reaching global repercussions. US analysts are concerned that China could replicate a similar move against America, utilizing its cargo ships that have unrestricted access to US ports, as highlighted by Newsweek in a recent report.

The report noted that lawmakers and security experts have expressed concerns over China’s state-owned shipping behemoth, COSCO Shipping, operating across US ports, despite being classified as a Chinese military enterprise by the Pentagon in January 2025.

US analysts have voiced concern that these cargo ships could be used to deploy drones, possibly hidden inside ships, to launch a preemptive strike on US ports in the event of a conflict.

COSCO is the largest state-owned shipping firm in China and a significant force in international marine logistics, with a considerable presence in important US ports, including Oakland, Long Beach, and Los Angeles, among others.

In January 2025, the House Committee on Homeland Security expressed concern about COSCO’s access to major US ports and the alleged presence of suspected Chinese Communist Party (CCP) political officers on board its ships, suggesting direct CCP influence. It warned of threats like espionage, cyber intrusion, or even sabotage by the Chinese.

The Trump administration has imposed port fees on COSCO to challenge China’s hegemony in the world’s shipbuilding industry. Additionally, the recently imposed US tariffs, including a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, have led to a sharp decline in COSCO’s shipments to American ports.

For example, the Port of Los Angeles saw a 35% plunge in cargo volume in May 2025, with COSCO and other carriers canceling transits.

Notably, a temporary US-China tariff truce last month spurred a surge in bookings, but COSCO continues to face operational challenges due to fees and reduced demand.

Despite COSCO’s reduced presence in the US, US analysts remain suspicious. Retired Navy Commander Thomas Shugart and a fellow at the Center for a New American Security said: “It is becoming borderline-insane that we routinely allow ships owned and operated by DoD-designated Chinese military companies to sit in our ports with thousands of containers onboard and under their control.”

While a Chinese attack is unlikely without an existing state of war, the presence of COSCO vessels near critical infrastructure, like the Norfolk Naval Station, raises concerns about espionage or sabotage.

It is pertinent to note that even the Ukrainian operation took 18 months of planning and intelligence gathering to achieve the desired result.

Moreover, there have been suggestive reports about China spying on US military facilities by purchasing land nearby and even infiltrating the US port infrastructure in the past, which makes the threat of a Ukraine drone-like attack more plausible to some in the US.

Chinese Spying Concerns Loom Large
Chinese ships docking at US ports have been a matter of discourse in the US for quite some time. Last year, a US Congressional investigation discovered that a Chinese business installed intelligence-gathering equipment on cranes used at US seaports, potentially enabling Beijing to spy on Americans or damage vital infrastructure.

ZPMC, a state-owned engineering company based in Shanghai, exerted pressure on American port authorities to grant remote access to its cranes, specifically those situated on the West Coast, i.e., the contiguous states of California, Oregon, and Washington.

The report, produced after a year-long research, warned that “This access could potentially be extended to other [People’s Republic of China] government entities, posing a significant risk due to the PRC’s national security laws that mandate cooperation with state intelligence agencies.”

Citing contract paperwork and testimonies from port operators, the investigation stated that “these unknown modems were believed to have been installed under the auspices of collecting usage data for the equipment.” These modems allegedly employed a covert approach to gathering data and circumventing firewalls, which could potentially disrupt port operations, even though they were unnecessary for the cranes to operate.

At the time, these findings caused alarm because about 80% of the cargo cranes in American ports are owned by ZPMC.

Transporting goods through US marine ports, which generate trillions of dollars in economic activity every year, requires ship-to-shore cranes. However, because these cranes can often be controlled remotely, anyone with access to the networks may be able to collect intelligence from ports or damage equipment.

In a hypothetical scenario, the intelligence collected through the cranes could be used to launch an ‘Operation Spiderweb’ type of operation where Chinese cargos double up as carriers of drones that go off by flicking a button on a remote.

Earlier, the White House disclosed plans to “phase out Chinese-made port equipment and fully return crane making to the United States to deal with 200 Chinese-made cranes at U.S. ports and facilities”. However, the progress of that effort under the Trump administration remains unknown.

Another prevailing concern in the United States has been the ownership of farm and commercial land near US military facilities by Chinese people and corporations.

A previous report revealed that Chinese companies purchased several farmlands close to strategic US military installations, including some of the most strategically important military installations, such as MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida; Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California; Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) in Fayetteville, North Carolina; and Fort Cavazos (formerly Fort Hood) in Killeen, Texas.

Sources suggest that under the guise of farming, Chinese landowners could potentially set up surveillance equipment or use drones to monitor military sites. According to the January 2024 data from the US Department of Agriculture, China claims 349,442 acres out of roughly 40 million acres of foreign-owned farmland, or 0.87 percent.

It does not help that Chinese nationals have sneaked into military bases and other sensitive US sites more than 100 times in recent years, as the Wall Street Journal reported in 2023. This raises a very alarming issue regarding Chinese ownership of land near military sites.

Additionally, the US National Association of Realtors (NAR) stated in a report last year that the Chinese have remained the top foreign buyers of US residential property for the 11th consecutive year.

Experts caution that, just as Ukraine’s drones targeted Russian airfields, Chinese-owned property may be used for tracking devices, reconnaissance sites, or drones to observe US military activities.

The strategic placement of these lands near bases like Fort Liberty, which hosts critical airborne and special operations units, amplifies concerns about a surprise threat akin to Pearl Harbor’s unexpected attack.

Although no US federal law mandates a ban, individual states have been passing laws to curtail Chinese ownership of land near US military bases.

Dutch opposition parties called Wednesday for fresh elections as soon as possible, a day after anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders sparked the collapse of the country's four-party coalition government.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof's 11-month-old administration fell apart when Wilders withdrew his Party for Freedom ministers. Schoof and the ministers of three remaining parties remain in power as a caretaker Cabinet.

