The Ban Flock Act would restrict federal use of Flock ALPR data and automated license plate readers.
A new US bill, Ban Flock Act, has been introduced, with the aim of stopping the federal government from using automated license plate readers (ALPRs).
“Flock is eviscerating the very notion of privacy by installing tens of thousands of cameras in communities across America without their consent,” said Senator Bernie Sanders, who is planning a Senate version.
“Going to the doctor? Flock knows. Dropping your kid off at school? Flock is tracking you. Flock is always watching,” he continued.
According to the text of the House bill, H.R. 10691, federal agencies and officials are to be banned from acquiring, possessing, accessing or using ALPRs, or data collected by these devices, without an Act of Congress that explicitly authorizes it.
This would include data collected by private security networks, homeowners’ associations, commercial parking operators, and data brokers.
Any such authorization must set data retention at no more than 48 hours, and “rigorous protections for due process, privacy, free speech and association.”
State and local governments that have ALPRs would not be eligible for grants from the Justice, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, and Homeland Security departments.
The bill, whose sponsors in the House are Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and in the Senate Jeff Merkley, also seeks to make sure that no federal money is used to buy, lease, or operate ALPRs, while evidence obtained in violation of the proposed legislation would be inadmissible in federal court.
Individuals would be able to sue for actual and punitive damages, while state attorneys general would be able to sue to enforce the ban.
Toll systems would be exempt from the ban, but the data collected would have to be deleted within 48 hours of payment, and could not be checked against a law enforcement hot list.
“AI-powered cameras are keeping track of our every move and weaponizing this data against working people to make record profits,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
Merkley noted that the right to privacy includes the freedom to move around the community without every move being monitored.
The Ban Flock Act is not the first attempt of its kind – in early September, Republicans Thomas Massie and Eric Burlison introduced the Flock-Off Act, H.R. 10221, that also seeks to cut federal funding to state and local governments that use ALPRs, as well as biometric surveillance cameras.
In August, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis ordered Flock cameras to be removed from state highways within 30 days, a year after the state approved $4.6 million for 440 of these devices.
Earlier in the summer, Senator Josh Hawley launched an investigation into Flock, and later expanded it to include Axon, Motorola Solutions, and Verkada.
“Flock does not stand alone in this industry; you and others are building large camera networks, assisted by artificial intelligence, that intrude on the privacy of all Americans,” Hawley said at the time.
Hawley has his own anti-Flock bill that has been announced but the text of the bill has yet to be filed.
Republicans and Democrats are now going after the same cameras, and the bill cuts off the federal money and the data trade, not just the cameras.
Senior political figures in Kiev are accused of heading a predatory and illegal industry said to be worth billions
Swiss police are investigating a sprawling fraud operation with suspected links to Ukrainian scam call centers, an industry said to be worth billions to corrupt officials in Kiev, Neue Zurcher Zeitung (NZZ) has reported, citing law enforcement officials.
According to a report on Sunday, NEDIK, the police network coordinating Switzerland’s fight against digital crime, recently recorded an increase in fraud offenses suspected of having links to Ukraine. The network declined to provide nationwide figures “for tactical reasons,” but noted that at least four fraudulent call centers in Ukraine have been identified in international investigations involving Swiss authorities, with Swiss and German citizens among their main victims.
One investigation by Bern authorities, reportedly underway for years, concerns a man suspected of operating several call centers in Kiev. On just one platform allegedly linked to the operation, reported losses in Switzerland amounted to nearly 4 million Swiss francs ($4.8 million).
Several Ukrainian nationals have also recently been arrested in Swiss cantons for allegedly acting as cash collectors in telephone scams. In St. Gallen in early September, a person posing as a bank employee called a 93-year-old man and instructed him to withdraw and hand over a large sum of money. Police later arrested a 38-year-old Ukrainian who allegedly collected the cash.
Police in Aargau have similarly reported a growing number of suspected cash collectors holding Ukrainian citizenship. Authorities, however, have not established whether they are being directed by call centers in Ukraine or acting independently. NZZ noted that it remains unclear to what extent Ukraine-based operations are connected to fraud networks and cash collectors operating in Switzerland.
While Russians have long been portrayed as the main targets of Ukrainian scammers, sources cited by NZZ challenged that narrative. Brian Lee, head of the Eurasia Observatory at the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), said Russians accounted for just 10%-15% of targets even at the height of the so-called “patriotic fraud” narrative, under which young Ukrainians were recruited into scam networks on the pretext of taking revenge for Moscow’s military operation against the Kiev regime. Victims have been identified in at least 29 countries, with scam centers increasingly targeting Europe and the US, according to a GI-TOC report published earlier this year.
Lee also reported that bribing Ukrainian officials for protection is central to the business model, saying GI-TOC investigations found that criminal elements “operate seamlessly and efficiently alongside law enforcement agencies, public officials and the private sector.” Such protection reportedly costs scam operators $10,000-$15,000 per month.
Scam networks and state structures
Corruption has long plagued Ukraine, with high-level scandals including last year’s $100 million Energoatom kickback scheme, reportedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky. Western-backed investigators have since uncovered further graft involving Ukrainian officials.
The scam call center network reentered the spotlight last month after Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko – a key pillar of Zelensky’s increasingly fragile governing structure – resigned amid the exposure of an industrial-scale network across the country with alleged links to senior figures in Kiev. Ukraine’s Western-backed National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) accused Sergey Kropiva, head of the cybercrime unit at the Prosecutor General’s Office, of leading a ring that collected protection payments from notorious Ukrainian scam call centers. NABU said it identified assets worth almost $1 million allegedly purchased with proceeds from the scheme.
The sums involved in Ukraine’s wider scam industry are reportedly far larger. Ukrainian media earlier estimated that roughly 2,000 scam offices were operating nationwide as of early August, about half paying protection money to corrupt officials. Such payments were estimated at $240 million annually, while the industry itself has been valued at up to $1 billion a month.
The scam industry has also been linked to powerful security structures under Zelensky’s government. In September, personnel from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and military intelligence (HUR) exchanged fire in Kiev in a confrontation that left three servicemen injured. The clash centered on Stepan Kaplunov, a member of an HUR-linked armed unit detained by the SBU. A law enforcement source cited by Ukrainian outlet Strana said Kaplunov may have been involved in operating scam call centers, pointing to a broader struggle between rival security agencies over the lucrative industry. Ukrainian journalists have also reported that proceeds from criminal operations help finance parts of the HUR’s activities.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has described phone scams as a key tactic employed by Kiev to extract money from Russian citizens, suggesting the practice has effectively become state policy. Moscow considers the industry a national security threat and claims Ukrainian scam networks operate in coordination with the country’s intelligence services.
Russian forces have recently intensified strikes on Ukrainian telecommunications infrastructure, mobile operators, and data centers in response to Kiev’s botched “pressure campaign” of drone attacks on civilian infrastructure deep inside Russia. The strikes have disrupted internet access, digital television, and other services, including by hitting data centers in Kiev that Moscow says were used by Ukrainian military and intelligence services. Media reports late last month also claimed a Russian strike hit one of the scam call centers in Dnepropetrovsk.
