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About stuartbramhall

Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.

Ebola: Public Health Crisis or Criminal Enterprise?

Ebola FI

Photo Credit – © Canva Pro Content License

By NZDSOS Media Team

Hot on the tail of hantavirus histrionics, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared on 17 May 2026 that an epidemic of Ebola disease caused by Bundibugyo virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda is a public health emergency of international concern (aka a PHEIC). As the 79th session of the World Health Assembly wrapped up last week, it is easy to see the priorities of WHO in these four brief headlines from the front page of their website. Without frightening diseases, how will the pandemic agreement be reached, or the global health architecture be built?

What is Ebola?

Ebolavirus belongs to the Filovirus family, named for their thread-like appearance under electron microscopy (‘filum‘ is Latin for ‘thread‘). There are six known subtypes, four of which are associated with human disease. It is claimed that wild animals are the source of initial infection, followed by human-to-human transmission via direct contact with the blood and body fluids of an infected person.

Ebolavirus disease (EVD) presents initially as an influenza-like illness, followed by vomiting, diarrhoea, skin rash, impaired kidney and liver function and impaired neurological status with confusion, irritability and aggression. Internal and external bleeding from any organs can occur, but is less frequent than the aforementioned symptoms.

Ebola History and Epidemiology

According to Laurie Garret in The Coming Plague (1994), the first case of EVD was detected in August 1976 in a school teacher from Yambuku in Northern Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo or DRC), near the Ebola river. The subsequent outbreak in this region occurred simultaneously to an outbreak in Southern Sudan. A public health investigation dispatched virologists and epidemiologists from their laboratories in Europe and North America, into the deep heart of the African continent.

Tissue specimens were sent to laboratories in Europe and the USA to determine a causative agent. On 10 October 1976 scientists at the Centers for Disease Control maximum security laboratory in Atlanta officially informed the World Health Organization that the causative agent was “a virus that resembles Marburg“.

Serial passage experimentation began almost immediately, “passing Ebola samples from one guinea pig to another to see if the virulence of the virus was diminished as it went through successive generations of animals“. A contamination incident in a UK laboratory resulted in at least one researcher becoming unwell and being successfully treated with plasma from a recovered African patient.

Since that time, there have been more than 25 EVD outbreaks involving the loss of 15,000 lives across a fifty year timespan. Seventeen of these outbreaks have occurred in the DRC, also currently affected, which was also ground zero for MPox in 2022. Most outbreaks have been confined to rural areas in five of Africa’s 54 countries: Sudan, DRC, Gabon, Republic of Congo and Uganda.

The Bundibugyo subtype, responsible for the current public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), was first identified in the Bundibugyo region of Uganda during an outbreak in 2007. A second Bundibugyo outbreak followed in the DRC in 2012, and today’s outbreak is the third involving this subtype.

For context, in the year 2024 alone, tuberculosis killed 1.23 million people; and malaria killed 610,000 people. The African continent bears the highest burden of these diseases.

How is Ebolavirus Disease Diagnosed?

Clinical symptoms of EVD are difficult to distinguish from other infectious diseases such as malaria, typhoid fever and meningitis which are endemic to the geographic region where EVD outbreaks sporadically occur. A range of diagnostic tests have been developed to confirm presence of Ebolavirus.

World Health Organization recommend nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT), of which PCR is a frequently used technique, with genome sequencing to categorise the subtype. As at 22 May 2026, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention recommend PCR testing as below.

It is important to always remember the flaws and potential corruptibility in using PCR to diagnose disease, especially when symptoms may be caused by other, more common endemic diseases. Pseudoepidemics can occur in world class facilities. A much higher risk exists in locations with limited resources and an abundance of sickness and premature death, especially if panic and fear have been galvanised, as we are witnessing today.

How is Ebolavirus Treated?

Early treatment ensures the best possible outcomes, as with any disease. Hydration management via oral or intravenous fluids is important. Monoclonal antibodies may be useful, depending on the subtype. There has been no research into the benefits of repurposed drugs in Ebola treatment but it seems likely that ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, effective in other RNA virus infections, may be useful. Instead, the World Health Organization and their sponsors are focused on finding new countermeasures (vaccines and therapeutics) to patent and sell at profit.

What Causes an Ebola Outbreak?