The government, with limited powers, now has to lead the country for months before new elections and during what could — again — be protracted talks to cobble together a new coalition in the fragmented Dutch political landscape after the vote.

Lawmakers can declare some policy areas “controversial” during the caretaker period. That restricts the government from taking concrete action on those issues.
What happens now?

The Dutch electoral commission will schedule a general election for all 150 seats in the Second Chamber of parliament.

It is very unlikely to happen before the fall because of a parliamentary recess that starts July 4 and runs to Sept. 1 and that will be followed by several weeks of campaigning.

What does Schoof want?

In a statement to lawmakers, Schoof said he wants to keep control, even in caretaker mode, of vital policies over the coming months.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s about security, both nationally and internationally, including support for Ukraine and everything that’s needed for defense," he said.

He also wants to be able to act on the economy, including the global trade war unleashed since the start of U.S. President Donald Trump's second term, "because that can have a direct effect on the Dutch economy and on our business community.”

Trump rocked as China launches its latest economic weapon.

The US and China have in recent days both accused each other of violating their fragile, three-week-old trade truce. The two presidents are expected to speak this week in an effort to rescue the deal.

But Trump has a tough pill to swallow: it is his arch-rival who looks to have the better negotiating hand.

China’s near-total dominance of the world’s supply of rare-earth metals – which are used in the manufacture of everything from cars and computer chips to F-35 fighter jets and nuclear-powered submarines – means Xi can squeeze the US where it hurts.

“Critical minerals are one of the most important bargaining chips for China in its negotiations with Washington. China will really hold on to this, as a significant point of leverage,” says Matilda Buchan, a senior analyst at Asia House, a London think tank.

Beijing’s willingness to weaponise the rare-earths supply chain is so potent a threat to the US economy and military that it has already pushed the White House into de-escalating its planned trade war with China.

After Trump’s April 2 “liberation day” announcement raised tariffs on US imports from China to an eventual peak of 145pc, Beijing’s retaliation included a ban on exports to the US of magnet alloys containing key rare-earth materials.

The impact was quickly felt. On May 9, some of the biggest carmakers in the US – including General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen and Hyundai – wrote to the White House warning that unless China’s export ban was lifted, they would soon have to start cutting back production.

That same day, Trump told his Truth Social followers that he was ready to make big concessions to get a deal with China. Negotiations in Geneva took place over the ensuing weekend, and the tariffs came tumbling down.

It emerged, more quietly, in subsequent days that China would allow rare-earths exports to the US to resume.

‘Major disruption’
Last Friday, though, Trump was back on Truth Social claiming that China had “TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US”.

Jamieson Greer, the president’s trade envoy, told CNBC that Beijing was “slow-rolling” its issuance of licences to export products containing rare earths.

“We haven’t seen the flow of some of those critical minerals as they were supposed to be doing,” he said.

The question is whether China is actively frustrating the deal, as some White House officials reportedly suspect, or whether the explanation is more mundane: not a grand conspiracy but simply a system coming to grips with new red tape.

Back in April, Beijing did not just slap a ban on exports, it built a new bureaucratic structure to underpin future rare-earths trade.

China-based companies wanting to export metal alloys containing more than a trace of seven key rare earths – samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, yttrium and scandium – now need to apply for a licence from the commerce ministry.

It was not initially clear which shipments would be caught by the new rules, and there was plenty of precautionary laboratory testing, even of exports that were below the rare-earth content threshold.

“What initially looked like an almost total freezing of exports from China was really just a response to this need for testing of all the material, and of any material which contained more than 0.1pc of any of these elements,” says David Merriman, the research director at Project Blue, a critical minerals analysis and advisory firm.

Project Blue’s analysis suggests the application process is taking about 45 days, which may explain why exports to the US have been slower than expected.

By mid-May, six large companies had received export licences, and at least another three were in the process of doing so.

“We are seeing some approvals come through, certainly slower than industry would like,” Michael Hart, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, told Bloomberg this week.

“Some of the delay is related to China working through their new system to approve exports, not that they are not allowing exports.”

As part of the Geneva trade deal between the US and China, the commerce ministry has taken 28 US businesses off its export-control blacklist. But exports will still have to be approved on a shipment-by-shipment basis, and none is so far bound for the US.

Volkswagen’s European operations appear to have been an early beneficiary of an export licence, but not in sufficient quantities to ease supply concerns.

“There are a few approvals coming through, but they are far from being sufficient to prevent imminent production halts,” Jens Eskelund, the president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told the New York Times.

“We are still facing a major disruption of supply chains.”

Trump cornered
The threat of factory production lines grinding to a halt highlights the immense power of China in this crucial market, and the power of its hand in negotiations.

China’s mines churn out about 61pc of the world’s rare earths, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Chinese refiners and manufacturers also hoover up most of the rare earths from elsewhere, processing 92pc of the world’s supply.

It is refining that is key, as this is the process that turns the material into a usable product.

The country has a particular stranglehold on the manufacture of magnet alloys containing rare earths, which have near-ubiquitous application in computing, vehicular and electrical systems.

“Particularly as you move further down the supply chain, from mined products towards downstream highly engineered products, China’s market share only grows,” Merriman says. “Its grip only gets tighter.”

Rare earths are used in very small quantities, which means it has long been uneconomic for most countries to mine or refine them – most, that is, except China, where the industry is under state control.

The US has been spearheading sporadic efforts to restart rare-earths production and magnet manufacture either at home or in friendlier countries. But these efforts are yet to bear real fruit. The IEA estimates that a decade from now, China will still account for 85pc of refined rare-earths output.

This leaves Trump cornered. He has been talking up the prospects of Ukraine and Greenland as alternatives, but his presidency will be long gone before either of those becomes a realistic option. Tariffs are no use here either.

His only weapon is semiconductors. Over the past month, the US has been gradually tightening controls over China-bound exports of chips and associated software, particularly those used in artificial intelligence.