Student protests have spread from France to Belgium, with demonstrations over over education conditions marred by vandalism, fires, and arrests in the Liege region on Monday.
Police have made arrests in Liege amid vandalism, fires, and attempts to damage school property.
The unrest follows weeks of violent school protests across France, where students began protesting in mid-September over teacher shortages, overcrowded classrooms, deteriorating buildings, and long school days. Belgian students have raised similar grievances while also opposing local education reforms, higher public transportation costs, and rising tuition fees.
Hundreds gathered outside schools across Liege, blocking entrances and marching through the city. Shops in the center closed as a precaution, while protesters attempted to damage shutters at the Saint-Michel Institute. Firefighters also reported scooter fires in nearby Herstal and Chenee.
Police made 16 arrests on Monday, according to local media. Officers also found glass bottles and fabric in some protesters’ bags that they said could potentially be used to make Molotov cocktails, although no flammable substances were discovered.
In France, nearly 2,000 people were arrested last Thursday, while more than 300 law enforcement officers were injured. School staff and students also suffered injuries, prompting police watchdog investigations.
The disruption continued on Monday, with the French Education Ministry reporting protests at 413 secondary schools.
Despite the violence, student organizations say they intend to continue demanding more funding, replacement teachers, smaller classes, and lighter schedules. Supporters argue that neglected facilities and excessive workloads have made learning conditions unacceptable.
Critics, however, have questioned how vandalism and attacks on school staff advance their demands. Some have also mocked complaints about classes beginning at 8:00 AM, frequent tests, and restrictions on phone use, arguing that early mornings, studying, and following the rules are ordinary expectations.
The unrest has also sparked a political row in France, with the government accusing the left-wing France Unbowed party of orchestrating the protests after lawmakers visited school blockades. The party rejects the allegation and blames government neglect for students’ anger. Its leader, Jean-Luc Melenchon, has called for nonviolent action.
The student demonstrations overlap with broader public-sector protests against spending cuts involving teachers, healthcare workers, firefighters, and transportation staff. The movements have added pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, whose approval ratings have fallen to 16-18% in recent polls.
Somaliland military armed vehicles take part in a parade during the self-declared Independence Day, in Hargeisa, the capital of Somalia’s breakaway territory of Somaliland, on 19 May 2026 (Reuters)
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland has been framed as giving it a launchpad to strike Yemen’s Houthis across the Red Sea, but Israel could also be on a collision course with an even more strategic foe and US ally in the Horn of Africa: Turkey.
Officials and analysts in Somaliland say their diplomatic normalisation with Israel in January 2026 -widely condemned by the wider Muslim and Arab world – was, in part, motivated by the need to check Turkey’s growing military footprint in Somalia.
Somaliland wants Israel to provide air defence systems to counter a build-up of Turkish drones and warplanes next door, officials in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland’s republic, which is recognised only by Israel, say.
“We need air defence systems,” Mohamed Osman Fadal, a senior foreign affairs advisor to Somaliland’s president, said in an interview. “Turkey has F-16s in Mogadishu, and it wants to build a drone base in Somalia.”
“We want Israel to support us against Turkey,” he said.
In half a dozen interviews with this Middle East Eye journalist, officials and analysts in Hergeisa said they believe Somalia, backed by Turkey’s military, can be countered through closer security ties with Israel.
‘Engage the Houthis’
Mohamed Abdirahman Hassan is the director general of Somaliland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. He cuts a smooth figure in Prada glasses and an olive green suit. We met in his air-conditioned and LED-illuminated office, whose modern design contrasts with the cracked concrete foreign ministry building siting inside a garden of palm trees and bougainvillaea.
Hassan said Somaliland had no choice but to “get involved in regional rivalries” when asked about the risks of entering a diplomatic deal with Israel that was so deeply opposed by most Muslim states, with the exception of the UAE.
“We have been too good,” he said. “We had been reaching out to Arab and Muslim countries for recognition since 1991. We had to move on. Israel recognised a gap here. We are proud to partner with the Israelis.”
“We have a good army, but lack materials and equipment,” which he says the government hopes Israel supplies.
[…]
Posters of President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi shaking hands with his Israeli counterpart, Isaac Herzog, were still visible in the capital weeks after the Somaliland president’s visit to Jerusalem. When this MEE journalist was in Hargeisa, the city’s elite were turning out for a seminar by pro-Israel US academic.
Many ordinary Somalilanders are sceptical of the ties, but when Israel’s recognition was announced, there were celebrations in the street, not protests.
“Can someone explain what Muslim country that dealt with Israel has actually benefited? Egypt? Jordan? Has Israel done anything for them? Let’s see,” Abdi, one Somalilander, said. Transactionalism seems to define how most Somalilanders view the deal.
Somaliland is located on the Gulf of Aden. Many analysts see a quid pro quo developing, in which Israel’s recognition allows it access to Somaliland’s strategic coastline to potentially move against the Houthis. But Hassan and other officials I met were far less hostile to the Houthis than Israel.
“The Houthis are not terrorists like al-Shabab. We reject that label. We are against confrontation in Yemen. The Houthis need to be engaged,” Hassan said.
Somalilanders say the common foe they share with Israel is Turkey.
‘Israel is here because of Turkey’
Israel and Turkey are wrestling for control in different spheres of the Middle East in the wake of the failed US-Israeli war on Iran. Their feud is escalating in hotspots like Syria, where Israel has pursued an expansionist agenda since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad government.
Somaliland’s rift with Mogadishu predates the tussle, but its entanglement underscores the complex web of alliances and rivalries reshaping the wider Red Sea.
[…]
In his Cold War-era classic, War Clouds in the Horn of Africa, American academic Tom Farer summarised how the region lends itself to such competition, when the Horn of Africa was a battlefield between the US and Soviet Union.
At the time, Somaliland was united with Somalia, which had just fought a brutal war with neighbouring Ethiopia. That conflict saw one of the great Cold War alliance flip-flops of all time when Moscow switched backing Mogadishu in favour of Addis Ababa, and the US reciprocated.
Somaliland has governed itself independently from Somalia since the end of the Cold War. Regional rivalries have only become more convoluted since then.
Somaliland is aligned with the UAE, which is expanding its air and naval bases in Somaliland’s port city of Berbera, where the Gulf state also has the majority stake in a commercial port. Somaliland’s close ties with the UAE make it a logical partner for Israel.
Israel and the UAE have deepened their cooperation in the wake of the US-Israeli war on Iran. On the opposite side, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey have signed a joint defence agreement that is seen as a rival to their smaller neighbours’ bloc.
‘Venue for confrontation by proxy’
The Somalis, a historically nomadic people who live across a swath of the Horn of Africa, are no strangers to outside powers trampling across their homeland as they jostle to control a key trade corridor.
The Ottomans and Portuguese battled for control of what is today’s Somaliland’s coast in the 16th century. The Ottomans were succeeded here by another Islamic empire, Khedival Egypt, which abandoned the region when its other colonial position, Sudan, erupted in a revolt led by Muhammad Ahmad, known as the Mahdi. Egypt’s retreat left a vacuum, and the land Somalis call home was carved up.