According to the World Health Organization, Ebolavirus is “transmitted to people from wild animals (such as fruit bats, porcupines and non-human primates).” Contact with the blood or body fluids of an infected person can then result in human-to-human transmission.

What this assertion ignores however, is the Ebolavirus gain of function research occurring in laboratories across the globe, including across the region where these sporadic outbreaks occur. Such research is always claimed to be for reasons that are in the public’s best interest, for example developing countermeasures such as vaccines and therapeutics. Yet the work is shrouded in secrecy.

In a 2015 report on Ebola research at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Geelong in Victoria, SBS held firmly to the claim that Ebola outbreaks are due to crossover from wild animals. Nevertheless, the same report stated that:

“If any of these viruses were to make it out of the lab, it could have deadly consequences“.

In the USA, Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Montana is known to be infecting animals with a range of pandemic-potential viruses including Ebola. The research involves torturing animals known as maximum-pain virus experiments.

The White Coat Waste Project has exposed a number of biosafety breaches in these laboratories which pose a threat to public health, setting aside the welfare of the animals for a moment.

Late last year during experimentation with Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic Fever, a staffer was “bitten by an infected monkey (macaque) that was being tortured (infected and sickened with no pain mitigation).” Earlier this year Vincent Munster, a virologist at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, was caught smuggling dangerous pathogens including Clade 1B MPox, from the DRC into the USA.

The US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, 50 miles from Washington DC, employs 900 researchers to experiment with “biological threats” including Ebola. USAMRIID developed Ervebo, the first Ebola vaccine, licenced in 2019.

On the African continent, where regulation has even less oversight, a number of laboratories are likely to be involved in gain of function research. The proximity of these laboratories to the “ground zero” of outbreaks gives pause for thought to even the least conspiracy-minded amongst us.

In our August 2024 MPox article, we raised suspicions about the Rodolphe Mérieux Foundation’s high security facility in Goma, DRC.  Situated in North Kivu Province, eastern DRC, Goma lies on the border with South Kivu Province, around 500km from Kamituga, where Clade IB of MPox was first detected. That alone is a coincidence deserving of raised eyebrows. Even more suspicious, is the fact that ground zero of the current Ebola outbreak lies a very similar distance from Goma, in the opposite direction.

The first case of Nipah virus, in a much-publicised outbreak earlier this year, was detected in Kolkata, the provincial capital of West Bengal in India. This is approximately 500km from another Rodolphe Mérieux Laboratory at the Bangladesh Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases in Chattogram (Chittagong).

Mérieux Laboratories are partnered with local reference laboratories, academic, university and hospital research institutes across low income nations in what they named the GABRIEL Network – an acronym for “global approach to biology research, infectious diseases and epidemics in low-income countries.” The stated aim is “to build capacity and improve laboratory-based surveillance of diseases with a major impact on public health in developing countries.” Sponsors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.

Could this potentially be a front for more nefarious activities? As we documented in March 2026, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was established in 2017 at the World Economic Forum in Davos and received a significant amount of early funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is a direct institutional descendant of the pandemic preparedness funding architecture documented in the Epstein files.

In January 2026 CEPI paid $26.7 million to Moderna and the University of Oxford to develop mRNA and viral vector injections that target the Bundibugyo strain. This business decision came just four months before the outbreak began. What are the chances that this timing was coincidental?

One of the many projects listed at the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, receiving philanthropic donations from Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is CEPI: Advancing Global Vaccine Preparedness. The project claims to conduct “rigorous, standardized testing of vaccine candidates for priority diseases, including Ebola, Marburg, Lassa, Nipah, Rift Valley Fever, SARS-CoV-2, Mpox, and unidentified emerging threats“, and to develop and optimise “critical assays for the detection of immune responses against Ebola and Marburg viruses.”

Is it possible that this laboratory is working with live Ebolaviruses? Could that explain the laboratory’s uncanny distance from Bundibugyo, a town and district in western Uganda where the current outbreak strain was first identified in 2007? Bundibugyo and Bunia are about 270km apart and recent reports claim that the outbreak is spreading in Uganda. Do the Rodolphe Merieux Laboratory in Goma and the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe have anything to do with these outbreaks that are being blamed on spread following contact with wild animals?

