news

"Extreme heat cancels climate change event on adapting to extreme heat"

The event, which was set to take place on Wednesday at the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics as part of Climate Action Week was cancelled after the Met Office issued a red weather warning for Greater London.

Texas anti-ICE protesters convicted of terrorism charges sentenced to at least 50 years in prison

The demonstrators arrived late at night with a plan to set off fireworks as part of a noise demonstration to show solidarity with those detained inside. A few of the protesters spontaneously broke off from the main group and vandalized cars in the parking lot, a guard shack, slashed the tires on a government van and broke a security camera. When a police officer arrived on the scene and drew his weapon, one of the activists fired an AR-15 from the woods, hitting the officer in the shoulder. The officer survived.

Zachary Evetts, Autumn Hill, Savanna Batten, Elizabeth Soto and Meagan Morris were sentenced to 50 years in prison. Maricela Rueda, another demonstrator, was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Benjamin Song, who fired the gun at the police officer, was sentenced to 100 years in prison

The ninth defendant, Daniel Sanchez-Estrada was not at the protest, but was convicted of corruptly concealing a document or record after prosecutors said he moved leftwing zines and other materials at the request of Rueda, his wife, after she was arrested. Sanchez-Estrada was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Tuesday.

🚨BREAKING: US CENTCOM Announces A Wave Of Strikes On Southern Iran

The Memorandum of Understanding has no impact whatsoever.

In Lebanon a US-backed agreement was signed with the Lebanese government recognising Israel & ensuring that the Israelis will remain occupying the south.

Now the US is actually bombing Iran directly again.

In other words, the US couldn’t honour clause one of the agreement, an end to hostilities on all fronts.

"Israeli" "Defense" Minister Israel Katz vows that the "IDF" will not withdraw from its southern Lebanon "security zone", even if there is an American demand.

200,000 [Lebanese] residents will not return [to the homes they evacuated]. Because what happened in the past in security zones, where there was also a civilian population [present], was roadside bombs and attacks against the soldiers, and therefore we will not allow that,” he says at the Muni Expo conference for local officials in Tel Aviv. (Source is Times of "Israel")

In other words: "We won't stop occupying Leabnon because last time we invaded they bombed us"

The news of Keir Starmer's official resignation hit while I was writing this up, to which I have to say: get fucked.

What's coming next is almost certainly worse, and that's not even getting into the Reform party, but I do have a unique hatred of this little quisling motherfucker.

WTI Crude Futures have dropped below $70, the same price as seen on March 1st 2026. This indicates that nothing has happened, everyone is really really rational, and oil shipping is a secure as it has ever been!

How about a clip demonstrating the strained relationship between the US and its middle east compradors?

Here is JD Vance being publicly and very intentionally

ignored by Qatari negotiators in Switzerland

Statement by Benjamin "Chapagne" Song, the person from the Texas ICE trial charged with shooting the officer:

https://prairielanddefendants.com/defendant-writings/statement-by-benjamin-champagne-song/

American Ponzi Scheme News:

Microstrategy (MSTR) is a company that buys bitcoin. That's it, that's the company. It is down 25% this week to $86 and down from ~$450 since last June.

Microstrategy has a preferred stock option (STRC) that promised to pay 11% perpetual dividends by diluting MSTR shares. It was supposed to be pegged at $100 but it is down 25% this month to $77.

Bitcoin is down 23% this month to $59,000 and down from an ATH of ~$125,000 since last October.

Microstrategy owns 850,000 bitcoins and may eventually be forced to sell to pay its shareholders or avoid bankruptcy. This would likely reveal the absolute liquidity crisis in the cryptocurrency space and probably crash the whole "industry". Just something to consider.

Even during the worst moment of Venezuelan history, the gusanos are still showing they are the worst people, they are constantly calling Delcy, and people still living in Venezuela, slurs and saying thats God "punishing" them. Fuck these people honestly.

They also blame the Chinese, the Russians, and the Indians because they “built” the buildings that collapsed and these were of “poor” quality, even though most of them were built during neoliberal era and the Perrezjimenismo era (Far-Right) of Venezuela with Western and Saudi Companies.

Protests in Beirut, after Lebanon and Israel signed an agreement today to engage in direct and formal talks for the first time Most people in Lebanon, especially Shias, consider the Israeli-Lebanese agreement a betrayal and say it amounts to a normalization move. Among other things, the Israeli-Lebanese deal includes a plan to combat Hezbollah together.