The chips squeeze is partly motivated by the White House’s long-term strategic desire to retain technological supremacy over China. But it also has some immediate tactical trade leverage – as Howard Lutnick, the US commerce secretary, admitted on Sunday.

“[We are] taking certain actions to show them [the Chinese] what it feels like on the other side of that [export ban] equation,” he told Fox News.

This has riled Beijing. “The United States has unilaterally provoked new economic and trade frictions,” the Chinese commerce industry said in a statement on Monday. “These practices seriously violate the consensus.”

Despite the war of words, Lutnick claimed he was confident that Trump would “work it out” with Xi.

Perhaps his confidence is well-founded. With the US and Chinese tech and manufacturing industries hanging in the balance, a deal looks essential for both sides.

But Trump is in no position to dictate terms – and he won’t like that one bit.

President Donald Trump is resurrecting the travel ban policy from his first term, signing a proclamation Wednesday night preventing people from a dozen countries from entering the United States.

The countries include Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen.

In addition to the ban, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Monday, there will be heightened restrictions on visitors from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

“I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people,” Trump said in his proclamation.
The list results from a Jan. 20 executive order Trump issued requiring the departments of State and Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence to compile a report on “hostile attitudes” toward the U.S. and whether entry from certain countries represented a national security risk.

During his first term, Trump issued an executive order in January 2017 banning travel to the U.S. by citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries — Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia and Yemen.

It was one of the most chaotic and confusing moments of his young presidency. Travelers from those nations were either barred from getting on their flights to the U.S. or detained at U.S. airports after they landed. They included students and faculty as well as businesspeople, tourists and people visiting friends and family.

The order, often referred to as the “Muslim ban” or the “travel ban,” was retooled amid legal challenges, until a version was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.

The ban affected various categories of travelers and immigrants from Iran, Somalia, Yemen, Syria and Libya, plus North Koreans and some Venezuelan government officials and their families.

Israel declines hostage deal talks in Qatar after Hamas demands changes.

An Israeli official said, however, that "negotiations have not stopped, efforts of the mediators still continue."

Israel will not send a delegation to Qatar after Hamas requested changes to the US envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff's outline for a hostage deal, Israeli media reported Tuesday.

An Israeli official said, however, that "negotiations have not stopped, efforts of the mediators still continue."

Israel is making it clear that, despite Hamas' apparent "willingness" to continue negotiations, in practice, there is no change in the group's position, and that the gaps with the Witkoff proposal remain.

Hamas's response does not include a serious reference to the Witkoff proposal and presents new demands that deviate greatly from the Israeli line, Israeli sources said.

The additional demands include a ceasefire of up to seven years, a complete IDF withdrawal from the areas occupied since March, and the cancellation of the activities of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

"Israel has agreed to the Witkoff framework as proposed – that is the official position," a diplomatic source clarified. "Despite Hamas' statements, there has been no significant change."

Sources in Israel added that Hamas's willingness to return to negotiations is seen as a purely tactical move designed to improve its international image.

"This is not an answer - it is a slammed door. Hamas's response only distances us from an agreement," Witkoff said in response to Hamas's demands.

Tension between mediators US, Egypt
The US, Qatar, and Egypt are continuing mediation efforts in line with the Witkoff proposal.

However, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdel Ati held a phone call with Witkoff on Sunday that, according to Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, was significantly and noticeably tense, reflecting Egypt's growing concerns that the war in Gaza will become an open war of attrition.

Egypt is concerned that the IDF's continued military activity, particularly in Khan Yunis, will result in a redrawing of the demographic map in the south of Gaza, and the gradual pushing of Palestinians towards the border with Egypt, posing a direct threat to the country's national security, Abdel Ati told Witkoff.

Additionally, Abdel Ati reportedly did not hesitate to blame Washington for part of the failure of the negotiations, as well as criticizing the way the US administration is conducting the negotiations.

Witkoff has asked American-Palestinian businessman Bishara Bahah to remain in Doha and continue talks with Hamas, in the hope that his presence will avoid a sense of finality or disconnect between the parties.

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Coming days 'critical' for Gaza deal progress, Qatar, Egypt hold significant weight.

Security sources stressed that the coming days are critical for the prospects of progress in a deal, and that mediators have a crucial role.

Increased involvement by Qatar and Egypt amid a deadlock in hostage deal negotiations could help narrow gaps between the sides, with the coming days considered critical for progress, senior Israeli officials told Walla Monday.

This was previously achieved during proximity talks and negotiations for the previous hostage deal held in Doha.

A security source emphasized that a distinction should be made between the “Qatargate” affair and the suspicions against Israeli citizens, and separating this from Qatar's role as a hostage deal mediator.

“This is an internal Israeli matter that must be separated from Qatar’s role as a mediator, alongside the Egyptian mediator,” the source said.

He stressed that the coming days are critical for the prospects of progress and that the mediators have an important role to play.

Against this backdrop, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir visited the Gaza Strip on Sunday for a series of meetings with commanders in regular service and reservists. The visit took place while the US continues efforts to advance negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a hostage deal.

Deadlock in hostage talks would lead to further IDF ground operations in Gaza
A US announcement of a deadlock would prompt the government to instruct the IDF to move to an advanced stage of ground operations toward significant areas where the IDF has not operated so far, and such a move could increase pressure on Hamas leadership.

Sources in the security establishment estimate that in the coming days, a decision will be made regarding the negotiations for a hostage deal. At that point, it will be determined whether the IDF will expand its operations in the Gaza Strip significantly.

At the end of his tour, the chief of staff promised to review the numerous comments and questions raised by reservists. Some of the reservists present at the meeting have been mobilized for the sixth time since the start of the war. They urged the army commanders to “defeat Hamas this time.” If that is not the intention, they requested clarity as soon as possible regarding the duration of their upcoming reserve duty.

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Israel, Hamas continue Gaza hostage deal talks despite significant gaps.