Ebola Uganda Virus Research Institute
Image captured for criticism/review and reporting current events under Fair Dealing – The Copyright Act 1994

Pandemics Profit Pandemic Prophets

University of North Carolina Chapel Hill virologist Ralph Baric, considered a pioneer of gain of function research, recently had his research grants stopped and was placed on leave by UNC Chapel Hill. This seems to be due to implications of his coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

In 2018 Baric gave a 40 minute presentation, available on YouTube, in which he prophesied that a pandemic was looming. Many of the individuals who profit from claims of a pandemic have made similar prophesies. In the below clip Baric boasted to the audience about the profits that can come from a pandemic. These are consistent with similar boasting from Belgium’s 2009 Swine Flu commissioner at Chatham House in 2019.

In the current Ebola outbreak, public funds have been committed so far to the tune of US$645 million. With a grand total of 101 confirmed cases, this amounts to $6.3m per confirmed case. In a nation where the average annual income is US$670, this is obscene and irrelevant to the health or any other needs of the population.

On 24 May 2026 Tedros Ghebreyesus released a video clip on social media announcing the activation of complex networks focused on developing and trialing countermeasures, therapeutics and candidate vaccines. We have written about this ponzi scheme previously, in which taxpayers cover all risk, the industry receive all benefits, and population health remains a very firm loser. The model is explained in this one easy infographic from Dr David Bell.

Ebola Pandemic Business Model
Image captured for criticism/review and reporting current events under Fair Dealing – The Copyright Act 1994

Conclusion

A number of viral haemorrhagic fevers are touted as candidates for the repeatedly-foretold “next pandemic“. None evoke more fear than Ebola. This makes it highly marketable despite the fact that it does not transmit easily and outbreaks always ultimately abate naturally.

[…]

Via https://nzdsos.com/2026/05/29/ebola-public-health-or-criminal/

Buried Before Ivermectin: Meet Chlorine Dioxide

Buried Before Ivermectin: Meet Chlorine Dioxide

Filipe Rafaeli June 11, 2026

What Was Covid-19?

I’ll give you a simple summary. And I know this summary will make a lot of people stop reading right here. If that’s you, I’ll say it upfront: I can explain why you feel that way.

The pandemic in a nutshell: Covid-19 always had very effective and inexpensive treatments, right from the start. Millions were left to die because it was, of all things, profitable.

The lockdowns, when the world stopped as it never had before in history, was never necessary beyond two weeks, because with the disease properly treated, fewer people would have died than in a common flu season.

Yes, that’s exactly what I said: millions dead for profit. For money. Does that shock you?

I know it’s a hard story to believe. I understand. Because to believe it, given that it involves an enormous number of people, institutions, medical societies, scientific bodies, regulatory agencies, all in sync to cover up and steer people away from valid treatments, you have to believe something else: that humanity, at its core, doesn’t care. It’s a blow to your faith in human goodness. That’s not easy to let go of.

Let’s Get Straight to the Biggest Contrast of Covid-19

Six years after the pandemic, some striking contrasts remain. Let’s look at the most remarkable one: the hydroxychloroquine saga.

[…]

In the US, newspapers treated the subject as a “conspiracy theory.” In Brazil, a physician named Luana Araújo appeared before Congress during a parliamentary investigation and stated that “Discussing chloroquine is choosing which edge of the flat Earth we’re going to jump off.”

[…]

And yet, despite all the clarification across every major newspaper that HCQ was “conclusively proven ineffective” against Covid, as the mainstream media put it, some physicians, clearly delusional, kept insisting that there was, in fact, evidence. Many of them were fired, faced investigations, and even lost their medical licenses. After all, only someone as deluded as a flat-earther could promote such dangerous nonsense and put society at risk.

Now let’s get to the contrast. Open a link with me. It’s a news article. Let’s open it, check the website address, verify the source carefully: “Hydroxychloroquine provides moderate COVID-19 prevention, large clinical trial shows.”

No, this is not some obscure corner of the internet. It’s right there, on the University of Oxford’s website: chloroquine is effective against Covid-19. Worth remembering that Oxford consistently ranks among the three most prestigious universities in the world by any measure, competing directly with MIT, Harvard, and Stanford. With nearly a millennium of history, the University of Oxford was a cornerstone of the Enlightenment, playing a crucial role in humanity’s transition from the darkness of the Middle Ages into the age of reason and the scientific method.

Quite a contrast, isn’t it?