Britain swooped in and declared a protectorate in modern-day Somaliland. Not to be outdone, the French cemented their control of the Gulf of Tadjoura, where modern-day Djibouti lies, and Italy grabbed a Somali colony centred around Mogadishu. Menelik II, the future king of Ethiopia, took his own swath of land inhabited by Somalis, bringing them into a Christian kingdom.
That history still informs how officials in Hargeisa portray Somaliland to the outside world.
[…]
“We [Somalis] lost the Somali region of Ethiopia to Menelik because the Egyptians and Turks – two Islamic powers-abandoned it,” he said, referring to the Ethiopian king. “If Turkey came to Hergaisa, would the Arab powers boycott Turkey?”
Somaliland remains bitter at Turkey for brokering a compromise that blocked Ethiopia from recognising Somaliland in exchange for access to the port of Berbera and a military base in the Gulf of Aden. Visiting Addis Ababa in February, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel’s recognition “does not benefit Somaliland or the Horn of Africa”.
‘The Gulf states copied Turkey’
Turkey has emerged as Somalia’s most important external backer. The relationship goes back to 2011 when then-Prime Minister Erdogan became the first non-African leader to visit Somalia in two decades during a devastating drought.
Turkey started building hospitals, roads, and even clearing garbage in the war-ravaged state. As the relationship matured, Turkey gained outsized influence over Somalia’s economy and its security institutions. Somalia is home to Turkey’s largest overseas base and a sprawling beachfront embassy.
Muse is at loggerheads with Mogadishu, but credits the “Turkish aid model” for transforming Africa’s relationship to rising powers.
“After the Cold War, the West only saw Africa through the prism of aid. Turkey saw a land with a lot of potential that had been neglected. It approached aid and security together. The Gulf states came and copied Turkey. The UAE was the first,” he said, referring to Somaliland’s closest Arab partner.
Somaliland’s history of independence long predates modern Turkey and the Arab Gulf’s interest in the Horn of Africa.
Somaliland won its independence in 1960, five days before neighbouring Somalia. From the start, the two suffered from an uneasy union that culminated in Somali ruler Mohamed Siad Barre overseeing a military onslaught against Somaliland in the late 1980s.
[…]
Hergeisa’s chaotic revival is something Somalilanders are proud of given that Barre flattened the entire city in a 1988 bombardment. A Soviet MiG-17 Jet marks the onslaught in a downtown war memorial.
The Sarovar is pricey, but not too stuffy. Teenagers and families mingle in the cliffside garden snapping photos of Hergeisa at dusk.
“We have a middle class here. The people you see aren’t just rich families,” a friend of Muse’s at our table told me, gesturing to the crowd.
Somalilanders say one reason they avoided the civil conflict that engulfed Somalia is that about 80 percent of their self-declared republic is comprised of one Somali clan, the Isaaq. The Somali people identify by clan, not tribe. There are five main Somali clans.
Britain’s colonial legacy is also remembered differently here because it was so light-touch. The region was policed by the legendary Camel Corps whose main job was deferring to tribal law, called Xeer.
[…]
If Somaliland avoided the worst ravages of colonialism, its independence movement was also fortunate, Muse said.
Somaliland declared independence in 1991, as the Soviet Union collapsed. At the time, interventionists in the US were honing their sights on Mogadishu for a new military adventure abroad.
“The global powers focused on Mogadishu, and Hergaisa was spared intervention,” Muse said.
“Independence came during the ‘unipolar moment’. If Somaliland had claimed independence today, things would be totally different because of all these competing powers,” he added.
For two decades, Somaliland’s relative stability, and even free elections, contrasted with the instability in Somalia. But that is starting to change and, long term, could complicate Somaliland’s bid for global recognition.
“Mogadishu is becoming a walkable city again. The kidnapping and bombing characterisation is an orientalist mischaracterisation,” one Hergeisa resident who travels to the city told me.
Somalia took a major step in 2023 when the World Bank and International Monetary Fund forgave $4.5bn in loans, bringing Mogadishu’s debt-to-GDP close to zero.
The United Nations’ political mission in Somalia will close in October. “It’s Mogadishu that wants us out. They don’t like the idea of us advising them. They see themselves as a proper sovereign state,” one UN diplomat told MEE.
Somalia’s turn of fortune has come with Turkey entrenching itself in the poorer country’s security and defence institutions.
Turkey is training Somali commandos and coordinating strikes on al-Shabab with the country’s intelligence agency. Turkey has also deployed TB2 Bayraktar drones, F-16 fighter jets, and ATAK attack helicopters.
In 2024, Turkey signed a 10-year defence bill to build and train a Somali navy. The agreement places Somalia’s territorial waters – which include unrecognised Somaliland – under Turkey’s security umbrella.
Turkey has secured economic deals that some critics say lean on the extractive, given the imbalance between the two states.
Ankara has a twenty-year lease to manage Mogadishu’s seaport and airport. Somalia has also pledged Turkey 30 percent of the revenue from any marine resources found in its exclusive economic zone. Ankara has a foothold in Somalia’s fisheries and is exploring for oil. The agreement gives Turkey the option to exploit waters Somaliland considers its own.
“Turkey is a newcomer to the region. We have no issue with them. They have exploited Mogadishu’s resources,” Hassan, the director general of Somaliland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said.
“[But] Mogadishu is thinking of an [invasion], and Turkey would back them. We need to position ourselves for the future,” he added.
Somalilanders would not be the first looking to shore up their security by aligning with Israel.
When the UAE came under Iranian attacks earlier this year, Israel sent Iron Dome defence batteries to protect its Gulf ally. Greece, an old foe of Turkey, recently signed a $3.5bn deal to purchase a layered Israeli air defence system.
[…]
Ethiopia, which has close ties to Israel and the UAE, is battling rebel groups that it says are backed by Egypt and Eritrea. Asmara and Cairo deny the allegation, but both are wary of Ethiopia’s military links to Israel.
Iraq’s oil dollars pass through New York, while armed factions answer to pressures closer to home. A dispute over Iranian flights has brought both constraints into view.
The Cradle has learned from informed sources about a phone call between a senior Iraqi diplomat still serving in the Foreign Ministry and former president Abdul Latif Rashid, with whom he has a personal friendship.
The diplomat called to complain about current Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi’s handling of sensitive matters involving the ministry. What he told Rashid also sheds light on the discussions within Baghdad as it faced recent US pressure over Iran, Iranian aviation, and sanctions.
According to the diplomat, the Iraqi delegation attending the UN General Assembly (UNGA) did not know in advance that Zaidi would meet US President Donald Trump in New York. Its members learned of the meeting from the media after it had taken place. If so, the episode raises questions about coordination within the Iraqi state when decisions concerning Washington and Tehran are at stake.
