news

“It is fully justified, legitimate and lawful for China to take these measures which aim to contain Japan’s reckless moves to neo-militarism,” said Guo Jiakun, official spokesperson of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a press conference on Monday. He further assured that China’s “lawful” action “only targets a small number of Japanese entities. The relevant measures target only dual-use items, and will not affect the normal business exchanges” between both the countries. The motive of the move is to warn Japan “to turn back from the wrong path, correct its wrong doings, do serious soul-searching and go back to the right track,” Guo underlined. China had initiated similar export control moves against 20 Japanese entities first in February this year. The list had included Mitsubishi’s shipbuilding arm as well.

Japan reacted to the Chinese move on Monday, calling it unacceptable and regrettable.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce noted that, despite repeated warnings in the past, Japan has refused to correct its ways and continued with the militarization and deployment of offensive weapons inside and outside its borders. Experts have warned that Japan has become a central part of the US “new cold war against China.”

This has been accelerated by the surge of the right wing’s popularity in the country, which talks about the revival of the same national glory widely held responsible for the colonial period of Japanese history and the atrocities during World War II. In the last few years, successive Japanese administrations have pushed the idea of national revival and vowed to increase defense spending, invest in weapons and development programs, and have actively participated in mammoth US-led multinational military exercises in the region. For the first time in its history, Japan deployed long-range missiles in March this year. It fired its first surface-to-ship missile while participating in this year’s Balikatan exercise in the Philippines. The nationalist right wing in Japan has also been pushing for the development of nuclear weapons by the country, which remains the sole victim in the world of such weapons.

China maintains that Japan’s aggressive attempts to militarize threaten the post-World War II arrangements and destabilizes the region. Japanese re-armament will also lead to an arms race in the region, China has claimed, demanding an immediate international intervention in the matter.

Relations between the two countries further deteriorated after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, immediately after assuming office, threatened China with military action if it used force to reintegrate Taiwan. Despite Japan officially recognizing it as a part of China, Takaichi claimed that any Chinese military action in Taiwan would be considered an “existential crisis” for her country. China demanded an apology and the retraction of the statement, calling it a violation of the One-China policy and an interference in its internal affairs. However, despite her statement causing prolonged diplomatic tension and economic hurdles for the country, Takaichi refused to apologize or retract the statement, merely saying that she would not repeat it in the future.

The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters declares the strait a ‘red line.’ On Thursday, Iran’s main military command, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters (KCHQ), warned that any U.S. interference in the Strait of Hormuz will be met with the Iranian armed forces’ “decisive and swift” response.

The KCHQ stressed that the strait is not the “aggressive U.S. playground,” but the territory of Iran’s “undisputed sovereignty,” with its security and stability considered a red line for the Iranian military.

It confirmed that all oil tankers and commercial vessels seeking to pass through the strait must use routes designated by Iran, warning that any non-compliance and use of other routes, or disregard for Iran’s navigation protocols, will be met with the Iranian armed forces’ “immediate and decisive” response, and endanger the violating vessels’ safety.

The Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said that Iran considers any U.S. attempt to interfere in security affairs or cause disruption in the Strait of Hormuz as a threat against its national security, and will respond to it “swiftly and decisively.”

It emphasized that the continued presence of U.S. manned and unmanned fighter aircraft over the waterway will cause insecurity, adding that Iran will not hesitate to take the necessary actions to “crush any aggression” by the U.S. forces and their supporters to protect its sovereignty over the strait.

Iran has tightened its grip on the strait since Feb. 28, when it barred safe passage of vessels belonging to or affiliated with Israel and the United States following their joint strikes on Iranian territory.

On Thursday, Kazem Gharibabadi, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for Legal and International Affairs, underlined in a post on social media platform X that the Strait of Hormuz “is defined under Iran’s command, not the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM).”

His remarks came a day after CENTCOM led a “security dialogue” in Bahrain with military officials from 12 countries. The meeting discussed regional security, expanding defense collaboration across the region, and underscored their commitment to the free flow of commerce through the Strait of Hormuz.