Things Worth Noticing About the Oxford Study

Oxford only delivered its verdict because this was a meta-analysis of randomized trials – the highest possible level of evidence a medication can reach. For reference: according to a study published in JAMA in 2019, only 8.5% of recommendations in the major American cardiology guidelines meet that standard (multiple randomized controlled trials). To flip the numbers: 91.5% of the guidelines cardiologists follow are based on weaker evidence than what Oxford presented for HCQ.

HCQ against Covid-19, then, belongs to a select group of the most thoroughly proven treatments in existence. That’s exactly why Oxford didn’t use the cautious language typical of scientific studies – none of the usual “may be effective,” followed by “further studies are needed.” They brought the hammer down: it works. Full stop.

[…]

And there’s more: the news article includes a photo of the research team. Over 70 people signed the study, not much room for argument, outrage, or grandstanding. Because outrage and personal wishes count for nothing in science. Among the signatories is Sir Nicholas John White, a scientist with an H-index above 200, the world’s foremost expert on tropical diseases. Is there anyone left foolish enough to call Oxford a “flat-earther?”

Necessary Questions About Oxford

I’d like to now move on to chlorine dioxide and say more about (Pierre) Kory’s book, but I can’t yet. I need to go a little deeper into the HCQ story first. Either way, it’s important for you to understand a bit more about how this field works. Think of it as the warmup before the main event.

The first question: why did Oxford take more than 800 days to publish the study’s results? Can you think of any reason why findings would sit in a drawer for more than two years?

Oxford conducted its gold-standard clinical trial on pre-exposure prophylaxis (that is, taking the medication before any contact with the virus, with the goal of preventing infection). In Oxford’s trial, the use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine showed a 57% reduction in PCR-confirmed Covid-19 cases. Then, within the same study, they conducted a meta-analysis, pooling their trial with similar pre-exposure prophylaxis studies. Every previous study also showed positive results.

The second question: why did they change the outcome measure to seroconversion midway through the study? Vaccine trials didn’t use that metric. They all used PCR testing. Seroconversion only measures whether the body produced antibodies, not whether the person actually got sick. Could changing the outcome be what made the result, as the headline put it, merely “moderate?”

A note to close this topic: this Oxford meta-analysis covers pre-exposure prophylaxis, taking hydroxychloroquine before infection to prevent it. For that use, it reached the highest possible level of evidence. But HCQ is also highly effective for early treatment, taking it in the first days after infection to prevent the disease from worsening. The evidence there is solid, though not at the same peak level. It’s also effective for post-exposure prophylaxis, taking it after contact with an infected person to prevent catching the disease. Again, good evidence, but not at the maximum tier. (Side note: it is not effective in intubated patients, in extremis, or in overdose conditions. And yes, studies conducted under overdose conditions made the front pages of the world’s most important newspapers.)

Second note: the evidence for ivermectin in Covid is also overwhelming, but I didn’t use it as my example here because I don’t have a contrast as sharp as a study from an Oxford-caliber institution. The Oxford contrast is simply devastating.

I watched all of this unfold in real time, right in front of me. And it led me to an inevitable question: what else was buried before this, throughout the history of medicine?

Chlorine Dioxide

“The Medicine That Could End Medicine;” that’s the subtitle Dr. Pierre Kory and Jenna McCarthy, journalist and co-author, chose for the book. At the very least, it’s intriguing, isn’t it? End it all. Remake everything.

They use that phrase because they believe that chlorine dioxide (ClO₂) poses an existential threat to the business model of the modern pharmaceutical industry, just as hydroxychloroquine threatened Big Pharma’s grip during Covid-19.

Chlorine dioxide is a cheap, non-patentable molecule that people can prepare at home, with reported efficacy against a wide range of infectious and chronic diseases. It could replace or eliminate the need for countless expensive, cartel-controlled medical treatments. Does that unsettle you?

But the book isn’t only about scientific evidence. It tells the story of the molecule itself, and of the people who, throughout history, tried to bring it into wider use. The result? Three suspected murders, including that of Dr. Eugene Blass, who was beaten to death in front of his own laboratory. Another survived multiple poisoning attempts. And there was even a man whose legs were blown off by a bomb planted in his hotel room. Dangerous business, messing with this topic.