Ravi Drucker, host of a popular program on Israel's Channel 13: "The Israeli plan in Lebanon is to divide the country and plunge it into a civil war to force the Lebanese government into a military confrontation with Hezbullah!" Meanwhile, military correspondent Alon Ben-David confirmed that "this has been Israel's objective from the beginning."

Nobody wants a civil war. Nobody. But if the Lebanese state takes steps to raise arms and fight against fellow Lebanese instead of confronting Israeli occupation, they reap what they sow.

The Lebanese regime has started deploying the army against its own citizens

Hezbollah says it will confront any attempt by the Lebanese government to implement its treacherous agreement with Israel The group says it will not disarm nor withdraw from any areas under threat from the Lebanese Army. Hezbollah MP, Hassan Fadlallah, said enforcement of the deal is ‘impossible, unless they want a civil war’.

Rallies of Hezbollah supporters and opponents of the Lebanese-Israeli agreement continue in Beirut

• Middle East Spectator

Jeremy Scahill: Iran won’t help Trump rewrite outcome of war

Scahill says Iran won’t participate in Trump’s face-saving lies aimed at helping him craft a false victory narrative. Iranian officials, who had been flexible before the war, told Scahill that regional mediators, during the MOU negotiations, encouraged Iran to “throw Trump some bones” by giving him symbolic wins he could sell politically. Tehran refused, and is determined not to let the US President claim any concessions it never made.

9 min video that goes a bit more in depth on this in the link

Iran tied the football match at the same time as IRGC launched missiles at US bases. 💥💥💥

https://xcancel.com/TheCradleMedia/status/2069379439776125245

Hezbollah drone blitz leaves Israeli forces feeling like sitting ducks in southern Lebanon

Israeli troops deployed inside southern Lebanon are facing severe psychological trauma and operational paralysis due to the relentless threat of Hezbollah explosive drones, according to testimonies published by Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth. Soldiers and officers describe a persistent state of helplessness and constant anxiety, stating that the Lebanese resistance group's unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have completely reshaped battlefield conditions and stripped away their sense of security. An Israeli soldier from the 98th Division recounted intense moments of panic where his unit was forced to abandon their vehicles and scramble into the woods for cover under the shadow of incoming drones. The soldier described the psychological toll as unprecedented, adding that field units are growing increasingly frustrated with the military leadership over a perceived lack of momentum and a strategy that exposes them to extreme risk without achieving concrete results. The report highlighted the lethality of these close-range strikes, citing an incident where a Givati Brigade reconnaissance unit officer and her assistant were severely wounded inside a disabled Namer armored vehicle. The officer sustained severe shrapnel wounds to her face and head after an explosive drone detonated directly on their position, underscoring the growing tactical challenges Hezbollah’s expanding drone fleet poses to Israeli forces.

https://www.rt.com/africa/642134-burkina-faso-european-parliament-resolution/

He said the ministry had summoned the EU envoy to make clear that Burkina Faso acts with “full sovereignty” over its domestic affairs, stressing that the European Parliament has no authority to impose its will or dictate how the country manages its civic space or security matters.

https://www.rt.com/africa/642252-burkina-faso-france-diplomatic-relations/

“Faced with these imperialist aims of domination over our country and the enslavement of our people, we have chosen responsibility and sovereignty,” the statement said. France has previously denied accusations that it supports terrorism in the Sahel.

A few days ago Ansarallah announced a general mobilization in preparation for defending Yemen. Tribes are mobiling and accepting the call from Sayed Abdul-Malik al Houthi who announced that it was time to end the siege and reclaim Yemen from the invaders earlier last week.

Ansarallah media chairperson Nasruddin Amir made the announcement today that "the decision has been made today to end the status quo."

This happens alongside massive violations of the MOU by the US-israel with ongoing zionist bombings in Lebanon and the US bombing Iran today. (IRGC statement here)

"What is coming is even greater."

The Australian government says it has raised concerns directly with China over the country's new ethnic unity law.

Under a clause in the law, people outside of China can be held legally accountable for undermining "ethnic unity and progress or inciting ethnic separatism".