Gharibabadi said the Bahrain meeting cannot “create legal order and security” for the Gulf, noting that security in West Asia will be ensured “not under the U.S. military umbrella,” but after the U.S. stops its interventions, withdraws from the region, respects countries’ national sovereignty, and accepts new geopolitical realities.

Beirut, June 30 (Prensa Latina) Israeli aircraft and artillery attacked several areas of southern Lebanon today, in a new violation of the framework agreement recently signed between Beirut and Tel Aviv under US mediation.

According to Lebanon's National News Agency (NNA), Israeli fighter jets bombed the area between the towns of Qantara and Deir Siryan in the Marjayoun district, following an intense artillery attack on the outskirts of Deir Siryan near the Litani River.

The source added that the town of Haddatha, in the Bint Jbeil district, was also hit by Israeli bombing.

Last Friday, Lebanon and Israel signed a framework agreement in Washington that envisions a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from all Lebanese territory, starting with two pilot zones.

However, hostilities have continued since the signing of the agreement. Lebanese authorities reported that between Friday and Saturday, three people were killed and three others wounded in Israeli attacks on towns in the south of the country.

Also on Sunday, a new air raid reached the vicinity of Deir Siryan and Taybeh, with no casualties reported.

The recent bombings add to a series of military actions attributed to Israel since the agreement came into effect, while Israeli troops maintain their occupation of areas in southern Lebanon and, according to Lebanese sources, have extended their incursions in some places to more than 10 kilometers inside Lebanese territory.

On June 26th, Burkina Faso’s Minister of Communications Pingdwendé Gilbert Ouédraogo appeared on state television to announce the end of diplomatic relations with France, effective immediately. According to Ouédraogo, Paris maintained “neo-colonial ambitions” and were known to support the “subversive networks and the terrorists” bleeding the Sahel through endless waves of attacks on both military and civilian targets.

The buildup to this diplomatic severance was three years in the making. Only months after the military coup that put Burkinabé president Ibrahim Traoré in power, French troops were ordered out in early 2023, and the French ambassador recalled soon after. Then, in 2024, Burkina Faso expelled French diplomats. When Burkina Faso ended the Burkinabé-French military accord in 2023, the government insisted it was “not the end of diplomatic relations” between the two countries. But after two years of worsening relations and endless fighting against terror groups across the Sahel, Burkina Faso finally ended relations definitively in June 2026. For many who lionized Traoré, as well as the allied Sahel movement for self-determination, it came as a mortal blow against the former colonial master that had inflicted well over a century of bloodshed, suffering, and instability across the region.

And then, only days later, a photograph circulated across X (formerly Twitter) that nearly overshadowed this story. In the picture, Traoré could be seen shaking hands with Simon-Clément Seroussi, Israel’s ambassador to Côte d’Ivoire (and accredited ambassador to Benin, Togo, and Burkina Faso). The image in itself was proof of betrayal: the defiant country whose young leader had just faced down France, and become a folk hero to Africans dedicated to sovereign power over their own futures, had allegedly turned heel and embraced Israel. According to Seroussi’s own LinkedIn account, the handshake symbolized a continuance of the “longstanding ties” between Israel and Burkina Faso, and spoke of an “enduring friendship” between those countries.

What could possibly explain this?

Well, what happened in Koulouba was a credentials ceremony, the most routine event on the calendar of any newly-assigned ambassador. Burkina Faso did not sign any pacts with Israel, establish any new agreements, or commit to changing their consistent record of UN voting against Israel. It was a photographed handshake, much as another handshake was photographed with another Israeli ambassador in 2023. Unfortunately, for westerners who know next to nothing about the region or its history beyond Thomas Sankara’s martyrdom, developing countries who’ve committed to a revolutionary path exist as little more than action figurines who can be discarded the moment the sheen of novelty wears off, and once they begin doing the unpleasant things that states struggling for sovereignty must inevitably do.