Sources say the meeting was followed by an Iraqi directive restricting Iranian flights, amid US warnings that Baghdad could face Treasury measures if it failed to comply. After ministers were informed, they asked Zaidi for time to seek another way forward. They feared a swift response to Washington would bring political, security, and economic consequences that had not been fully assessed.
Ministers warned that a swift concession on Iranian flights could bring Baghdad into conflict with parties and armed factions already wary of its dealings with Washington. Their objections, relayed in the call to Rashid, show that the argument inside the government was over how much US pressure Iraq could absorb before the political cost fell on Baghdad itself.
Iraq nevertheless moved quickly against Iranian aviation. At first, political reactions were cautious. Lawmakers, analysts and forces close to the government defended compliance as a necessity, arguing that Iraq would bear the greater cost of a confrontation because of its dependence on the dollar system and oil revenues.
Najaf forces the issue back onto the table
That position became harder to sustain as the disruption reached the shrine city of Najaf. Harakat al-Nujaba, Kataib Hezbollah, and their supporters backed protests outside the airport, bringing the issue back into negotiations.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein met US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on 1 October; the Treasury’s account of their discussion specifically mentions Shia pilgrimages to Najaf alongside Washington’s pressure campaign against Iran.
A limited arrangement for Iraqi flights was discussed first. Negotiations then turned to Iranian carriers and conditions involving sanctioned passengers, passenger information, and scrutiny of transactions at Najaf Airport.
On 2 October, the Iraqi prime minister’s office announced an exemption allowing Iranian airlines to resume flights to Najaf, except Mahan Air. The airport had halted Iranian flights on 25 September.
Sources inform The Cradle that the Iraqi side had pressed for an initial conditional exemption for Iraqi carriers, which had stopped using Iranian airports on 28 February, before seeking relief for Iranian airlines. They describe proposed checks on travelers listed under US sanctions, passenger manifests and passport information, and the movement of money through Najaf airport.
According to their account, the American requirements also covered payments for fuel and ground handling and the retention of related records for up to ten years. Those conditions, if confirmed in the final authorization, would leave Baghdad administering a US sanctions regime at one of its principal pilgrimage gateways.
The reversal shows the competing demands on Baghdad. Compliance with US sanctions exposed the government to anger from factions and pilgrims at home. Restoring the flights required talks with Washington over the terms on which an Iraqi airport could receive aircraft from a neighboring country.
Why does Iraq respond so quickly to American pressure when doing so risks a confrontation with Iran-aligned forces? US troops and the political relationship between Baghdad and Washington are part of the answer. The financial system, and the oil revenues moving through it, may be the more powerful constraint.
Iraq’s oil dollars in New York
Oil exports supply the bulk of Iraq’s state revenue. The government’s ability to receive those proceeds in dollars and use them to finance imports and public spending is therefore tied to political stability.
The present arrangements partly trace back to the sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the reorganization of its oil revenues after the 2003 US invasion. Iraqi oil receipts came to be held in accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, under arrangements administered by Iraqi institutions.
The system has outlived the circumstances in which it was established. Baghdad manages the funds, but its dollars still move through channels Washington can restrict. Any Iraqi leader considering a confrontation with the US must weigh what delays to bank transfers would mean for imports, salaries, and the oil-funded state budget.
Iraqi economist Ziad al-Hashimi has described accounts known as Iraq 1 and Iraq 2, belonging to the Finance Ministry and overseen by the Central Bank of Iraq. According to his account, the largest stream of dollars finances foreign trade, including import payments and letters of guarantee, through correspondent banks and the SWIFT messaging system.
A smaller stream supplies physical dollars for approved needs such as travel, treatment, and study. Surplus funds move from Iraq 1 to Iraq 2.
The central bank’s own records describe an Iraq 2 account at the New York Fed. Much of Iraq’s financial activity thus depends on channels exposed to US rules and oversight. Washington would not have to confiscate Iraqi money to exert pressure.
Restrictions affecting dollar transfers, correspondent banking, or access to the wider financial system could give Baghdad a powerful reason to avoid an open dispute. Any account of US influence in Iraq must consider those financial channels alongside troops, bases, the embassy and security cooperation.
The factions draw their own line
The weapons held by armed factions form the other side of Baghdad’s predicament. Ammar al-Hakim, leader of the Al-Hikma National Movement, has referred to strongly worded US messages over delays in bringing those weapons under state control.
Sources say Iraqi officials proposed their own timetable for several Iran-linked factions to hand over arms, seeking to present the process as an Iraqi sovereign decision.
Baghdad wants the timetable to appear Iraqi-led. If it looks like a response to an American deadline, factions that defend their weapons as protection against foreign intervention are less likely to accept it. Leaving the issue unresolved, however, gives Washington grounds to keep pressing the government. That argument over the factions’ weapons was already under way when the dispute over Iranian flights erupted.
The disagreement became visible during Iraq’s Sovereignty Day celebrations, held after the departure of US and coalition forces. Jafar al-Husseini, spokesperson for the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) and Kataib Hezbollah, told a large gathering on Baghdad’s Palestine Street that the factions had reached no final agreement with the government over their demands before talks on their weapons could proceed. Nearby, in the Green Zone, Zaidi and Iraqi officials were marking the withdrawal.
At a subsequent Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) parade in central Baghdad, vehicles passed over US and Israeli flags laid in Tahrir Square. The images drew criticism from US politicians. Zaidi ordered an investigation, and Iraqi authorities announced arrests over the incident.
Harakat al-Nujaba’s military deputy, Abdul Qader al-Karbalai, called the arrests a dangerous precedent. The group’s leader, Akram al-Kaabi, then posted a video of himself walking over a US flag.
The withdrawal is a victory for resistance factions that spent years confronting US forces and targeting American positions. It has not ended their dispute with Baghdad over who holds arms or who decides when they are used. Nor is the withdrawal viewed uniformly across Iraq.
In Erbil, Kurdish leaders viewed the withdrawal differently. They warned that the departure of US forces could leave the region more exposed to Iranian strikes, while Washington had long presented its presence there as part of the fight against ISIS.
For Tehran, the present strain does not amount to the loss of its influence in Iraq. Iran retains deep political relationships, party and economic networks, and extensive historical and security ties. Resistance Axis allies also retain the capacity to act with some independence from government decisions.
Baghdad must now contend with pressure from both directions. Washington can affect the financial and banking channels on which Iraq’s oil-funded state depends. Iran retains broad political, economic, and security ties, while armed factions resist surrendering their autonomy. The danger is that their contest is fought through Iraqi institutions and across Iraqi territory.
The measure of Baghdad’s success will extend beyond the number of weapons handed over. It will depend on whether the state can build security institutions capable of protecting Iraq and manage its relations with Washington and Tehran.
Political sovereignty will remain constrained while oil dominates public revenue and its dollar proceeds move through financial channels Washington can influence.
The next phase is unlikely to see either Iran leave Iraq or the US claim a clear victory there. It is more likely to bring another struggle over the distribution of power within the Iraqi state.
It’s that time of year again: The Houthis are making the news—and so is the Western corporate media narrative that surrounds them.