The European Parliament has called for the law, which is due to come into effect next week, to be repealed.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-26/new-ethnic-unity-law-in-china-could-target-people-overseas/106838836

China says don't be racist, and obviously australia and europe took issue with that. but at what cost, etc.

reminds me if reading about the founding of the league of nations, when the Jaoanese delegation said treat us as equals, be less racist, and the australian, british, and usa delegates said uhh, that would upset out voter base, or similar anyway

New Epstein link just dropped

NEW: Leaked emails from the inbox of former Israeli PM Ehud Barak reveal details of his work with Jeffrey Epstein to pursue economic and political interests across Africa—including the involvement of private military contractors linked to Israeli intelligence involved in the resource wars currently tearing apart the Democratic Republic of Congo. Emails between Barak and former Mossad chief Danny Yatom include documents about a private military force hired to train the Congolese army to fight the M23 movement which is still battling Kinshasa. Around the same time as these efforts, Epstein and Barak were involved in a series of overlapping endeavors aimed at winning access to oil and mineral resources in the region, while Epstein helped lobby in DC for the removal of sanctions on investors with mining interests in the Congo in the year before his death.

Full Report by Drop Site on their site

Massive amounts of Iranian and Chinese tankers are now exporting oil out of Iran

• Middle East Spectator

UN inquiry finds Israel [sic] 'intentionally' targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, occupied West Bank | The Cradle

The report revealed that Palestinian children accounted for roughly 30 percent of all those killed during the genocide in Gaza

President Putin commented on the Western imperialists' "rules-based order":

"As we know, the West is promoting ‘a rules-based world order.’ However, it was obvious that this idea disguised openly neo-colonialist ambitions, a disregard for the sovereignty of independent states, and a striving to interfere in their internal affairs and force them to change their foreign policy priorities. Like many other countries, Russia categorically rejects such ‘rules’," the message reads.

"We stand for a different, truly democratic foundation of the world order, namely, the universally recognized norms of international law, the indisputable authority of the UN Security Council, mutual respect and equality of all countries and their right to freely choose their development paths," Putin stressed.

https://tass.com/politics/2150409

'All the red countries had socialist governments just a few years ago. How is it possible that zero progress was made towards achieving the goals set by Simone Bolivar? How can the region still be wrecked by poverty? This is a generational failure of Diet Coke Socialism'

The Latin American left pulled millions of people out of poverty in every country, expelled US bases, launched land reform, and more. People who've achieved NOTHING in their own country want to sneer at those who transformed the lives of millions of the worlds poor.

These people have never won power in their country, or ever come close to it. They should be taking notes from those who've actually led sucessful campaigns to multiple victories over decades, instead they sneer.

The LatAm left is under attack, but they'll learn lessons, re-organise, and fight again. The victories of the 2000s came after the defeats of the 70s & 80s. These are real life mass movements with experience in gov, they don't need lectures from gringos who've never won anything.

• Twitter

🚨🚨🚨DSA Sweep: muslim mayor with heart and touch of gold mints three victories in NYC congressional primaries.🚨🚨🚨

jefferies scared, schumer scared, ultras reeling. knicks will never lose, socialism will always win.

just keeps doubling down on the Nazi shit and has nuked Polish-Ukrainian relations.

Even r/Europe is not defending him anymore. https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1ucfl4y/zelensky_said_that_budanov_and_kyslytsia_went_to/

Details : According to Zelensky, immediately after the Polish President's statements about his intentions to revoke the order, his team began active negotiations with explanations, but this did not change Karol Nawrocki's position.

"The head of my office and the first deputy, Budanov and Kyslytsia, said: 'We want to fly, we will resolve the issue with the Poles - with Karol's administration.' I said that 'you will not resolve this, in my opinion, because I see this as exclusively an electoral process that has already begun,'" Zelensky said.

He added that "the guys went," talked to everyone - "the president's office, the prime minister's team, the speaker's team," and generally "tried to do everything," but returned with the feeling that Navrotsky would still take the order.

"I suggested that we meet with the Polish president. I said let's hold a conference. The Polish president then takes the next step - saying that Ukraine has no place in Europe because it is bad for the Polish farmer. He is saying this for what - to then put pressure on Tusk, block the cluster. These are related things," Zelensky said.

He is convinced that his meeting with Prime Minister Donald Tusk "in no way influenced the Polish president" and his decision.