Then there are the people who were imprisoned. One case involves a professor and researcher who conducted and published a highly positive study of 500 malaria patients treated with chlorine dioxide in Cameroon, Africa. He traveled to a meeting, and on his way back, someone asked him to carry a package. It contained cocaine. He was arrested for drug trafficking. And the study he had already published? Retracted from the scientific literature. The book reads more like a Hollywood spy thriller than a medical text. It’s a page-turner.

Pierre and Jenna also surface some remarkable details, like the fact that in 1987, NASA called chlorine dioxide a “universal antidote” due to its efficacy against 42 known pathogens.

One of the book’s most brilliant moments is the “Kory Scale.” It’s a satirical but grounded metric he developed to assess the likely efficacy of “unproven” therapies. The premise is simple: the effectiveness of a treatment is directly proportional to the brutality of the attacks it suffers from the medical establishment: the FDA, the media, health agencies. On the scale, media attacks are worth 4 points, imprisonments 10, and murders 50.

The hydroxychloroquine story I told above never reached the level of assassinations. There were intimidating police raids, professionals losing their jobs, others losing their medical licenses, and a staggering volume of media attacks, but on the Kory Scale, that scores relatively few points.

The book has many other striking passages, like the researcher who installed a water treatment system that eradicated malaria in an entire city. Consider the stakes: 600,000 people die of malaria every year.

But one thing needs to be said clearly. For hydroxychloroquine against Covid, we now have the highest possible level of scientific evidence, produced by one of the most important universities in the world. For chlorine dioxide, we don’t have that. But this reminds me of 2020. Early in the pandemic, the first evidence for HCQ in prophylaxis began emerging from observational studies, low on the evidentiary ladder. Yet there were many of them, from many different places, and all positive. Some scientists argued at the time that it was enough, that prophylaxis should begin immediately and the pandemic could be brought to an end. The picture, taken as a whole, was clear. Instead, everyone dragged their feet, held back, buried results in drawers, delayed studies. There was even outright fraud to derail or interrupt ongoing research, with the Surgisphere case being the most glaring example. “Monumental fraud,” said Richard Horton, editor-in-chief of the Lancet.

The book presents striking accounts of a vast range of conditions that reportedly responded to chlorine dioxide: acute infections such as malaria, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, influenza, and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis; chronic and inflammatory conditions including autism, diabetes, Lyme disease, and hard-to-heal wounds, among them severe cases of gangrene and diabetic foot that avoided imminent amputation.

There are even case series documenting stable remissions in patients with metastatic cancer, pancreatic, prostate, and renal, who had exhausted all conventional options. Dr. Kory acknowledges that formal trials are still needed to determine the precise magnitude of the effect at scale. But the clinical impact of watching diseases labeled “incurable” simply recede is something that both astonishes and challenges the business model of conventional medicine.

Reading the book, I feel the way I did at the start of the pandemic. The evidence for chlorine dioxide, as it stands, shows a great deal. But given the violence of what surrounds this topic, I doubt anyone will ever manage to conduct large, randomized, gold-standard trials on it. One researcher who tried ended up in prison as an international drug trafficker, arrested on his way back from a meeting where he had been seeking funding for another study.

Who This Book Is Not for

If you don’t find the Oxford hydroxychloroquine story important, if it didn’t leave you shaken, this book is not for you.

Think carefully about what happened: with the efficacy Oxford confirmed for prophylaxis, the pandemic could have been over in 2020. One month of lockdowns at most, not a year and a half. Lockdowns that permanently shuttered small businesses, that generated the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in human history, that destroyed the livelihoods of millions of families, that left lasting illness and psychiatric damage in its wake. If all of that seems reasonable to you, this book is not for you.

[…]

Via https://brownstone.org/articles/buried-before-ivermectin-meet-chlorine-dioxide/

Ukraine as a laboratory of technofascism

The goal of Zelensky and his lobbyists in the West is to main their own survival even while living in bunkers (Al Mayadeen English, illustrated by Ali al-Hadi Shmeiss

Al Mayadeen English

June 14, 2026

Ukraine has become a testing ground for Western military technologies, AI-driven warfare, and defense industry interests, with the conflict increasingly serving geopolitical and corporate objectives beyond Ukraine itself.