The Houthis—formally Ansar Allah, “Supporters of God”—are from the Zaydi Shia minority in Yemen, and have governed the most populous sections of the country, including the capital Sanaa, since the start of Yemen’s civil war in 2014.
Like many a “civil” war, the conflict has plenty of outside participants—most notably Saudi Arabia, which led a coalition of Arab states (with the backing of the United States) in an effort to bomb and starve Yemen away from Houthi control.
In 2022, a tenuous truce took hold between the Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government, but the Saudi blockade of the country was never lifted.
This July, the Houthis declared their own naval blockade of Saudi Arabia, in response to the Saudi siege and resumed bombing of Yemen. In a rapid September offensive, the group completed its takeover of Yemen’s Red Sea Coast and the strategic Bab al-Mandeb strait, putting Saudi oil shipping operations in a decisive bind. The Houthis have also launched missiles at Saudi Arabia in response to Saudi attacks on the country.
The offensive has prompted a slew of media interventions to ostensibly explain to everyone who the Houthis are. The New York Times (9/23/26), for instance, ran the headline “Who Are the Houthis, and What Do They Want?”; the BBC (9/24/26) ran the very same title, minus the comma.
The Washington Post (9/15/26) asked: “Who Are the Houthis, the Iran-Backed Rebels Threatening a Key Maritime Passage?” Its headline characterization revealed what corporate media see as the primary thing anyone needs to know about the Houthis: that they are simply proxies of Iran, the West’s current favorite enemy.
In a typical example, a recent CNN dispatch (9/21/26) identified the Houthis as “Iran-backed” in both the headline and the first sentence, with a reference to “Tehran’s proxies” appearing further down.
For its part, an Associated Press exclusive (9/23/26) on how “Iranian Advisers Helped Houthis Seize Yemen’s Red Sea Coast in Less Than 48 Hours” sounded the alarm that “Iranian Revolutionary Guard advisers were in the field helping direct the battle,” in a show of “how Iran has built the Houthis into a major regional partner able to open a new front in the wider war with the US.”
…to the Washington Post (9/15/26), establishment media are asking the same question, but not giving many answers.
Lost in the AP report, of course, is the fact that neither Iran nor the Houthis had anything to do with starting the “wider war.”
Following the launch earlier this year of the deranged US/Israeli war on Iran, the Houthis largely stayed on the sidelines. But now that they are acting up again, the media seem happy to oversimplify and demonize them as foot soldiers of Tehran.
The media’s reductionist approach erases the Houthis’ own domestic motives and aims, not to mention their own reasons for standing up to Saudi Arabia, the US, and Israel. That essentially eliminates the need for further investigation or thought about appropriate diplomatic responses, and justifies whatever aggression is meted out against Yemen by Saudi Arabia and friends. It also props up the idea that the US is fundamentally right to go after a proxy-happy Iran bent on overturning the proper regional order.
Granted, the Washington Post’s “Who Are the Houthis” explainer (9/15/26) does allow a bit of space for the view of a “pro-Houthi commentator,” Hussain al-Bukhaiti, who
said Houthi demands include free movement at Yemen’s ports and airports, the exchange of all prisoners of war and the use of Yemen’s oil revenue—much of which is under Saudi control—to pay the salaries of civil servants and services across the country.
But this idea that the Houthis have interests beyond those of Iran is immediately dismissed by an anonymous Yemeni official in the next paragraph, who the Post paraphrases saying that “the Houthi fighters were being closely directed by Iranians on the ground.” And who should Post readers believe—the Iran proxies or the US allies?
‘US-backed’ Saudi Arabia?
Without acknowledging this quite recent history (LA Times, 8/17/15), it’s impossible to explain why Yemenis would naturally sympathize with a country under attack from the US.
The media’s longstanding pathological refusal to discuss the Houthis as anything but “Iran-backed” raises the question of why, for the sake of symmetry at least, Saudi Arabia is never defined as “US-backed.” To be sure, it would be more difficult to cast the kingdom as a victim of Houthi antagonism were media outlets to provide regular reminders of the global superpower’s role in underwriting Saudi-led slaughter in Yemen.
Consider that, when the Saudi-led coalition staged its bloody entrance into the Yemeni civil war in 2015, the Barack Obama administration stood by with “intelligence, munitions and midair refueling to coalition aircraft” to assist in bombing the hell out of the impoverished nation.
American warships also helped to enforce a Saudi maritime blockade that would keep Yemen firmly on the brink of a famine that amounted to “torture in slow motion,” as determined by the World Organization Against Torture. Between April 2015 and October 2018, Save the Children estimated that some 85,000 children may have died of starvation in the country, due in large part to the blockade.
In August 2018, the Saudi-led coalition massacred 40 children and 11 adults on a school bus in northwestern Yemen, using a laser-guided bomb manufactured by Lockheed Martin, one of the beneficiaries of the previous year’s gargantuan US/Saudi “defense” deal. Neither this particular atrocity nor any other has made it into present media coverage as potentially useful context in understanding why the Houthis may have a beef with the (US-backed!) Saudis.
In the BBC’s “Who are the Houthis” explainer (9/24/26), Robert Greenall wrote that the group wants “an end to a Saudi blockade,” which inexplicably morphs later in the article into “what the Houthis say is a years-long Saudi blockade”—though it would have worked just fine to restate the blockade as fact.
Noting that “Saudi Arabia and Western powers say Iran smuggled weapons—including drones, and cruise and ballistic missiles—to the Houthis during Yemen’s civil war in violation of a UN arms embargo,” Greenall steered clear of referencing the effects of Western weapons on the Yemeni landscape.
‘Messaging is going to be tough’
How dare Yemen continue to have an economy after the US said it couldn’t (Fox News, 9/14/26)?
In addition to helping sustain a panorama of utter humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen, the US has conducted its own periodic bouts of violence in the country since 2002, when “war on terror” chief George W. Bush kicked off a covert action program there—which allowed successive administrations to go about bombing Yemen without having to declare war or really say anything about it. By 2015, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalismcalculated that such “covert action” had killed up to 1,580 people in Yemen.
Then, last year, Donald Trump undertook to pummel the country and kill a bunch of civilians in response to Houthi attacks on US ships in the Red Sea, and other actions carried out in solidarity with the victims of Israel’s US-backed genocide in the Gaza Strip.
In private correspondence that was leaked to the public as part of the debacle known as Signalgate, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth cautioned that “messaging [on Yemen] is going to be tough” because “nobody knows who the Houthis are.” Of course, just because the taxpayers funding the bombing have no clue what is going on is no reason to call off the effort, and Hegseth cautioned that the US government needed to “stay focused” on conveying the idea that the Houthis are “Iran funded.”
Fast forward to now, and such messaging is still going strong, as in the September Fox News article (9/14/26) headlined “Iran’s Proxy Money Machine: How the Houthis Built a Multibillion-Dollar Network Despite US Sanctions.”
In the piece, complete with various menacing photographs of weapon-wielding Houthis, journalist Efrat Lachter warned ominously of “the sprawling financial network that has helped transform the Iran-backed group from a Yemeni insurgency into a heavily armed regional power capable of threatening global trade.”