Hamas demands US guarantees that negotiations for a deal, including a ceasefire, will continue after the initial 60-day period, a source told the Post.

Negotiations between Israel and Hamas, mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and the US, are ongoing despite significant gaps, a source familiar with the matter told The Jerusalem Post.

Qatar’s Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, met with senior Hamas officials based in Doha. These officials emphasized that Hamas demands US guarantees that negotiations for a deal, including a ceasefire, will continue after the initial 60-day period, the source told the Post.

Efforts are being made to reach new understandings with Hamas before Eid al-Adha, which begins this Friday. In Doha, Dr. Bishara Bahbah, an envoy of Steve Witkoff, continues to engage with senior Hamas officials.

The mediators, Egypt, Qatar, and the US administration, are working to advance a deal or at least secure agreements between the parties despite the challenges.

Israeli officials note that following Egypt and Qatar’s announcement on Sunday regarding their efforts to reach a deal, Hamas also issued a statement, signaling its interest in an agreement. However, Hamas proposed a framework significantly different from Witkoff's original plan, which included the release of 10 hostages within a week.

Families of Israelis held hostage in Gaza and supporters protest calling for the release of Israelis held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza, outside the US Embassy Branch Office in Tel Aviv, May 13, 2025.
“The military operation is intensifying, aid is entering without Hamas’s control, and the terrorist organization is under pressure,” an Israeli source told the Post. “Within a week, Hamas presented two proposals, which were both rejected by Witkoff, and it will gradually realize that Witkoff's framework is the only deal on the table.”

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Hamas cease-fire counteroffer: Let us survive
Hamas on May 31 announced it had “responded to” the latest ceasefire proposal from US envoy Steve Witkoff, apparently seeking assurances that Israel won’t simply go back to eliminating it when the 60-day pause is up.

Prediction: Lockheed Martin Stock Could Explode as Donald Trump Touts F-55 Fighter Jet and a Bigger F-22

Key Points
The Pentagon awarded Lockheed archrival Boeing a surprise win in March: a $20 billion F-47 fighter jet contract.

Now, President Trump is suggesting Lockheed Martin could get two contracts of its own, to build F-55 and F-22 Super stealth fighters.

The Greed is Good and War Mongers are on stock prediction-
Whether or not the contracts materialize, relative to its peers, Lockheed Martin stock already looks attractive.

10 stocks we like better than Lockheed Martin ›

The Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) F-22 Raptor stealth fighter is arguably the most expensive fighter jet ever built, costing an estimated $400 billion per unit. That's part of the reason it's no longer being built, by the way. (The F-22 program was canceled more than a decade ago, although the plane remains in service.)

Now, President Donald Trump wants to have the Air Force buy a new fighter jet that could cost even more. Two of them, in fact.

Upgrading the F-22, and the F-35, too
As Reuters reported earlier this month, the president recently raised the possibility of having Lockheed build a new stealth fighter, based on Lockheed's F-35 stealth fighter but with two engines instead of just one, to be called the F-55. A second idea floated by the president is to let Lockheed restart production of its long-canceled F-22 program in an upgraded form, to be known as the F-22 Super.

No price was named for either aircraft, although price is definitely on the president's mind. Speaking at a meeting of business leaders and aerospace executives in Doha, Qatar, Trump explained, "We're going to do an F-55 and -- I think, if we get the right price, we have to get the right price -- that'll be two engines and a super upgrade on the F-35, and then we're going to do the F-22 [Super] ... a very modern version of the F-22 fighter jet."

Furthermore, he stated, "We're going to be going with it pretty quickly."

Throwing a life preserver to Lockheed
Not everyone's on board with the idea. As defense-focused news site 19fortyfive.com quickly pointed out, creating a twin-engine version of the stealthy F-35 may not even be "feasible." On the other hand, the website noted that the Air Force has already agreed to pay RTX (NYSE: RTX) more than $1 billion to upgrade sensors on the F-22 fleet, turning it into what Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet has called a "fifth-generation plus" fighter able to sense and strike targets farther out than currently possible.

So Lockheed Martin is likely to like the president's proposals (both of them). The more so seeing as it's been only a couple of months since the Air Force handed Lockheed a rather shocking defeat, when it awarded the $20 billion contract to build a sixth-generation stealth fighter, the F-47, to rival Boeing (NYSE: BA).

With only one such sixth-generation warbird so far announced, that loss holds the potential to put Lockheed a generation behind Boeing in its competency building stealthy fighter jets. This could create a whole new dynamic in which Boeing, not Lockheed, has the advantage in winning future fighter jet contracts.

But if Lockheed gets to build a "fifth-generation plus" fighter (or two), the technology gap might not loom quite so large, and Lockheed might remain within striking distance of its rival.

Boeing versus Lockheed Martin versus Northrop Grumman
In fact, that might be the plan. Trump, of course, has a well-known penchant for shaking up chessboards in order to create new and more advantageous negotiating positions (albeit with the unfortunate side effect of sometimes knocking over pieces).

That's not easy to do in the defense industry, which, after going through repeated rounds of consolidation after the Cold War, now comprises really just five big "defense primes" capable of executing the Pentagon's biggest defense contracts. Awarding F-47 to Boeing, then perhaps handing F-55 and F-22 Super contracts to Lockheed, could be the president's way of ensuring these aerospace companies remain both solvent, with enough revenue coming in to stay in business, and able to keep competing with each other, such that no one company gets so dominant that it can dictate prices to its primary customer, the U.S. government.

If this is the president's plan, it could also help the Pentagon when it comes time to negotiate pricing on a new F/A-XX stealth fighter jet that the Navy wants to buy, and that both Boeing and Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC) are angling to build. (And if this is the president's plan, it may also give investors a hint at who will win F/A-XX. Should that one go to Northrop, the Pentagon would have three aerospace defense prime contractors, all bidding against each other on future stealth fighter contracts.)