Simon-Clément Seroussi is not posted to Ouagadougou. He resides in Abidjan, the commercial capital of Côte d’Ivoire, and, again, is accredited to four countries at once: Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin and Burkina Faso, according to Israel’s own foreign ministry. This is not a new relationship. Burkina Faso’s diplomatic history with Israel goes back to 1961, not long after Upper Volta (Burkina Faso’s predecessor state) became independent from France. Relations were severed in 1973 under Sangoulé Lamizana, after the October War destroyed relations between not only Israel and the Arab nations of the Middle East, but almost every African nation save for Mauritius, Swaziland (now Eswatini), Lesotho, and Malawi. But in 1993, relations between Burkina Faso and Israel were restored after the Oslo agreement. In fact, 2008-dated Wikileaks documents show that former president Blaise Compaoré attempted to win favour with the US, by courting a closer relationship with Israel during the Zionist entity’s 60th anniversary celebrations.

Burkina Faso’s relationship with Israel is, of course, much different from its partner states Mali and Niger. Mali followed suit with the vast majority of Africa in 1973, and broke diplomatic relations with Israel. It has never restored them, given Mali and the US have historically enjoyed a strong relationship, especially in the post-9/11 period where Mali became a US partner in counterterrorism, and subsequently received aid and military training. Former Malian president Boubacar Keïta did meet briefly with Benjamin Netanyahu in Liberia, during a 2017 regional summit (and Netanyahu spoke of “warming” the relationship between their respective countries), but nothing of substance materialized from there.

Niger’s history with Israel is somewhat uneven: it cut ties in 1973, restored them after the Oslo agreement, then severed them again in 2002 during the Second Intifada. So while the other AES bloc nations have mostly maintained their distance from Israel, Burkina Faso’s current government inherited a diplomatic relationship from previous leadership that, like all too many African nations at the time, had sold out their national interests to the west in exchange for maintaining their grasp on power.

As things stand today, all of Burkina Faso’s non-AES neighbours (and members of broader ECOWAS economic bloc) have diplomatic relations with Israel. Côte d’Ivoire hosts an Israeli embassy in Abidjan, Togo and Benin are covered by Seroussi’s diplomatic assignment and Ghana has its own Israeli embassy in Accra. Relations with Côte d’Ivoire were re-established in 1980 (not long after the Egypt-Israel treaty of 1979), Togo in 1987 (amidst then-president Gnassingbé Eyadéma’s domestic economic crisis), Benin in 1992 (after the collapse of Kérékou’s government, and the country’s decisive break from socialist policy), and Ghana in 1994, after the Oslo agreement. Israel’s embassy reopened in Accra, in 2011.

Seroussi was not dispatched to Ouagadougou for a trade or military agreement, or any realignment of Burkina Faso’s foreign policy at all. Seroussi was one of a batch of 8 new envoys received in the same accreditation round, much as his predecessor Rony Yedidia Clein presented hers in 2023 along with 12 other envoys.

Incidentally, Clein’s handshake with Traoré also set off speculation about Burkina Faso’s secret pact with Israel, much later in 2025.

Seroussi’s diplomatic cohort represented Saudi Arabia, Angola, Somalia, the Sovereign Order of Malta, Indonesia, Tanzania and Bangladesh. Before any of these ambassadors shook Traoré’s hand, they first handed working copies of their diplomatic letters to Burkina Faso’s foreign minister Karamoko Jean Marie Traoré on the 25th of June. The originals were then presented to the head of state, who posed for routine ceremonial photographs – one of which would later become raw material for outrage-farming online.

Missing in all of this, is the fact that working copies were delivered the day before Burkina Faso cut diplomatic relations with France. In other words, the accreditation of Israeli ambassador Seroussi was already moving through the ordinary diplomatic machinery before the France announcement was made. Based on the online narrative pushed by a small US-based account calling itself the “Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel,” many seemed to believe that Burkina Faso had kicked out Paris, only to welcome in Tel Aviv immediately afterwards.