And in case being a puppet of one US enemy isn’t enough, the Wall Street Journal (9/23/26) added that the Houthis are also “increasingly supplied by China.”
Trump, who apparently spoke too soon last year when he informed the Houthis that they would be “completely annihilated,” has thus far refrained from intervening in Yemen again on behalf of Saudi Arabia—although the United Kingdom has dutifully come to its fellow kingdom’s aid.
US ‘must rejoin Saudi war’
Dov Zakheim (The Hill, 9/25/26) warns that unless Saudi Arabia can continue to count on the US “rushing to its defense,” it and other Gulf states might find a way to get along peacefully with Iran.
Among observers concerned that the US is not engaged in nearly enough bellicose activity worldwide is Dov Zakheim, a former deputy undersecretary of Defense under Bush II and the author of an opinion piece at The Hill (9/25/26) headlined “Washington Must Rejoin the Saudi War Against the Houthis.”
In his entreaty, Zakheim urges the Trump administration to assist “its longstanding Middle Eastern ally” in spite of “an increasing munitions shortfall that would seriously worsen if it again joined the fight against the Houthis.”
And yet the shortfall somehow hasn’t managed to throw a wrench in plans for an estimated $24.3 billion fighter jet sale to Saudi Arabia—already the No. 1 client of US arms manufacturers—in a deal that was granted preliminary approval by the US State Department on September 17.
Ironically, Zakheim’s intervention contains more historical context than most corporate media coverage; at the outset, he explains that Houthi “resentment of Saudi Arabia stretches back nearly a century”:
In the 1920s, King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia seized the Asir province that historically had been under Zaydi Muslim control. When the rulers of Yemen tried to reclaim the territory, they were defeated by the Saudis in 1934.
In other words, despite corporate media falling lock-step behind US officials on messaging, it’s not just all about Iran. Now, as corporate media continue to ask who the Houthis are without wanting a real answer, one may recall Hegseth’s warning that messaging on Yemen was going to be “tough.” But for outlets committed to politically motivated and oversimplified sensationalism, it doesn’t seem very difficult at all.
It is reckless to believe that a change in the White House would represent a turn of fortune for Venezuela.
The year 2026 is passing quickly. In fact, it won’t be long before it ends. Still, we remember very well how this year opened: on January 3, the U.S. carried out a military operation in Caracas, in which they abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Lícia Flores. During this operation, a large part of Maduro’s bodyguards lost their lives. Maduro was close to a bunker, but he couldn’t reach it and seal the door in time before being captured.
In his place, Delcy Rodríguez assumes power, supported by her brother Jorge Rodríguez, who presides over the National Assembly, by Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, and by Vladimir Padrino López, who controls the military. Far from betting on “free and democratic elections,” the U.S. endorsed the continuity of Bolivarian politics, keeping Delcy Rodríguez in power. Maria Corina Machado, Juan Guaidó’s successor in the Venezuelan “color revolution” project, has already fallen into oblivion.
What really happened during Maduro’s abduction? The circumstances were never sufficiently well explained, and we continue swimming amid rumors and hearsay. Occasionally, unverifiable information emerges that some elements of Maduro’s security team sold him out in exchange for financial compensation, never paid by the U.S. In fact, Venezuela’s interim government made several changes to the presidential guard after the abduction, even while denying that there was any betrayal.
But the big question is what happened to all the Russian and Chinese military equipment acquired by Venezuela. Why wasn’t it used on January 3? We are talking, for example, about Chinese JY-27A, JYL-1, and JY-11 radars, some of which have anti-stealth capability, as well as Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighters and Russian anti-aircraft systems such as the S300 and Buk-M2. None of this appears to have been used during the U.S. attack. Lack of maintenance? Lack of readiness among Venezuelan soldiers? It is not known.
Since then, Delcy Rodríguez has been extremely criticized, by foreign anti-imperialists, for her conciliatory stance toward the U.S. Whenever news appears of a meeting between Venezuela’s interim president and some U.S. representative, such as Dan Caine of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marco Rubio, or, as recently, Donald Trump, criticism abounds. The same happens when the Venezuelan government issues its now-typical official notes celebrating “collaboration” with the U.S., the “improvement in relations,” “investment opportunities,” and so on.
Now, to some extent, it is quite easy to criticize Venezuela’s interim government while outside Venezuela and without having to deal with the same kind of pressure. In a practical and material sense, what options does Venezuela have today? To what extent can it directly and openly defy the U.S.?
The version offered by supporters of the current Venezuelan government is that Delcy Rodríguez’s priority is to preserve the Bolivarian political system and secure the return of Nicolás Maduro. Economic sovereignty can, to a certain extent, be sacrificed in the short term; the power structure cannot, since it is harder to rebuild or recover if it ceases to exist. In this sense, Delcy Rodríguez would be offering concessions to the U.S. in order to buy time, waiting until political changes within the U.S. – such as a Trump defeat in the midterms or, perhaps, in the next presidential elections – bring about a more favorable scenario.
The narrative is plausible and, frankly, in Delcy Rodríguez’s place I would do the same thing. There don’t seem to be many other options, at this moment, for Venezuela, besides damage control.
But how much is it possible to concede?
In just 1 year we have seen the return of the U.S. Embassy to Caracas, as well as the establishment of a CIA office in the country and the restoration of relations with the State of Israel.
On the economic front, the U.S. has come to approach the revenue from approximately 1 million barrels exported daily, whose value is only partially returned to the Venezuelan government for investments and spending authorized by the U.S. A good part of the value remains with the U.S. government, and Trump referred directly to this value as spoils of war.
Soon after, Venezuela granted the American company Trafigura the right to buy and export Venezuelan gold to be refined abroad, with approximately 400 kg of gold per month being transferred to the U.S.
And more recently, Venezuela ceded to the U.S. majority control over unexplored Venezuelan reserves that would theoretically amount to 65 billion barrels of oil. These are areas in which the U.S. would make investments of 100 billion dollars to extract oil for 25 years, which would yield 200 billion dollars in revenue for Venezuela, but much more for the companies involved and for the U.S. government.
How much further is Delcy Rodríguez willing to go? That is the question.
Finally, it is reckless to believe that a change in the White House from a Republican government to a Democratic government would represent a turn of fortune for Venezuela. On strategic topics, there is a surprising continuity of foreign policy between different governments, which indicates to us that perhaps it is not the White House that dictates the real guidelines. Moreover, it costs nothing to remember that it was under Barack Obama that the siege against Venezuela really began, intensifying with each subsequent presidency, whether Republican or Democratic.
A federal judge last week upheld the Idaho Medical Freedom Act, ruling that daycares cannot require children to receive vaccines or other medical interventions. Attorney General Raúl Labrador said the ruling confirms that “parents make medical decisions for their children. A daycare does not.”
A federal judge has upheld Idaho’s new medical freedom law, ruling that daycares cannot require children to receive vaccines or other medical interventions as a condition of attendance.