Which defense stock to buy?
Whoever ends up winning these fighter jet contracts, from an investor's perspective, I see one of these three stocks as clearly superior to the others: Lockheed Martin.

Lockheed (20 times earnings) costs slightly more than Northrop Grumman (19) when valued on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) earnings, but sports a much better price-to-free-cash-flow valuation, 22 to Northrop's 38, as confirmed by data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. (Unprofitable and cash-burning Boeing doesn't even make it to the starting line in this race.) Lockheed also boasts a projected long-term earnings growth rate of 13%, twice as fast as Northrop. Why, Lockheed even has the best dividend yield of the bunch at 2.8%.

Regardless of whether the president's mooted new fighter jets actually materialize as defense contracts for Lockheed, the stock is already the one with the most value to offer investors.

5 ways Ukraine's audacious 'Spiderweb' drone attack marks a new threat for top militaries.

Ukraine's latest attack on Russian airfields has written a new chapter for drone tactics.

Operatives snuck the drones into Russia and remotely launched them near bases, Ukraine said.

These tactics highlight vulnerabilities for the world's most advanced militaries.

The new tactics deployed by Ukraine in striking a reported 41 Russian warplanes have devastating implications — not only for Russia's air power but for all advanced militaries, defense experts told Business Insider.

"This attack is a window to future war," said James Patton Rogers, a drone expert who's the executive director of the Cornell Brooks Tech Policy Institute.

Ukraine has attacked Russia with drones many times before. But on Sunday, its Security Service, or SBU, targeted four Russian airfields simultaneously with a wildly creative gambit it dubbed "Operation Spiderweb."

The SBU said operatives smuggled the military quadcopters into Russia, later packing them into wooden house-like structures. These were then mounted on trucks, which were driven close to the airfields, where the drones were launched, causing a reported $7 billion in damage. The proximity and number of small attack drones appear to have given air defense crews little, if any, chance to respond.

While details of the attack need to be independently confirmed, initial visual information suggests that this is "a stunning success for Ukraine's special services," said Justin Bronk, an influential air power expert at the Royal United Services Institute.

Here's what it could mean for Russia and the Ukraine war — and the rest of the world.

Limiting conventional air defences
Ukraine's previous drone attacks have frequently been countered by Russia's advanced air defense systems, such as its S-300 and S-400 missile launchers. But, it seems, these latest drones didn't need to run the S-400 gauntlet.

The SBU said that rather than flying larger, long-range drones through Russian airspace from Ukraine, it trucked the containers out to the airfields, activating the smuggled drones after remotely retracting the roofs to release them.

With a much-shortened and simplified journey to their target, the drones struck warplanes at the airfields of Belaya, Diaghilev, Olenya, and Ivanovo, the SBU said.

A powerful statement of Ukraine going it alone
Lithuania's former foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said on Monday that the attack showed Ukraine's ability to innovate and surprise the world.

"Its scale and ingenuity — carried out without visible Western intelligence or logistical support — suggests Ukraine is now less reliant on outside help," he wrote.

(Ukraine's Western backers, such as the US, have resisted providing the weaponry and intelligence Ukraine has sought for retaliation against Russian bases, from which it launches regular attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and defensive lines.)

Powered largely by domestically produced armaments, Ukraine once again innovated "while the world talks, hosts meetings, and forms yet another 'coalition of the willing,'" Landsbergis wrote.

"Ukraine is preparing to fight on its own terms," he added. "If you ever wondered what strategic autonomy looks like — this might be it."

Ukraine showed that a fleet of $150 million bombers on a runway can be made prey to the kind of cheap drones modified slightly from racing and wedding photos.

It enables Ukraine to hit deeper into Russia
Prior to these coordinated strikes, Ukraine's drone attacks on Russia have reached as far as 1,100 miles from their shared border.

That distance is dwarfed by the reach of Sunday's attack, where the farthest airfield, at Belaya in the eastern-central Irkutsk region, was more than 2,500 miles from Ukraine.

Russia most likely viewed bases far from Ukraine as being at less risk of attack.

Bronk said that even if only half of the reported 41 planes were damaged or destroyed, it would have a "significant impact" on Russia's ability to launch long-range cruise missile attacks on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure.

Bronk estimates that Russia had about 60 active Tu-95 "Bear" bombers and about 20 Tu-160 "Blackjack" bombers involved in this aerial campaign, and he said replacing damaged planes would be a huge challenge, as production on both models has either slowed or halted completely in recent decades.

No hard shelter for planes
Videos and images from the attack show that the planes were parked in the open air, outside any shelter. This may have made them an easy target.

Satellite images have suggested that this is a point of some anxiety for Russia, which appears to have tried to pile tires onto the wings of its bombers to try to trick visual guidance systems. An aircraft on the ground is highly vulnerable to attack and is wholly dependent on airborne aircraft and nearby air defenses.

Russia isn't the only country with this issue.

While China is reported to have enough hardened air shelters to house the majority of its combat aircraft, the US has invested far less in this capability.

'Sleeper' drones
Ukraine didn't detail how it successfully smuggled the drones past Russian authorities. But the fact that it did so "highlights the vulnerability of Russian transport and logistics system," Patton Rogers said.

"The question for Russia must be, how many more are lying in wait?" he said.

At the same time, Russia has shown itself quick to learn throughout the war, which could worry the West.

The attack is a "stark reminder" of a new phase in war, Karl Rosander, the CEO and cofounder of the Swedish defence tech startup Nordic Air Defence, said in emailed comments. "One where drones can be covertly deployed and lie dormant behind enemy lines, waiting to strike."

It's "only a matter of time" before the tactic is taken up by Russia and other hostile state actors, he added.

The implications of this are wide-ranging. An air base needs a combination of armored shelters for aircraft, electronic jammers to disrupt drone guidance systems, and enough missiles or guns to shoot them down.

All are costs measured in billions of dollars — and Ukraine has just devised a new threat costing in the mere thousands.