Receiving an ambassador’s letters of credence simply means recognizing that person as another state’s official representative. It does not mean friendship, ideological alignment, economic cooperation, military procurement, or combat training. It does not mean support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. States routinely receive ambassadors from countries they sanction, condemn, vote against, negotiate with, spy on, and in some cases engage in mutual combat with. Traoré’s photo with Seroussi was not followed by any announcement of a public security pact, trade agreement, or even a shift in Burkina Faso’s United Nations voting record. The complete extent of the scandal was a non-resident Israeli envoy presenting his paperwork to the head of state, in the same week as seven other diplomats, followed by diplomatic boilerplate on LinkedIn about “longstanding ties” and “enduring friendship.”

Seroussi’s words, mind you, not a Burkinabé statement of policy.

None of this means that all of Burkina Faso’s policies are clean, consistent, or above criticism. Many commentators and publications have already drawn attention to its crackdowns on journalists, Traoré’s public skepticism towards liberal democracy (whether justified or not), and anti-LGBT policies encoded into criminal law. But to many foreigners commenting on these matters, the AES states are not so much “states” as they are symbolic representations of their own fantasies of a perfect revolution. They should be unblemished proof that Africa has finally cast off its fetters, and are ready to pull down the US, Europe, and Israel from their imperialist thrones.

The reality is, the AES bloc are landlocked, poor, heavily sanctioned, diplomatically isolated, and bogged down in fighting longtime insurgencies highly suspected of being backed by France. They need functioning infrastructure, economic redevelopment, and a broader range of trade partners, in addition to weapons, intelligence, and breathing room. They are bordered by militarized, pro-western countries which would gladly accept any pretext to intervene with western backing, and crush their sovereignist project. A diplomatic photo opportunity does not make Burkina Faso pro-Israel; it is an acknowledgment that Burkina Faso is a state: weak in some ways, defiant in others

The recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and Hezbollah's unreported role in the previous war is leading Tehran to this conclusion

Will Israel restart the war with Iran before the October elections? This is the consensus view emerging within Iran’s internal national security debate over the past week.

Several factors are driving Tehran to this conclusion. Beyond its deep—and not entirely unwarranted—suspicion of President Donald Trump’s intentions, heightened by Vice President JD Vance’s recent remark that Trump wants to use the MOU to replenish global oil reserves and then “see where the hand is,” two developments stand out: the recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and its impact on Hezbollah’s military posture over the coming months.

From Tehran’s perspective, the agreement hands Israel a significant advantage in any renewed war with Iran—one it lacked in February. By allowing Israeli forces to remain in parts of southern Lebanon, the deal appears to contravene the MOU while fundamentally reshaping the military balance. Israel’s continued presence in these strategic positions would make it far more difficult for Hezbollah to mount the kind of offensive operations that proved critical during the previous round of fighting.

That matters because, in February and March, the Iranians say they used only about 40 percent of their offensive capabilities against Israel, because Hezbollah carried much of the remaining burden. At the time, pundits in the West were debating why Tehran hit the UAE harder than it did Israel.

Part of it was because of Israel’s much higher pain tolerance compared to the GCC states. Tehran was aiming to reach the most accessible pain threshold to pressure the US to end the war. But part of it was the critical role Hezbollah played in the war, contrary to much of the press coverage at the time. It played a critical role in stretching Israel’s defenses, complicating its targeting decisions, and forcing it to divide resources across multiple fronts.

That role, however, was poorly understood because Israel imposed near-total military censorship during the war—far stricter than the censorship regime in June 2025—which sharply limited public visibility into Hezbollah’s operations and their impact. As a result, the degree to which Hezbollah shaped the course of the war has been significantly underestimated.

Unlike the MOU, the current Israeli-Lebanese agreement does not require Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory until Hezbollah has been disarmed. Since that outcome is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future, Israel is poised to retain its positions inside Lebanon, enabling it to renew the war with Iran without facing the same pressure from its northern front that constrained it during the previous conflict.

Netanyahu’s motivations are clear. Beyond his long-standing desire to use American force to subjugate Iran to Israeli domination and achieve a regional balance favourable to Israel, he now also has stark political and personal reasons to restart the war.