Zelensky added that during the presidency of Andrzej Duda, there was very good cooperation between Ukraine and Poland and that the presidents had "very special relations" at that time, against the backdrop of the great assistance that Poland provided to Ukraine.

"But we live from attack to attack. We don't live from 'thank you to thank you,'" the president added, referring to the accusations that Ukraine "does not show gratitude" to Poland.

Zelensky reminded that Ukrainians are now defending Poland and Europe, not vice versa. He also emphasized that it is the Ukrainian soldiers, and not he as the president, who choose a name for themselves and ask to be assigned a specific name.

According to Zelensky, he signed hundreds of similar decrees during the war, and never once gave the fighters "his" name, never said what he liked or didn't like, because he believes that as the head of state he should support the armed forces of his country.

Iranian delegation in Switzerland watching the football game instead of negotiating (Only good thing they did 💀)

• Middle East Spectator

Kenya’s China loan revamp sparks wider interest in yuan switch, AidData says | Reuters

• Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zambia, Pakistan and Indonesia reportedly seek to switch loans currency to yuan
• Kenya took a similar move in 2025, change of terms saved Nairobi $215 million annually
• Ethiopia could get significant debt relief if it manages to get similar terms, report says
• But currency ​change does not result in risk-free borrowing - report

Qatar pushes for Gulf-Iran security talks amid concerns over Lebanon and Hormuz

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said Gulf Arab states have reached a consensus on developing a common vision for dialogue with Iran aimed at resolving regional disputes and strengthening cooperation.

Al-Thani said Qatar wants to see Iran build high levels of trust and cooperation with Gulf countries, adding that preparations are underway for future Gulf security meetings focused on regional stability.

He warned that some parties are seeking to sabotage ongoing US-Iran negotiations but said Doha has sensed a genuine commitment from both sides to reach an agreement.

According to Al-Thani, the talks have faced challenges linked to Lebanon and the Strait of Hormuz, prompting the establishment of mechanisms to address these issues and prevent any escalation from derailing the process.

The Qatari premier stressed that any escalation in Lebanon or elsewhere in the region would directly affect the negotiations, saying that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly fueled regional tensions.

He added that Israel's continued presence in Lebanese territory must end and that Lebanon's sovereignty should be respected.

President Nicolas Maduro (Who is a prisoner of the US): In the face of the powerful earthquake that has struck our nation, our prayers are with the affected Venezuelan families. In this difficult time, we call for national unity, serenity, and love. Our hearts are with all of Venezuela!

"Beloved people of Venezuela: In the wake of the powerful earthquake that has struck our homeland, Cilia and I offer our prayers for every affected family, for the injured, for those who are suffering, and for all our people. Today, there is only one message: maximum unity, maximum solidarity, and maximum action. Let no one be left alone; let every community care for its children, its elders, and its sick; and let us all support the work of the rescue teams, the PNB, the FANB, civil protection, doctors, firefighters, workers, and volunteers."

"In this difficult hour, we call for national unity, serenity, and concrete love: to help, protect, share, lift up, and rebuild. Venezuela has faced great trials, and we will emerge from this one stronger as well—with faith, discipline, and solidarity. Our hearts and prayers are with you. May God bless and protect Venezuela!"

• Twitter

The countries who are sending or offering aid to Venezuela right now are: United States, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Panama, Bolivia, Uruguay, Cuba, Nicaragua, Barbados, United Kingdom, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, China, Russia, India.

• Sources

Video compilation of the moment 6.9 earthquake in Japan hit.

Their buildings are built to a pretty high earthquake resistance standard. Venezuela was hit by 7.2 and 7.5 and the scale is logrithmic.. venezuela isn't really built for earthquakes due to their infrequency.

Video compilation of the Venezuelan earthquakes cw people in distress, buildings collapsing, debris falling on people. You can see people try to run but they can barely stand on their feet from the violent shaking. Beyond casualties, there are a lot of people without home now. A lot of the mass housing units are on the verge of collapse or effectively totaled and need to be demolished.

You know wall street vultures are going to be jumping at the bit to privatize this. I hope that sell out stooge in office doesn't take the bait.

🇮🇷🇺🇸| The IRGC issued a statement after US attacked Sirik, southern Iran:

Following the Zionist regime’s violation of the ceasefire in southern Lebanon, a few hours ago the treaty-breaking American regime also, as always, violated its commitments.