Patton Rogers questioned how vulnerable NATO air bases are to such attacks, while pointing out how the tactic could be adopted elsewhere.

"Drones won't be confined to a set battlefield," he said.

While long-range drones will continue to strike, weaponized short-range drones will be "hidden and waiting for launch" to attack deep inside adversary territory, he said, adding: "The question is, are NATO allies ready for this new reality?"

Hong Kong's leader said on Tuesday that China's recent removal of its top representative in the city, known for his hardline policies on national security, had been a "normal" personnel change.

In a surprise development, China announced late on Friday that Zheng Yanxiong, the director of China's Liaison Office in Hong Kong - Beijing's main representative office in the city with powerful oversight over local affairs - had been "removed" from his post.

He was replaced by Zhou Ji, a senior official with the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office on the State Council.

Zheng, who played a key role in the crackdown on Hong Kong's democratic movement in recent years, was also stripped of his role as China's national security adviser on a committee overseeing national security in Hong Kong.

No explanation by Beijing or Chinese state media was given for the change.

According to a person with knowledge of the matter, Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison's proposed sale of its global port network to a consortium initially led by U.S. firm Blackrock had caught senior Chinese leaders "by surprise" as they had not been informed beforehand and Zheng was partly blamed for that.

The person, who has spoken with the liaison office, declined to be identified as the discussions were confidential.

Zheng had served in the post since January 2023 and while the position has no fixed term, his tenure was shorter than predecessors including Luo Huining and Zhang Xiaoming.

"The change of the Liaison office director is I believe, as with all changes of officials, very normal," Lee told reporters during a weekly briefing, without being drawn on reasons for the reshuffle.

"Director Zheng has spent around 5 years (in Hong Kong). Hong Kong was going through a transition period of chaos to order," Lee said, referring to the months-long pro-democracy protests that erupted across Hong Kong in 2019 while adding that he looked forward to working with Zhou.

CK Hutchison's ports deal has been criticised in Chinese state media as "betraying" China's interests and bowing to U.S. political pressure.

The conglomerate, controlled by tycoon Li Ka-shing, agreed in March to sell the majority of its $22.8 billion global ports business, including assets along the strategically significant Panama Canal, to the consortium. The consortium is now being led by another member - Terminal Investment Limited, which is majority-owned by Italian billionaire Gianluigi Aponte's family-run MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company.

What was the role of European businesses and industries in driving colonization?

European businesses and industries played a central role in driving colonization—they weren’t just bystanders or beneficiaries, they were key motivators behind the Scramble for Africa. Colonization was not only a political or moral project; it was an economic enterprise, deeply tied to the needs of European capitalism in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Why European Businesses Wanted Colonies:
1. Access to Raw Materials
Europe's factories needed a constant supply of rubber, cotton, oil, gold, diamonds, palm oil, copper, ivory, and more.

Africa was rich in these resources and seen as a “solution” to Europe's resource shortages.

Example: The Congo was colonized largely to feed Europe’s hunger for rubber, driven by the booming tire and electrical industries.

2. New Markets for European Goods
European companies wanted new consumers for their textiles, alcohol, weapons, and manufactured products.

Colonies became forced markets, often prohibiting African competition.

3. Cheap and Forced Labor
Colonized Africans were coerced into labor—on plantations, in mines, and on infrastructure projects.

Wages were minimal or nonexistent; working conditions were often brutal.

Example: British and French colonies used forced labor systems (like “corvée”) to build roads and extract minerals.

4. Land Grabs and Settler Profits
Companies and private investors were given huge tracts of land to exploit.

Settler farmers (especially in Kenya, Algeria, Rhodesia) displaced local communities and monopolized fertile land.

5. Infrastructure Built for Extraction
Railroads, ports, and roads were built not for African development but to move resources from the interior to coastal ports—then off to Europe.

Major Business Players in Colonization:
1. Chartered Companies
Companies were given colonial power by European governments—acting like mini-states.

British South Africa Company (Cecil Rhodes)

Royal Niger Company (British conquest of Nigeria)

German East Africa Company

Dutch and French trading companies

These companies had the power to:

Tax

Enforce laws

Raise armies

Negotiate treaties

They often ruled more brutally than governments—focused entirely on profit.

2. Mining & Oil Corporations
Companies like De Beers (diamonds), Shell (oil), and Union Minière (copper in Congo) extracted billions in wealth from African land.

Conclusion:
European colonization was as much about corporate gain as national power.
Businesses drove colonization, fueled exploitation, and shaped policies—turning African people and lands into tools for European profit.

By Jo Ikeji-Uju
https://afriprime.net/page...

European Tourist Arrival To U.S. “Drops” Under Donald Trump; Are Harsh American Policies Impacting U.S. Tourism?

Are Donald Trump’s stringent immigration policies, expansive tariffs, and nationalist rhetoric deterring European tourists from visiting the United States?

The number of visitors to the United States from Western Europe in March fell by 17 percent from the same month a year earlier, but then picked up 12 percent in April, according to the US tourism office.

The German Travel Association (DRV) said the number of Germans going to the United States dropped 28 percent in March, but then bounced back by 14 percent in April.

The association’s spokesperson, Torsten Schäfer, said that the Easter holidays fell later this year than in 2024, which may have impacted the figures.

“There’re practically no requests in recent months to change or cancel reservations,” Schaefer said. However, he noted “a rise in queries about entry requirements into the United States”.

At the end of March, several European countries urged their nationals to review their travel documents for the United States, following several high-profile cases of Europeans being detained upon arrival and subsequently deported.

Anecdotally, there are signs of Europeans opting not to visit Trump’s America.

“The country I knew no longer exists,” said Raphael Gruber, a 60-year-old German doctor who has been taking his family to Cape Cod in Massachusetts every summer since 2018.

“Before, when you told the immigration officer you were there for whale-watching, that was a good reason to come. But now, they are afraid of everything that comes from outside,” he told AFP.