For its part, the government in Kiev, whose mandate has expired, is focusing on drone strikes against oil refineries and shipping terminals in Russia. This fits into the overall strategy of the Western, NATO powers to deprive their economic competitors of oil supply in the struggle to maintain global hegemony. This can also be seen further in the continued, debilitating attacks and sanctions aimed against the peoples of Iran, the Middle East as a whole, and Venezuela and Cuba.

In late May, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy issued a five-page, open letter to US President Donald Trump dated May 26, requesting that more missiles be supplied as soon as possible. As noted by the Ukrainian analytical Telegram channel Rubicon on May 30, “While arms deliveries were previously discussed rather privately, now everything is taking the form of public appeals of ‘Donald, help us, and fast!’.

Rubicon writes, “The goal of this move by Zelensky is not only to needle Trump’s pride but also to elegantly shift blame onto the White House for recent missile and drone strikes by Russia on military sites in and around the Ukrainian capital. Washington has been slow to condemn these attacks and slow to continue its supply of missiles to Ukraine’s armed forces.”

A former lawmaker from Zelensky’s party-machine, Alexander Dubinsky, wrote on Telegram May 31 that overall, Zelensky’s letter amounts to an ode to himself, as in: ‘I allow you to touch my greatness and become part of it by allocating more money and missiles.’

The US government did not respond publicly to Zelensky’s letter. The Ukrainian opposition Telegram channel Kartel comments on May 31, referencing the high-profile corruption scandal involving Zelensky’s friend who has since fled to “Israel”: “Let us recall that Zelenskyy’s friend Timur Mindich stole over $1 billion allocated for weapons production, as uncovered by NABU [National Anticorruption Bureau] investigations. So it’s no surprise that after exposures of such corruption, the Americans would choose to ignore Zelensky’s outburst.”

Zelensky’s letter also demands that the US grant licenses for the production of Patriot missiles in Ukraine. But the US military has been proven unwilling to share production of its known and tested military technologies. It has shown willingness to share new weapons systems, evidently as part of ‘testing’ programs.

The letter by Zelensky criticizes the slow pace of Patriot missile production in the US itself, adding that this could lead to crises in various other parts of the world. According to the letter, Ukraine-produced weaponry could help protect US allies in the Middle East. In other words, the man is proposing that the US also continue selling or supplying missiles and other weapons to “Israel” and the United Arab Emirates for use against Iran.

Despite Trump’s various, so-called peace initiatives to end the war in Ukraine, voiced for several years now, Victoria Fedosova, deputy director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasting at the Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia, believes that Trump is merely proposing a high-profile display of negotiations between Moscow and Kiev that would lead nowhere. In the meantime, Washington continues to supply Kiev with weapons and intelligence, some of which are being used against the civilian population of Russia. During the night of May 23 (Ukraine time), US-made Hornet drones struck a teacher college dormitory for women and girls in the town of Starobelsk in the Lugansk People’s Republic, which was annexed by Russia, killing 21 and wounding dozens more.

Despite all of Trump’s ostentatious rhetoric, there is no sign he intends to pressure Zelenskyy to end the proxy war against Russia. Moreover, Chinese media reported on June 2 that he has also asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping to pressure the Russian president to end the war; that is, end Russia’s responses to the NATO proxy war on the West’s terms.

Pete Hegseth, the US Secretary of War, has also stated that Washington will continue to find a way to help Ukraine ‘defend itself’ (code language for waging NATO’s proxy war). He made this remark at a meeting on Asian security issues in Singapore, according to Clash Report on Telegram on May 30. (Clash Report is an online news platform aligned with the views of the Turkish government.)

Hegseth also noted that the US continues to study and learn from Ukraine’s experience with the use of drones on the battlefield. He says it is vastly increasing its investments in this area. In other words, the continuation of the conflict in Ukraine benefits the US by serving as a laboratory to test new types of weapons and study the reactions by the Russian army, even though these often pose a threat to Ukrainians themselves.

As the Ukrainian Institute of Politics notes in this regard, Pete Hegset’s statements are particularly telling when viewed against the backdrop of earlier remarks by Donald Trump. In March of this year, following the escalation of the conflicts in West Asia, Trump claimed that the US had no need for Ukrainian expertise in the field of drones. However, “Judging by the current rhetoric of the U.S. Secretary of War, the situation has changed: Washington effectively recognizes the value of Ukrainian experience and is ready to scale it up in its own defense policy.