Under various pretexts related to the movement of a violating ship through an unauthorized route in the Strait of Hormoz, it launched an air attack on the coasts of Iran.

In response to this aggression, the IRGC-Navy struck the US Army positions in the region.

According to Clause 5 of the Islamabad MoU, the arrangements for controlling passage and traffic in the Strait of Hormuz are under the authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

However, America, by provoking various sides, sought to violate this commitment, and the necessary response was given. From now on, it will be the same. If the aggression is repeated, our response will be broader than this.

@FotrosResistancee

Emphasis my own.

Cuba installs more than 300 photovoltaic systems with Canadian support - Prensa Latina

MoA repudiates the latest NATO propaganda narrative (about "Kiev winning"):

The Ukrainian army is in its ever worst position. Morale is terrible, losses are high and the recruitment methods are getting more and more brutal.

A recent investigation by the Ukrainian outlet Babel reveals murder and torture in the recruit training camps of the 425th Assault Regiment Skala (Rock).

The newly recruited soldiers, snatched from the streets, are living in guarded tents. Going to the toilet is only allowed in groups and under the eyes of an armed soldier. Grounds around the training camp are mined. Torture is routine. People who try to flee will be shot and/or get brutalized to death.

Strana reports that the “Rock” is far from the only such unit.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2026/06/ukraine-isnt-winning.html

The situation in Venezuela is horrible, Caracas and other cities were destroyed, some people are saying around 1.000 - 10.000 people died. Probably more people will leave the country for Colombia and Brazil. The US said they are considering send help (previously the US would send help to any country besides Cuba in LatAm as we saw during the 1970 earthquake in Peru, a very similar goverment and situation to modern day Venezuela. But with Trump who knows), and Cuba just said they'll send if the Goverment asks. This is probably bad for the USA who was probably hoping they would get cheap oil from Venezuela but with this whole situation it will take months for the production to restart.

Sonar21 - Larry Johnson - Which Country is the Big Loser from the Ramadan War?

The UAE.

::: spoiler Article: While the US certainly suffered some reputational damage and significant economic costs from its unprovoked attack on Iran, the United Arab Emirates may really be the big loser. Let’s focus on Dubai.

Think of Dubai as the World’s most expensive adult theme park that has no emergency exit. For decades, Dubai sold itself to the world as what would happen if Las Vegas and Disney World had a child together, raised it on sovereign wealth, and sent it to finishing school in Monaco. The result was a city of genuinely staggering audacity — an indoor ski slope in the desert, a hotel shaped like a sail that awards itself seven stars because five simply wasn’t enough, palm-shaped islands visible from space that are slowly sinking back into the sea from which they were so expensively extracted. It was, by any measure, the greatest theme park ever built for people who found actual theme parks insufficiently gilded and too puritanical.

The supposed genius of the Dubai proposition was always its geographical logic: i.e., it sits at the crossroads of global trade, pumps enough oil to build the infrastructure, and then gradually replace the oil revenue with everything else — tourism, finance, real estate, the inscrutable business of being a place where very wealthy people park very large amounts of money while asking no inconvenient questions. Oh, did I mention money laundering and hookers?

The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, named after the ruler of Abu Dhabi because Dubai ran out of money halfway through construction and needed a bailout, stands as perhaps the most honest monument in human history: a gleaming advertisement for ambition funded by someone else. The formula worked brilliantly as long as one variable held constant: the Strait of Hormuz remained open. The US and Israeli attack on Iran turned this assumption inside out.

Disney World works because it controls its environment entirely. Inside the berm, reality is suspended. Outside the berm, Florida continues to be Florida, which, as I can testify, is its own form of unreality but in a less curated direction. Dubai’s version of the berm was always the strait — twenty-one miles of water that kept the global economy flowing through the neighborhood and made Dubai’s position as the region’s entrepôt, logistics hub, financial center, and luxury destination not merely plausible but geometrically inevitable.

When Iran mined the strait in March 2026, Dubai discovered that its berm had a gap in it roughly twenty-one miles wide.