The MOU has come at a steep political cost for Netanyahu. His prospects for reelection in October are weaker than they have been in months. Once seen as the Israeli leader uniquely capable of delivering President Trump, he now confronts the prospect that both the war and the ensuing diplomacy will leave Israel in a strategically weaker position—undermining the very case he has made for his leadership.

And of course, if he loses the elections, he will likely spend the next few years in jail, as he will lose his immunity as Prime Minister and face trial over corruption charges.

Whether the Trump administration is coordinating with Israel on such a strategy remains unclear to Tehran. But suspicions surrounding Secretary of State Marco Rubio run particularly deep, given his role in brokering the Israeli-Lebanese agreement, his support for the war, and his perceived opposition to the MOU.

From Tehran’s perspective, there are three plausible scenarios. The first is that the White House is aware of Israel’s plans and helped broker the Lebanese agreement in part to facilitate them. The second is that Washington is unaware of Netanyahu’s intentions but would nonetheless come to Israel’s defense—and perhaps even join the offensive—once Netanyahu resumes the war. The third is that the administration is caught by surprise, chooses not to restrain Israel, but also refrains from direct military involvement in the conflict.

Tehran does not believe Israel’s advantage in Lebanon will prove decisive. Iranian officials remain confident they can impose severe costs on Israel and deny it its broader strategic objectives. But a renewed war could still achieve Netanyahu’s most immediate aim: killing the MOU. Given his mounting political and legal pressures, Netanyahu may be desperate enough to be willing to challenge Trump directly to ensure precisely that outcome.

The question is, once again, not how Trump will react, but if Trump will prevent Netanyahu from deliberately shaping and limiting Trump’s options. This is the test Trump has repeatedly failed.

the point is that iranian leaders and diplomats can see the writing on the wall. the iranian response (denying or even condemning negotiations while actively negotiating) makes sense when you realize they believe these negotiations will fail and want to abdicate responsibility, while still pursuing these negotiations because a. hard nosed pragmatism and wanting peace, b. trump is erratic and might take the US out of the equation and c. (rightly) blame israel on why the MoU failed which gives the military much more operational freedom in the same way that the diplomatic fallout of the Ramadan war was contained due to US being perceived as the primary aggressor.

that being said however, get ready to be disappointed and horrified from all the death and destruction. as much as hexbears are confident about a new conflict bringing total humiliation for the US, there has been no significant development or increase in preparedness on the iranian side while the US has been aggressively building up anti-drone infrastructure, cement bunkers and even tunneling all around the GCC, while actively increasing its forces preparing for a ground invasion. i think the biggest flaw of the US military was severe underestimation of iranian capabilities and accuracy of its weapons (which was forcefully corrected) and i don't think it will make the same mistakes again.

i still believe a mission to take the uranium out is suicide, but something like capturing important points on the iranian coastline and the islands are far more plausible and achievable. on top of this trump is still actively maintaining the posture that he will do a genocide and blow out the entire grid/road network if a new war happens, which the US military is more than capable enough to do. the situation does not look good at all.

🔸 Axios, which often channels US and Israeli official leaks, said Washington told Iran to “think bigger,” claiming a full sanctions-lifting deal would be worth “100 times more” than charging tolls.

🔸 US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Qatari mediators and the emir in Doha this week. Iran’s Kazem Gharibabadi said there were no direct US-Iran contact, and all talks ran through Qatari and Pakistani mediators. The main topics, per Axios’ sources: the strait, Iran’s frozen assets, and the ceasefire in Lebanon.

🔸 Gharibabadi said the sides agreed to establish an “emergency communication channel” by tomorrow, for MOU violations, and that Iran’s frozen Qatari funds would be used to buy goods “based on Iran’s stated needs.”

🔸Al-Arabiya reported the US and Iran agreed to release a first $3 billion tranche for humanitarian purchases, though US officials denied any such deal and said no funds had been freed.

🔸 The report says US negotiators told Iran they intend to keep restraining Israel and ensure it abides by the Lebanon ceasefire

🔸FM Araghchi struck a defiant note on X: “POTUS has committed the U.S. to muzzling its pets in Tel Aviv. If they ignore their master, Iran will school them.”