Referring to invasive electronic checks at the US borders, he added: “I don’t want to buy a ‘burner’ phone just to keep my privacy”.

In Britain, Matt Reay, a 35-year-old history teacher from Northamptonshire, said he had scratched the United States off his list, preferring to go to South America, where his “money would probably be better spent”.

“It feels like, to be honest, that there’s a culture that’s built in the US in the last kind of 12 months, where as a foreign visitor, I don’t really feel like I’m that welcome anyway,” he said.

Reay said he felt “insulted” by both Trump’s tariffs on British exports to the United States and comments by Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, about Britain as “a random country”.

Trump’s public belittling of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a White House visit in February was also “outrageous”, he said.

According to the US tourism office, however, the number of British visitors to the United States in April increased by 15 percent year-over-year, following a 14 percent decline in March.

Oxford Economics, an economic research firm, attributed the March decline partly to the Easter dates this year, along with a stronger US dollar at the time, which made the United States a more costly destination.

However, it primarily highlighted “polarising rhetoric and policy actions by the Trump administration, as well as concerns around tighter border and immigration policies.”

Didier Arino, head of the French travel consultancy Protourisme, said April traffic to the United States might have picked up because European airlines were offering discounted flights.

“You can find flights, especially for New York, at 600 euros ($680),” he said.

In Germany, Muriel Wagner, 34, said she was not postponing a summer trip to Boston to see a friend at Harvard—a U.S. university embroiled in a legal and ideological struggle with Trump’s administration.

“I’ve been asked if the political situation and trade war with the US has affected our trip,” the PhD student said in Frankfurt.

But “you can’t let yourself be intimidated”, she said, adding that she was keen to discuss the tensions with Americans on their home turf.

Protourisme’s Arino said that, as “the mood has sunk” regarding the United States, potential tourists were rethinking a visit.

On top of the “financial outlay, being insulted by the US administration for being European, that really robs you of the desire” to go there, he said.

He estimated that the “Trump effect” would reduce the number of French tourists visiting the United States this year by a quarter.

A body representing much of the French travel sector, Entreprises du Voyage, said the number of French visitors to America dropped eight percent in March, and a further 12 percent in April. It is estimated that summer departures to the United States would drop by 11 percent.

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, covering major tourism operators, the US tourism sector — already reeling from Canadians and Mexicans staying away — could lose $12.5 billion in spending by foreign visitors this year.

Canada remains the leading source of tourists, with approximately 20.5 million visitors in 2024. Proximity, shared borders, and strong economic ties make the U.S. an accessible destination for Canadians.

Mexico ranks second, sending around 17 million tourists. Improved airline connectivity and a growing Mexican middle class have fueled this surge. Many Mexican visitors head to border states like Texas and California. Medical tourism also plays a key role in surging numbers.

The UK remains a prominent contributor, with about 4.04 million visitors in 2024. British tourists are drawn to urban centers like New York City and Los Angeles, as well as theme parks in Florida.

India has emerged as a significant player, with 2.2 million visitors in 2024. This growth reflects India’s booming middle class. Indian tourists, including a notable proportion of students and business travelers, tend to favor destinations in the Midwest and along the coast.

Germany sent approximately 1.7 million tourists to the U.S. in 2024. German visitors are attracted to national parks, cultural sites, and major cities. However, economic challenges in Germany, partly due to U.S. trade policies, have led to a decline in bookings compared to previous years.

How Britain’s biggest companies are preparing for a Third World War. (Part 2) Continue reading...

In the case of a major British supermarket, how might executives plan for, say, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan?

The first question is how involved the UK expects to be, says Crump. But if Britain, as might be expected, sides with the US at least in diplomatic terms, “we’re not buying anything from China”.

That immediately has implications for a company’s supply chains – are there any parts of the supply chain that would be crippled without Chinese products?

But as the recent cyber attack on Marks & Spencer has demonstrated, attacks on critical digital infrastructure are also a major risk to supermarkets in the event of a war with China or Russia.

“If you look at a retailer, the vulnerability is not necessarily whether or not they can transport stuff to the shop, even in a war zone,” says Crump. “The problem becomes when you can’t operate your systems.

“If you can’t take money at the point of sale, or if you have no idea where your stock is because your computer system has been taken down, you’ve got major problems and you can’t operate your business.”

Workforce gaps
In a scenario where Britain becomes involved in a war itself, Crump says employers may also suddenly find themselves with gaps in their workforces.

He believes things would need to get “very bad indeed” for the Government to impose conscription, which applied to men aged 18-41 during the Second World War.

But he points out that the calling up of British armed forces reservists would be very likely, along with the potential mobilisation of what is known as the “strategic reserve” – those among the country’s 1.8 million veterans who are still fit to serve.

There are around 32,000 volunteer reservists and an undisclosed number of regular reserves, former regular members of the armed forces who are still liable to be called up.

“There’s a big pool of people we don’t tap at the moment who are already trained,” explains Crump.

“But there would be consequences if the entire reserve was called forward, which would have to happen if we entered a reasonably sized conflict. It would certainly cause disruptions.

“The medical services are hugely integrated with the NHS, for example, and we saw the effects of them being called forward with Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Food supplies
The sort of supermarket chaos that erupted during the Covid-19 pandemic would also return with a vengeance if a significant conflict broke out.

During that crisis, grocers had to limit how many packs of loo rolls and cans of chopped tomatoes shoppers were allowed to take home, among other items, because of supply chain problems.

“If we’re in a conflict, that sort of supply chain activity would increase,” notes Crump.

“So you don’t necessarily have rationing imposed, but there might be issues with food production, delivery, payment and getting things to the right place.

“In a world where we don’t have our own independent supply chains, we’re reliant on a lot of very interconnected moving parts that have been enabled by this period of peace.

“We’ve never been in a conflict during a time where we’ve had ‘just in time’ systems.”