The cruise ships left first — or rather, they tried to. Six of them were trapped inside the Gulf like very large, very expensive rubber ducks in a bathtub whose drain had been plugged by a theocracy. Fifteen thousand passengers discovered that the all-inclusive package they had purchased did not, in the fine print, include Iranian mine-clearance operations as an amenity. The ships eventually got out during a brief window in April when Iran and the US simultaneously claimed the strait was open, which gave the ships a brief opening to make a run to safety. The passengers disembarked elsewhere and appear to have decided that the Arabian Gulf cruise experience had delivered sufficient excitement for one lifetime.

Las Vegas, Dubai’s other spiritual progenitor, is built on the foundational promise that geography is irrelevant — that a city in the middle of a desert can become the center of the world through sheer force of neon and human appetite. Dubai took this lesson and applied it at sovereign scale. If Las Vegas could conjure a city from nothing in Nevada, Dubai could conjure a global financial center from nothing in a desert on the edge of a historically significant but economically peripheral body of water.

The difference is that Las Vegas sits in the middle of a continent. Its supply chains are inconvenienced by traffic on I-15, not Iranian frigates. When something goes wrong in Nevada, the problem is human-scale. When something goes wrong in the Strait of Hormuz, the problem is civilizational-scale, which is a somewhat different category of operational risk.

Dubai’s ports — Jebel Ali, the largest in the Middle East — discovered that being the region’s premier logistics hub is an extraordinary competitive advantage right up until the moment the region becomes inaccessible. The container ships stopped coming. The tankers that hadn’t already been stranded inside the Gulf diverted around Africa, adding two weeks to their journeys and entirely bypassing the hub that had been so carefully constructed to serve them. The cargo kept moving; it simply moved around Dubai rather than through it, in the manner of a river that encounters a spectacular dam and quietly reroutes rather than admiring the engineering.

What Dubai is experiencing is the particular agony of a city built for maximum throughput discovering that throughput has somewhere else to be. The restaurants remain excellent. The hotel pools remain temperature-controlled to a degree that can only be described as a philosophical statement about the relationship between mankind and climate. The brunches — Dubai’s most characteristically Dubai institution, a Friday afternoon event that begins at noon, ends somewhere around consciousness, and costs roughly what a semester of community college costs in Ohio — continue to be held, though with fewer attendees from the European finance sector, which is dealing with its own energy crisis and has temporarily reduced its appetite for unlimited wagyu and proximity to other people’s wealth.

The real estate market, which has spent twenty years as a reliable indicator of how much money the world needs to quietly relocate, is experiencing what agents describe as a period of recalibration and what everyone else describes as a crash. Property values in Dubai are denominated in confidence as much as dirhams, and confidence requires that the fundamental premise of Dubai — the crossroads theory, the inevitability of the location — remains legible. A crossroads from which one of the roads has been temporarily mined is a different proposition.

But the Hormuz crisis has stripped away, at least temporarily, the comfortable fiction that Dubai’s position was natural rather than constructed, inevitable rather than contingent. Las Vegas exists because Americans wanted somewhere to gamble without legal consequence. Disney World exists because Walt Disney wanted to control the parking. Dubai exists because the global economy needed a node at a specific geographic location, and someone had the audacity and the capital to build one there.

All three are, at their core, exercises in the proposition that if you build it extravagantly enough, they will come. Two of them don’t have to worry about what happens if someone mines the entrance.

But there also is a dark side to the UAE in general and Dubai in particular — it is a center for money laundering and foreign intelligence activities. A friend, who is a business/energy consultant in the Persian Gulf summarizes the situation as follows:

The UAE now operates as a Zionist/Israeli-linked Gulf security platform with annex-like and fledgling-colony characteristics. Zionist/Israeli and Israel-linked security, cyber, surveillance, defense, and intelligence-adjacent systems have permeated core state capability to the point of effective strategic control over key security and technology layers.
That penetration creates strategic exposure across the UAE military establishment, internal-security architecture, technology stack, logistics system, financial channels, and monetary confidence base.

The money-flow thesis has also changed. Dubai and the broader UAE have long served as high-liquidity routing environments for offshore capital, sanctions-sensitive money, criminal syndicate proceeds, and illicit flows connected to Africa, gold, real estate, trade, luxury assets, and corporate structuring. The war-risk and security-integration shock has
damaged that flow. Capital that depends on opacity, stability, and uninterrupted confidence becomes unstable when the host jurisdiction is visibly embedded in a conflict architecture.