Chief U.S. District Judge Amanda K. Brailsford last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Boise-area daycare and three parents who challenged the Idaho Medical Freedom Act. The act, signed into law in April, prohibits most medical mandates, including vaccines.
Brailsford rejected the plaintiffs’ claims that the law is unconstitutionally vague, violates parents’ rights or infringes on the daycare’s First Amendment rights.
“Medical freedom, the right to make one’s own medical choices, is such a sacred and basic human right it astounds me that anyone could see otherwise,” Manookian told The Defender.
She said the law “protects an individual from public and private actors bullying, coercing and intruding into their personal and private medical choices or punishing them for their choices.”
Manookian also said she was “delighted that the federal court interpreted the law … as a safeguard against overreach” by government and private actors, including daycares.
‘A daycare does not’ make medical decisions
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, whose office defended the law, said the ruling confirms that parents — not businesses — are in charge of their children’s health.
“Parents make medical decisions for their children. A daycare does not,” Labrador said in a Sept. 22 statement. “The Legislature protected that choice in the Medical Freedom Act, and the court upheld it.”
Labrador added that daycares can continue telling parents what they believe about vaccines and health, but “they cannot turn a child away because of a parent’s medical decision.”
The attorneys representing Le Soleil Child Care LLC and the parents said they may appeal.
“Our clients are obviously disappointed by the district court’s ruling and the narrow manner in which it interpreted the right at issue,” attorney Andrea Carone said in a statement to the Idaho Statesman.
Carone argued that the law leaves daycares unable to take what the plaintiffs consider “reasonable steps” to protect children from diseases that vaccines can prevent. She called it “a clear public health issue” that the Idaho Legislature must address.
Parents don’t have ‘right to compel a third party to conform’ to their views
The Idaho Medical Freedom Act prohibits businesses, schools and government entities from requiring specified medical interventions as a condition of receiving services, employment or access to certain facilities.
The lawsuit centered in part on what the law means by a “medical intervention.” The law defines the term as a medical procedure, treatment, device, drug injection, medication or medical action used to diagnose, prevent or cure disease, or to alter a person’s health or biological function.
Le Soleil argued that definition was so broad that it could cover routine health and safety practices, including handwashing and sending sick children home. Brailsford rejected that interpretation.
Brailsford disagreed, writing that the law’s definition limits prohibited conduct to actions that are “medical in nature.” She specifically ruled that “basic hygiene practices such as handwashing do not become ‘medical actions’ merely because they may prevent disease.”
The parents also argued that the law interfered with their ability to choose a daycare whose health and vaccination policies matched their preferences.
However, Brailsford said there is a difference between a parent’s right to make medical decisions for their children, and a claimed right to require a private daycare to operate according to those decisions.
“The fundamental right to parent does not give parents a right to compel a third party to conform its practices to the parents’ own ‘idiosyncratic views,’” she wrote.
The judge concluded that the law regulates what a daycare is allowed to require for attendance, not the medical decisions parents make for their children.
‘The sanctity of an individual being is paramount and must be defended’
The lawsuit was filed in December 2025, months after Gov. Brad Little signed the Idaho Medical Freedom Act.
Manookian said state lawmakers considering similar legislation often ask whether an existing medical freedom act has been challenged in court and whether it survived the challenge.
The Idaho ruling answers both questions, she said. “Surely the sanctity of an individual being is paramount and must be defended,” she told The Defender.
Manookian and the Health Freedom Defense Fund have worked with Stand for Health Freedom to launch the Medical Freedom Act Coalition, aimed at expanding medical freedom laws. Children’s Health Defense is a member of the group.
A Feb. 26-27 poll conducted by Zogby Strategies and commissioned by the Health Freedom Defense Fund and Brownstone Institute found that 80.4% of adults said they believe people should have the right to refuse vaccines.
About 75% of Idaho kindergartners were reported up to date on their measles vaccine for the 2025-26 school year — the lowest rate among states, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data. The CDC has reported four measles cases in Idaho this year, among the lowest in the U.S.
Manookian and her organization have promoted Idaho’s law as a model for similar legislation elsewhere.
Leszek Miller has called for suspending assistance to Ukraine until it accounts for previously supplied weaponry and funds
Ukrainian officials are embezzling foreign financial aid, former Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller has said, adding that Kiev’s backers are well aware of the corruption but prefer not to ask questions.
Speaking on the ‘Jankowski Kontra’ podcast on Polsat News on Saturday, Miller called for suspending aid to Ukraine until Kiev accounts for previously supplied weapons and funds.
“Nobody’s asking what happened to the 300 tanks we sent in the first phase. What happened to the heavy equipment, the lighter equipment… Nobody’s asking what happened to the billions of euros we donated. Mr. Zelensky simply comes and says, ‘Give it’, and we give it,”Miller stated.
Asked whether he suspected that funds transferred to Ukraine were being embezzled, Miller replied: “Of course, everyone knows it.”The veteran politician argued that Warsaw should demand an accounting of how its assistance has been used and halt further support if Kiev fails to provide one.
“This is a fundamental issue: I’ll lend you the money, but give me a report on what you did with the previous installment,” Miller stated. “Without that help, there is no Ukraine… But we are not a country that is overflowing with wealth… We have obligations to our own citizens, and we cannot simply throw away money and equipment indiscriminately.”
Poland has been one of Kiev’s staunchest backers in its conflict with Russia, pouring billions into military, financial and humanitarian aid while serving as a crucial hub for Western supplies. Yet relations have increasingly soured over Kiev’s honoring of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators linked to the World War II-era Volhynia massacres, in which UPA militants, linked to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), killed at least 100,000 ethnic Poles.
Warsaw recognizes the killings as genocide, while Kiev honors figures including OUN leader Stepan Bandera. Tensions flared again this year after Zelensky bestowed the title ‘Heroes of the UPA’ on the Ukrainian Special Operations Center North military unit. In the aftermath, Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped him of the country’s highest honor, politicians on both sides renounced state decorations, and Warsaw threatened to obstruct Ukraine’s EU accession.
Relations have also been strained by mounting opposition to Ukrainian refugees. A July CBOS survey found that 52% of Poles now opposed accepting them, against 42% in favor – a sharp reversal from the overwhelming support seen after Kiev’s conflict with Moscow escalated in 2022. Tensions deepened earlier this month after a 31-year-old Ukrainian man stabbed five people at a Benedictine abbey in Jaroslaw, killing a priest.
Poland is also not alone in questioning funding for Kiev. Despite receiving billions in Western assistance over the past four years, Ukraine faces a severe cash squeeze and has been pressing European backers for more money. But a string of high-level graft scandals has heightened scrutiny in Brussels, the largest of which centers on an alleged $100 million kickback scheme at state nuclear operator Energoatom, which was reportedly led by Timur Mindich, a former business partner of Vladimir Zelensky.
Western-backed investigators have uncovered multiple other graft schemes involving Ukrainian officials, including one reported earlier this month in which they allegedly embezzled more than $3 million through the delivery of used Soviet-made metro cars donated by Poland.