Spanish blackouts: A dry run
Crump brings up the recent blackouts in Spain and Portugal. British grocers initially thought their food supplies would be completely unaffected because truck loads of tomatoes had already made their way out of the country when the problem struck.

But the vehicles were electronically locked, to prevent illegal migrants attempting to clamber inside when they cross the English Channel and could only be unlocked from Spain – where the power cuts had taken down computer systems and telecoms.

“People in Spain couldn’t get online, so we had locked trucks full of tomatoes sitting here that we couldn’t open because of technology,” Crump says.

“No one had ever thought, ‘But what happens if all of Spain goes off the grid?’ And I’m sure the answer would have been, ‘That’ll never happen’ anyway.”

This tendency towards “normalcy bias” is what Crump tries to steer his clients away from.

While it isn’t inevitable that war will break out, or that there will be another pandemic, humans tend to assume that things will revert to whatever the status quo has been in their lifetimes, he says. This can mean we fail to take the threat of unlikely scenarios seriously enough, or use outdated ways of thinking to solve new problems.

“We’ve had this long period of peace and prosperity. And, of course, business leaders have grown up in that. Military leaders have grown up in it. Politicians have grown up in it. And so it’s very hard when that starts to change.

“People have grown up in a world of rules. And I think people are still trying to find ways in which the game is still being played by those old rules.”

Unsurprisingly, given his line of work, Crump believes businesses must get more comfortable contemplating the unthinkable.

“Go back a decade and most executives did not want to have a crisis because a crisis is bad for your career, so they didn’t want to do a test exercise – because you might fail,” Crump adds.

“But the whole point is that you can fail in an exercise, because it’s not real life.”

At least, not yet.

How Britain’s biggest companies are preparing for a Third World War. (Part 1)

The year is 2027 and a major global conflict has erupted. Perhaps China has launched an attempted invasion of Taiwan, or Russian forces have crossed into the territory of an eastern European Nato country.

Whatever the case, Justin Crump’s job is to advise big companies on how to respond. And with tensions rising, a growing number of chief executives have got him on speed dial.

The former Army tank commander, who now runs intelligence and security consultancy Sibylline, says his clients range from a top British supermarket chain to Silicon Valley technology giants.

They are all drawing up plans to keep running during wartime, and Crump is surprisingly blunt about their reasoning: a global conflict may be just two years away.

“We’re in a world which is more dangerous, more volatile than anything we’ve seen since the Second World War,” he explains. There are lots of crises that can happen, that are ready to go.

“Chief executives want to test against the war scenario, because they think it’s credible. They want to make sure their business can get through that environment.”

The year of worst case scenarios
He rattles off a series of smouldering international issues – any one of which could ignite the global tinderbox – from Iran’s nuclear ambitions, to China’s threats to Taiwan, to Vladimir Putin’s designs on a Russian sphere of influence in Ukraine and beyond, as well as Donald Trump’s disdain for the post-1940s “rules-based international order”. Against this backdrop, planning for war is not alarmist but sensible, Crump contends.

With all these issues building, 2027 is viewed as the moment of maximum danger.

“The worst case scenario is that all these crises all overlap in 2027,” he explains.

“You’ve got the US midterms, which will have taken place just at the start of that year, and whatever happens there will be lots of upset people. It’s also the time when a lot of the economic disruption that’s happening now will have really washed through the system, so we’ll be feeling the effects of that. And it’s also too early for the change in defence posture to have really meant anything in Europe.”

Putin and Xi Jinping, the president of China, are acutely aware of all this, he says, and may conclude that they should act before the US and Europe are more fully rearmed in 2030. “In their minds now, the clock is ticking,” he adds.

He also points to major British and Nato military exercises scheduled to take place in 2027, with American forces working to a 2027 readiness target as well.

“There’s a reason they’re doing it that year – because they think we have to be ready by then,” Crump says. “So why shouldn’t businesses also work off the same thinking and plan for the same thing?”

He is not alone in arguing that society needs to start expecting the unexpected.

In 2020, the Government established the National Preparedness Commission to ensure the UK was “significantly better prepared” for the likes of floods, power outages, cyber attacks or wars.

It has urged households to keep at least three days’ worth of food and water stockpiled, along with other essential items such as a wind-up torch, portable power bank, a portable radio, spare batteries, hand sanitiser and a first aid kit.

“In recent years a series of high-impact events have demonstrated how easily our established way of life can be disrupted by major events,” the commission’s website says – pointing to the coronavirus pandemic, recent African coups, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and turmoil in the Middle East.

Britain is also secretly preparing for a direct military attack by Russia amid fears that it is not ready for war. Officials have been asked to update 20-year-old contingency plans that would put the country on a war footing after threats of attack by the Kremlin.

All of this has led major businesses to conclude that perma crisis is the new normal, Crump says.

In the case of Ukraine, Western sanctions on Russia forced companies to choose between continuing to operate heavily-constrained operations in Russia, selling up, or walking away entirely.

Crump recalls speaking to several clients including a major energy company in the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

He and his colleagues urged the business to evacuate their staff, at a point when it was still received wisdom that Putin wouldn’t dare follow through with his threats.

“I had almighty arguments with some people in the run-up, because I was very firmly of the view, based on our data and insights, that the Russians were not only invading, but they were going for the whole country. But other people in our sector were saying, ‘No, it’s all a bluff’.

“Their team came to me afterwards and said: ‘After that call, we were convinced, and we got our people out’. They got a lot of grief for that at the time, from people who were saying it was all nonsense.

“But then on the day of the invasion, they told me they got so many calls actually saying ‘thank you for getting us out’.”

Yet even in Ukraine, much of which remains an active war zone, life must go on – along with business.

“I’ve been to plenty of war zones,” says Crump. “And people are still getting on with their lives, there’s still stuff in supermarkets, and things are being made in factories – but that certainly all gets a lot more difficult.”