The state is assessed as structurally aligned with the US-Israel security architecture and operationally dependent on Israel-linked security and technology capabilities. The exposure is not merely diplomatic. The UAE security apparatus, technology apparatus, military establishment, cyber-defense layer, and monetary confidence system are assessed as deeply permeated by Zionist/Israeli and Israel-linked systems, vendors, intelligence-adjacent relationships, and defense cooperation. Money flows that used the UAE for opacity, liquidity, asset conversion, gold, corporate layering, luxury consumption, trade routing, and real-estate placement are now exposed to war-risk repricing, sanctions scrutiny, intelligence attention, and capital-flight pressure.

So guess whose uncle is a weekly visitor to the UAE carrying bags of cash? If you guessed Volodimir Zelensky you are correct. Zelensky’s uncle, according to my source, deposits the money in local banks. The money is then used to purchase property that it then subsequently sold. The proceeds from that sale are then sent to banks in Israel… All cleaned up. From there, some of the money makes its way back to members of the US Congress as a way of thanking them for their support of Ukraine.

Will the UAE return to its previous garish glory? Perhaps. One immediate consequence of the US/Israeli attack on Iran is that much of the big money stored in the UAE banks decided that Singapore was more secure, which produced a significant capital flight from Dubai.

Continued below...

CNN - Exclusive: Downed US pilot reported seeing Iranian drones swarm in ‘jellyfish’ formation

Snippets. Note: I moved sentences around.

If the airman really saw what he described — a formation moving in unison — it would be an alarming advance in Iranian drone capabilities. “Multiple drones interconnected and moving as one with smaller drones below the bigger drones like legs,” one of the sources familiar with the pilot’s witness account told CNN. “Real alien sh*t.”

The technical term for the capability described by the pilot is “one-to-many meshed networking,” according to the sources. In general, meshed networking allows an operator to command several drones at a time. US intelligence officials disagreed on how to interpret what the F-15 pilot described, and whether the pilot could recount the incident clearly. For one thing, he was concussed in the crash. It was his second time being shot out of the sky during the Iran war

He had also been among the pilots downed in a friendly fire incident by Kuwaiti forces early in the conflict, according to two of the sources. Had he witnessed a mature capability that US intelligence wasn’t aware of? A beta test? A mirage in the desert? The intelligence officials conducting the debrief said something to the effect of: “Are you sure you saw what you are saying you saw?” another one of the sources said.

---

https://archive.ph/mleAw

Semi-relevant question, how important are american evangelicals in this day and age?

I just read American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, there was a lot about the early history I didn't know about, like how it started mostly because WW1 basically validated the beliefs of a lot of people that thought the world was ending soon, and how a lot of them were actually pacifists and not christian nationalists, but around WW2 evangelicals became what we know them as today, although there was temporarily an active left-wing faction during the american civil rights era. It delves into just how much they become one of if not the strongest interest group around the Reagan era, and how oddly it must've felt to have a president that thought the world was gonna end, that was the craziest part to me I didn't know that a central tenet of fundamentalism and evangelicals is that they're actively waiting for the world to end, and making decisions around that, kinda reminded me of a, not totally illogical, tendency of some internet leftists to predict a kind of final crisis which ushers in socialism in our lifetimes.

The book end during obama's second term, so it doesn't delve into how the movement is currently doing, and personally I hear a lot less about them that I did during trump 1. So what do people here think, has it all been subsumed into trumpism? Or has it been subsumed into zionism, with the original christian message becoming secondary? Is it spreading or decreasing inside america?

More importantly to me, is it actually spreading OUTSIDE north america? Part of why I started reading this was because I heard that it was, mostly to south america, and the overly emotional tone and messianism of american fundamentalists reminded me of the far-right here in portugal (which isn't protestant).

The IAEA Secretary General, Rafael Grossi, says he will soon hold talks with Iran to determine ‘dates for inspections’ This comes despite Iran denying that it has agreed to IAEA inspections.

It’s likely that Grossi is talking about inspecting the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and Tehran Research Reactor

These two civilian facilities were already being inspected by the IAEA before the recent war, but inspections were suspended temporarily after the U.S. and Israel attacked in February.

Those facilities are not important to Iran’s high enrichment program, and are both located above ground.