Two days ago we reported that Blackstone was selling its stakes in a trio of data centers across Northern Virginia for $3.5 billion, cashing out of part of a bet it made less than three years ago. According to Bloomberg, Digital Realty Trust would pay $1.2 billion of cash and offer $2.3 billion of its shares (which the PE giant has largely cashed in by now) to Blackstone funds; in exchange, the data center company will acquire Blackstone’s 80% interest in two 96-megawatt data centers in Manassas, Virginia, and a 50% interest in a 96-megawatt center in nearby Sterling. We said that "the question is why did Blackstone decide to pull the cord now, just as fresh doubts are creeping whether the Mag 7s will continue funding the AI expansion with virtually unlimited capex." Two days later we have an answer.

The digital ink is barely dry on its Virginia data center sales, and we learn that Blackstone’s QTS (QTS Realty Trust) is again quietly fading its AI exposure by walking away from plans to build its portion (which at this point is the only portion left after its partner already pulled out days ago) of a 2,100-acre data center campus in Virginia - also known as Prince William Digital Gateway which would house as many as 37 data-center buildings - handing a win to residents who fought for years to topple the project. The data center developer had planned to transform more than 800 acres in Northern Virginia’s Prince William County, a project that would have spanned 22 million square feet, making it the largest data center campus in the world. Located on the edge of an historic Civil War battlefield and on what used to be land protected from development, the project ignited strong pushback from homeowners and has been stalled by lawsuits.

As part of Wall Street’s broader push into data centers, investment has poured into Northern Virginia, which is considered the country’s largest data center market, and is better known as "Data Center Alley". But in a strategic U-turn, in recent days QTS executives decided that it isn’t worth pressing forward in court, the Bloomberg sources said. The firm’s attorneys plan to inform the court of their decision as soon as this week, the people said, asking not to be named discussing non-public information. QTS’s rapid growth has made it a poster child of how private equity has fueled the data center industry’s breakneck expansion. Those ambitions are colliding with public anxiety over strains to electricity grids and home prices from AI data centers. The retreat may be the final blow to Virginia’s “Digital Gateway” project, a mega site roughly twice the size of New York’s Central Park with city-sized power needs. The initiative was supposed to bring in some $100 billion in spending and create one of the world’s largest technology corridors. Not any more. The project had sparked contentious, drawn-out public hearings. A clerical blunder related to a key zoning meeting created setbacks for developers. Already, Brookfield-backed Compass Datacenters, which was supposed to build on more than 800 acres at the site, had pulled out in May.

The U-turns by both firms, Bloomberg writes, amount to one of the most dramatic retreats by developers from a data center project. It’s a reminder of how tech firms’ race for the computing infrastructure to support AI advances is increasingly facing the same bottlenecks, from power shortages to supply crunches, we have been warning about for the past two years and which Citadel Securities warned about just yesterday. Organized opposition is mounting, forcing firms and developers to be more deliberate about where they choose to build. This is precisely what we warned one year ago would happen as more grassroots organizations pushed back against the relentless data center rollout. At least we haven't gotten to the arson stage (yet).

To account for the costs of such build outs, Virginia recently passed a budget with an energy consumption tax on data centers, and more states are threatening moratoriums on new development. Data centers - and how their costs and benefits are shared - are now emerging a major swing issue in the lead up to the US midterm elections. These hurdles raise questions for investors over whether the AI build out can keep going at this pace. For community organizers and residents that spent the last five years opposing the Digital Gateway, QTS’s pullout will now validate a playbook that involved pressure campaigns on local politicians and legal attacks. It will also unleash even more powerful blowback nationwide against these unwanted developments. As Bloomberg recalls, hundreds of proponents and critics showed up at a 27-hour zoning hearing in 2023 to lobby authorities on the project. After county officials narrowly voted to approve the conversion of agricultural and semi-rural land for data centers, community organizers and residents pursued lawsuits. The outcome of the meeting - and whether the county properly advertised the event - was at the center of legal challenges. The lawsuits hinged on one detail: The first two newspaper notices publicizing the hearing weren’t separated by at least six days, as state and local codes required at that time. While it is unclear if Blackstone agents had tried to "grease" the zoning board's palms to quietly fast-track the data center, in the end the outcome was catastrophic to the builders.