Against that backdrop, the EU this week rebuffed Kiev’s bid to fast-track its latest €90 billion support loan, making clear that further funds depend on Ukraine delivering promised anti-corruption and governance reforms.
The AI CON by Dr. Emily M. Bender and Dr. Alex Hanna. Source.
by Brian Shilhavy Health Impact News
The AI bubble and impending financial collapse is now being reported more than ever before.
And while the corporate media and even the alternative media are still participating in the AI Con with doomsday scenarios about computers becoming smarter than humans and “rogue AI agents” threatening our very existence, more and more people are drawing back the curtain and noticing that there is actually nothing there, and that most of what is being published in the media about AI is NOT real science, but simply science fiction.
At some point reality and the truth about AI will become evident to all, but will that time come before the entire economy of the U.S. is completely destroyed by what is being described as “The largest misallocation of capital in history“?
This commentor admitted that HE HAD NOT EVEN READ MY ARTICLE yet.
This is called “a Cult“, because it is a belief system that will withstand any amount of logic or truth you throw at it, because most of the time they will not even read or listen to anything that contradicts their belief system, and their “mission” to warn the world about the doomsday future ahead where AI takes over everything and replaces humans.
Let’s start with the AI Con first, which is what is fueling the AI Cult. The AI CON is the title of a new book that was co-authored by Dr. Emily Bender.
And while I have not read this book, I am very familiar with the work of Emily Bender. Like myself, Dr. Bender has a background in linguistics and technology, and is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Washington where she is also the Faculty Director of the Computational Linguistics Master of Science program.
Dr. Bender co-authored an article that was recently published in The MIT Technology Review titled “Don’t be fooled by this summer of AI hype“.
[…]
The AI Financial Apocalypse is now Widely being Reported
If you search beyond the AI hype and religious fever producing their click-bait “news” which everyone prefers reading about these days, you will find genuine fear and concern about where all this massive AI spending is leading us.
“Apocalyptic” is not really hyperbole when you drill down to the facts, instead of reading the hype.
It just isn’t making it into most of the corporate news feeds, because the facts don’t sell as well as the hype.
[…]
And here’s another article from the latest The MIT Technology Review that does a deep dive into current AI spending, which also looks at Jessica Wachter’s analysis, and where this is probably leading us.
[…]
Here are a few other articles from The Information (subscription needed to read the full articles) on AI finances that have been published recently showing the increasing debt to fund AI build-outs.
Cracks Emerge in AI’s Debt-Fueled Data Center Boom
Excerpts:
Bond markets are getting tough for lower-rated borrowers. One example: CleanSpark, which is developing a data center for Meta Platforms, had to offer investors big concessions to land financing earlier this month.
That deal is among the clearest signs yet that financing the data center boom is getting expensive across the board, and investors are getting picky about which new projects they’ll back. The bank loan market too is showing signs of strain, with some lenders like Société Générale, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group becoming more selective in lending to data center projects, people arranging the deals say.
Those dynamics mean companies could struggle to borrow for planned data centers, jeopardizing growth plans for the broader AI industry.
Pressures on the AI financing market are coming from a number of different directions. Big data center operators like Amazon, Google and Microsoft will together spend some $700 billion on capital expenditures this year, and are expected to continue at around that level the next few years. They’ve issued nearly $160 billion in investment-grade debt this year, flooding the market with new supply.
That hyperscaler debt is getting more expensive relative to other highly rated corporate bonds, though the tech companies generate enormous operating cash flows. The extra yield investors are demanding to hold hyperscaler debt has risen by about 0.25 percentage points this year, compared with just 0.04 percentage points for the broader investment-grade market.
At the same time, several of these big tech companies are offloading spending onto other ventures raising money in the high-yield bond market. Meanwhile, developers building data centers for AI firms like Anthropic and OpenAI are leaning on the market too.
All told, the high-yield market has seen around $55 billion of AI-related bonds sold this year.
AI Risks, Macro Volatility Collide
Meanwhile, government bond yields are spiking, fueled in part by fears that persistently high inflation will prompt aggressive Federal Reserve interest rate hikes.
The AI boom itself is adding to the pressure—Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said last week that government yields have climbed in part because heavy tech debt issuance is crowding out investors.
Debt financing for data centers and related infrastructure has grown rapidly enough that it’s become its own category these days—credit analysts are breaking out AI versus non–AI-linked debt across markets to analyze new issuance and performance. Several asset managers in recent months have filed to create exchange-traded funds focused on AI or AI infrastructure–related debt.
And right now, parts of this category aren’t doing so hot.
There’s a lot going on, from wider spreads on tech giants’ corporate debt in the investment-grade market; to investors demanding bigger concessions in recent bonds for AI data center projects in the high-yield market; to skittishness in the bank loan market for AI project financing. Investors are getting choosier and taking a harder look at project-specific construction and other risks.
Zeroing in on the high-yield market in particular, there’s a group of bonds that anyone with an interest in the AI build-out should be keeping an eye on. Overall, there have been at least 20 high-yield bond deals financing data center projects over the past 12 months.
The companies behind these projects, such as CleanSpark or TeraWulf, are hardly household names, and the project debt is often issued through even more obscure special purpose entities.
But if you do a little digging, many of the biggest names in AI show up connected to these data center projects in some form, as direct tenants, customers of the tenants or providing some kind of credit support to get the financing done. That means markets for lower-rated issuers are financing at least some of the infrastructure supporting the biggest AI companies.
Wall Street and Silicon Valley Split Over AI’s Price Tag
Excerpts:
Shifting economic forces are driving a widening divide between the financial views of Silicon Valley and Wall Street, clouding the outlook for trillions of dollars invested in AI.
Stock market angst has already caused delays for several medium-sized initial public offerings, and it is starting to cool once-red hot sentiment about Anthropic’s giant IPO, which is coming later in the year than investors expected.
While venture capitalists are still tripping over each other to invest at ever loftier valuations in AI startups showing any sign of traction, public market investors say they are retreating to big, safe stocks and growing skeptical about a flurry of data center companies trying to go public amid rising interest rates and high oil prices.
“Anything going public today needs to be priced right, and I don’t see it,” Samantha Lau, chief investment officer of small and mid-cap growth equities at asset management firm AllianceBernstein, referring to the IPO market overall.
“The only way to open the market is to be conservative.”
Leading AI companies like OpenAI and Anthropic will likely require a steady stream of financing, even after their IPOs, to help pay for their hundreds of billions of dollars worth of data center commitments.
Anthropic, for example, had committed to agreements for at least 14.8 gigawatts of compute capacity that could cost well over $500 billion over the next decade, The Information reported earlier this month. Data from Anthropic’s draft IPO prospectus reported this week by Reuters have renewed investor attention to the size of its financial commitments and other risks it faces.
‘Who’s Paying for It?’
Lau said that she is optimistic about agentic software capabilities that tech firms are demonstrating, showing new benefits to all the money invested in chips and data centers.
But it isn’t clear if investment firms would see a return on their investment, especially with rising interest rates that increase companies’ borrowing costs.
Photo Credit: The Cradle