The sensitive underground nuclear complexes at Natanz, Fordow and Esfahan have not been inspected since June 2025, for almost a full year now—and likely won’t be inspected any time soon, unless a final deal is reached.

IAEA director: We know where Iran's highly enriched uranium is, but Iran must inform us of its location.

• Middle East Spectator

The U.S. and the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, reject all “tolls” or “fees” in a joint statement following a ministerial meeting in Bahrain.

➤ They welcomed the June 17 U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding, backed continued negotiations, and reaffirmed the goal of preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon while insisting any future trade with Iran remains “conditional and reversible.”

➤ They called for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, rejected “any tolls, fees, or attempts to assert control” over the waterway, and welcomed Oman’s evacuation plan for more than 11,000 stranded seafarers.

➤ On Lebanon, they backed U.S.-mediated Israel-Lebanon negotiations, called for the disarmament of all non-state armed groups, and said full Lebanese sovereignty requires the state to hold a monopoly on force.

➤ On Gaza, they reaffirmed support for President Trump’s UN-backed plan, welcomed GCC participation in the “Board of Peace,” backed the demilitarization of all Palestinian armed groups, and called for Gaza to be governed by an independent technocratic Palestinian committee. They also reiterated that no one would be forced to leave Gaza and that those who do leave would be free to return.

➤ They also reaffirmed support for Syria’s sovereignty and reconstruction, and condemned attacks by what they described as Iranian proxies in Iraq against GCC states.

Y'all are talking a lot of shit for not having ADS on your capital buildings.

Mexico won 3-0 vs the bohemians, good has won again

For the first time in history, Mexico has won all three of its group stage matches at the World Cup.

also Brazil won 3-0 vs the scots , morocco won vs haiti 4-2 and south corea lost to south africa 0-1

Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, has arrived in Oman together with Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi to finalize arrangements with the Omanis regarding Iran’s management of the Strait of Hormuz

• Middle East Spectator

Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif: ‘This MoU does not mention ballistic missiles. It was never on the table; it was never on the agenda. Iran's side never wanted to even discuss about it.’

• Middle East Spectator

The Lebanese resistance has demanded a full Zionist retreat from Lebanon:

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem says Israel will have to withdraw unconditionally from every inch of Lebanese territory, leaving “defeated and humiliated.”

“Israel has no option but to fully withdraw from our land,” he said, rejecting any arrangement that would allow an Israeli presence in Lebanon or lead to normalization between Beirut and Tel Aviv.

https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/06/26/771128/Hezbollah-chief-Israel-must-leave-Lebanon-humiliated-defeated-

The title of the update made me laugh.

Al Jazeera - Vance calls Switzerland talks productive but warns ‘you can’t trust anybody’s words’. “We set up the mechanism to ensure not only the Straits of Hormuz are open, but will stay open,” the vice president said. He went on to repeat that Iran has allowed weapons and nuclear inspectors “into the country for the first time in a long time”.

Despite his positive tone, Vance cautioned that only actions will make a difference. “You can’t trust anybody’s words—you have to trust what they actually do. Letting in the inspectors is a big deal—but again, we’re going to see what they actually let the inspectors do once they’re in the country. That’s going to continually be part of our negotiation.”

US carmakers could produce missiles – Trump (RT)

Washington wants to expand weapons production after reportedly depleting key stockpiles in the Iran war and Ukraine

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said car companies with spare factory capacity are discussing deals to manufacture weapons, including Patriot air-defense missiles and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

”They’re dealing with General Motors. They’re dealing with Ford,” Trump said. “I know General Motors is all excited about building weapons now.”

He added that some plants belonging to the two carmakers are expected to be converted to military production, describing the shift as part of a “big strong economic push” to produce arms.

His remarks come after the Wall Street Journal reported in April that the Pentagon had approached General Motors, Ford, GE Aerospace, and Oshkosh about retooling civilian factories to produce munitions and other military equipment.

It's kind of funny. I have a Republican relative (who only ever buys Japanese car brands) who always insisted it was right for the US government to subsidize and bail out US automakers in case we ever needed a WW2 total war manufacturing capacity because in WW2 they made tanks.

http://www.kcna.kp/en/article/q/01fcd4b7ce598551c6a7b1719a32e0b4.kcmsf

Looks like a new plenary meeting has agreed upon expanding DPRK's nuclear defence capabilities "with a goal of overtaking the world"