“This US approach fits directly into Trump’s business logic—war as a market where Washington ramps up production, sells weapons, and simultaneously strengthens its own technologies. In this model, Ukraine is already an asset that generates knowledge, tests technologies, and creates demand for the American defense industry,” writes the Ukrainian institute.

Iran warns ‘no point’ in deal with US if Israel remains unrestrained

(Photo credit: Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters)

The Crade

June 14, 2026

Another top Iranian official said Washington’s ‘rabid dog’ must be ‘controlled’ following Israel’s latest strike on Beirut

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned in a statement on 14 June that there is “no point” in continuing efforts to reach a deal with Washington if Tel Aviv remains unrestrained, a few hours after a new Israeli attack on Lebanon’s capital.

“The Zionists’ aggression against the southern suburb [of Beirut] once again demonstrated that the US either lacks the will to uphold its commitments or lacks the ability to do so,” Ghalibaf said.

“You cannot gain concessions by giving the [Israeli] regime a green light. The ‘good cop, bad cop’ game has grown old. If you lack the will and the ability to fulfill your commitments, then there is no point in speaking about continuing down this path,” the parliament speaker added.

Meanwhile, Brigadier General Mohammad Jafar Asadi, deputy commander and deputy inspector of the Iranian military’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said Israel’s attack on Beirut’s southern suburb will not go unanswered.

“If you seek an agreement or understanding, you must discipline the Zionist regime. If this rabid dog is not controlled, it will bite your leg before the ink is dry on the agreement,” said Ebrahim Rezaei, spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s Foreign Policy and National Security Committee.

The latest Israeli airstrike on the Lebanese capital took place earlier on Sunday afternoon. The attack hit a building in the southern suburb’s Ghobeiry area.

According to the Lebanese Civil Defense, three people were killed and six others injured.

The Israeli army claimed it bombed a “command center belonging to the Hezbollah terrorist organization in Beirut.”

“The targeted command center was being used by Hezbollah operatives to advance terrorist plans against the citizens of the State of Israel,” the Israeli military added, calling its deadly attack on Beirut a “precise strike.”

The new attack on Beirut coincides with intensive Pakistani mediation to secure a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the US and Iran.

Among Tehran’s terms is a full ceasefire in Lebanon and an end to Israel’s wars, attacks, and occupation across the region.

Following an Israeli attack on Beirut earlier this month, Iran carried out a ballistic missile attack on an Israeli air base and vowed harsher retaliation in response to any new attacks on the Lebanese capital.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/iran-warns-no-point-in-deal-with-us-if-israel-remains-unrestrained

It’s a most confusing time to be in the US Military

Pentagon Says Military Is Overweight - Business Insider

by | Jun 14, 2026

Who knows why we fight?

It’s a most confusing time to be in the U.S. military. Who knows why we fight?

At the top, there’s a lack of principles, a lack of clarity, a lack of care.

There’s no accountability for losses and bad decisions.

The government keeps the people isolated from war’s true costs. There’s no call for sacrifice. No war bonds, no draft, no increase in taxes. Costs are largely kicked into the future as the national debt soars ever higher.

An all-volunteer military is essentially told to follow orders. Never mind about the morality or legality of the same.

The people are encouraged to cheer on or otherwise to support their warriors and warfighters. Basically, to wave the flag but otherwise to go about their business.

A divided Congress has essentially rendered itself powerless over war-making. Meanwhile, Members of Congress fight for their share of an expanding Pentagon pie of money (or pork) for their districts.

The Secretary of State says we went to war with Iran because Israel forced the U.S. government’s hand. So apparently in this case the U.S. military fights for Israel.

So far, the main beneficiaries of the war appear to be defense contractors, fossil fuel companies and banks, so apparently the U.S. military is fighting for them as well.

Clearly, with Iran the U.S. military is not fighting to defend the American people or to support and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Again, who knows why we fight?