In March, Virginia courts upheld an earlier ruling that the zoning approvals were invalid because the public notices for the meeting fell short of rules. “While we still believe this project offered significant benefits for the region and our neighbors, recent legal actions and compounding regulatory hurdles have effectively closed a viable path forward,” Compass Datacenters President AJ Byers said in a statement following the ruling. After Compass bailed on the project, that left QTS as the lone developer. It was the only party that petitioned for an appeal of the case in Virginia’s Supreme Court. Originally, the firm’s executives were concerned about the prospect of setting a legal precedent on the back of an administrative oversight. After Compass’s retreat, QTS lost a partner who would share the costs of upgrading various utilities needed for the massive developments, said one of the people familiar with the matter. QTS decided it was not worth proceeding with the project.

Blackstone, which acquired QTS in 2021, is a major financier of data centers, with a portfolio of more than $150 billion of such assets around the world. The increasingly bitter political and grassroots pushback against new data center construction explains why Blackstone has been getting cold feet just as the AI bubble is peaking, first selling existing data centers and now walking away from upcoming projects. A recent Gallup poll found that 7 in 10 Americans oppose constructing data centers for artificial intelligence in their local area, including nearly half, 48%, who are strongly opposed. Barely a quarter favor these projects, with 7% strongly in favor. Half of opponents mention data centers’ excessive use of resources, including 18% each mentioning their use of water and energy. Sixteen percent mention a related environmental concern of pollution, including noise pollution and air and water pollution. About one in five opponents are concerned with the impact on local quality of life, including increased population, increased traffic and preferring that the land be used for other purposes. A similar share mention potentially negative economic consequences, including higher utility bills, cost-of-living increases, and the cost of building the data centers (which could involve the use of taxpayer funds). Most of the remaining opposition stems from general or specific concerns about artificial intelligence.

Blackstone, which manages more than $1.3 trillion, bills itself as the largest global provider of data centers, and also owns some of the utilities that power them. It acquired QTS in 2021 and bought Australian computing provider AirTrunk in 2024. In May, the firm held an initial public offering for Blackstone Digital Infrastructure Trust Inc., its data center acquisition vehicle, which aims to buy already built and leased properties benefiting from the artificial intelligence boom. And now that the protest movement knows how to push back against uninvited Wall Street occupants, thanks to the BlackStone capitulation, expect an exponential increase in legal (and other) attempts to hinder the rollout of data centers across the US, assuring that the AI supercycle, which is already years behind schedule with just half of the data centers meant to be built in progress and on time, will expect to see an avalanche of delays and cancellations assuring that the return on debt-funded capex will be even less as eventual launch dates gradually move ever further into the unknown future.

In early 2026, negotiations between Tel Aviv and Damascus resulted in signing a trilateral agreement in Paris to establish a communication cell under US supervision, referred to as the Joint Fusion Mechanism. Yet, the mechanism only resulted in a reduction in Israeli military incursions in southern Syria. Talks have been stalled ever since, as Syria’s interim government insists on a total Israeli military withdrawal as a primary condition for any advancement toward a security pact or normalization.

For many, the Israeli escalation constitutes an attempt to blackmail Syria’s interim government after Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa dismissed a proposal from US President Donald Trump to intervene in Lebanon in order to dismantle Hezbollah. Al-Sharaa also demonstrated his openness to dialogue with Hezbollah after years of hostile rhetoric against the Lebanese resistance group in particular and the Iran-led Axis of Resistance in general.

The abrupt change in Al-Sharaa’s declared position towards Hezbollah has undoubtedly deepened Israel’s fears of losing its security grip over its neighboring countries. Moreover, the shift in the Syrian president’s stance indicates that the Axis of Resistance, the only anti-imperialist power in West Asia, is growing stronger. This in turn represents an existential threat to the Israeli occupation state and its expansionist ambitions in the region.