It’s always useful to ask Cui bono? while following the money. I asked my AI friends who’s benefiting from this war, and this was the answer the HAL 9000 spit out:

The primary beneficiaries of the Iran war are Western defense contractors, major oil and gas corporations, and geopolitical rivals like Russia and China. The conflict has resulted in billions of dollars in windfalls for arms manufacturers and energy producers, while simultaneously shifting regional power balances. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Defense Contractors

  • Stock Surges: Arms manufacturers like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have seen multi-billion dollar gains.
  • Missile & Defense Demand: High demand for THAAD interceptors and other Raytheon systems drives excess revenue. [1, 2]

Oil & Gas Majors

  • Record Profits: Surging crude prices have boosted revenues for producers like ExxonMobil and Chevron.
  • Energy Traders: European giants like Shell and BP capitalized on market chaos and sharp price movements. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Geopolitical Rivals

  • Russia: The conflict acts as a fiscal rescue by diverting Western attention and skyrocketing global energy prices.
  • China: China’s regional strategic influence is strengthened as the US is forced to divert military resources to the Middle East. [1]

Regional Powers

  • Israel: The war has neutralized immediate adversaries and solidified the country’s military posture in the region.

Certainly, it’s indisputable how much the weapons makers and fossil fuel companies are profiting here.

Famously, Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler confessed in the 1930s he’d served as a gangster for capitalism with Standard Oil being one of his biggest clients. The Iran War seems to have benefited Israel, oil and gas interests, and military contractors the most, even as the average American has been hurt by inflation with much higher prices for gas, oil, groceries, and the like.

Interestingly, my AI friend didn’t list Iran as a major beneficiary of the war, but many have argued persuasively that Iran will emerge stronger from this conflict.

Again, it’s a most confusing time to be in the U.S. military.

PS: I thought I’d add this response I made to TomR’s comment below:

In 1985, when I pinned on those 2LT bars, I thought I had some clarity. America, though hardly perfect, was better than the model offered by the Soviet Union. Then the USSR collapsed in 1991, and the government went looking for new dragons to slay. And we found them and we keep finding them because we keep sowing the dragon’s teeth.

So the U.S. military has become a perpetual fighting machine, never mind the Constitution, never mind democracy, never mind morality or legality. If we don’t have enemies, we’ll create them.

[…]

Via https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2026/06/14/its-a-most-confusing-time-to-be-in-the-us-military/

The strategic arsenal US lost in war against Iran – and why replenishment will take years

By Mohammad Molaei

The sheer scale of munitions consumed during the Third Imposed War is without modern precedent in American warfare. As reported by The New York Times, within just the first two days of the military aggression that began on February 28, an estimated $5.6 billion worth of precision-guided munitions were expended, a sum that exceeds the annual military budgets of most countries in the world.

Over the full 40-day war leading up to the fragile ceasefire in early April, US forces struck more than 13,000 targets, many of which required multiple munitions each. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the cost of the air campaign alone reached between $11.3 billion in its first six days and $16.5 billion by day twelve.

The total cost over 40 days of full-scale military aggression, followed by subsequent hostilities in the Persian Gulf region, amounts to a far greater sum. While the Pentagon has estimated the figure at around $25 billion, independent assessments place the cost closer to $100 billion.

These figures do not reflect a campaign defined by restraint or resource discipline. Rather, they reveal a military establishment that bet its most advanced precision arsenal on a war it expected to win quickly – only to find itself mired in a quagmire of its own making.

JASSM-ER: Draining the Pacific’s first line of strike

No single weapons system reveals the strategic recklessness of so-called “Operation Epic Fury” more precisely than the AGM-158B Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Extended Range, known in Pentagon parlance as the JASSM-ER.

This is not a conventional cruise missile. It is a stealthy, air-launched precision strike weapon with a range exceeding 600 miles, purpose-built to penetrate the most sophisticated integrated air defense systems in the world.

Its operational logic is explicitly tied to high-end war scenarios – specifically, a potential confrontation with China in the Western Pacific, where the People’s Liberation Army has constructed the most elaborate anti-access/area-denial architecture in history. The JASSM-ER is the weapon Washington designed for its most serious adversary. And it is largely gone.

At the outset of the war of aggression launched on February 28, the United States held a JASSM-ER inventory of approximately 2,300 missiles. According to Bloomberg, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter, US forces consumed more than 1,000 JASSM-ERs in the first four weeks of the campaign alone.

The New York Times, drawing on Department of War sources, placed total JASSM-ER expenditure over the full campaign at approximately 1,100 missiles. An additional 47 were fired in a separate operation to abduct Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The order to drain Pacific stockpiles for the Iran campaign, stripping missiles from US facilities across the continental US and repositioning them to CENTCOM bases and RAF Fairford in the United Kingdom, was issued at the end of March, according to Bloomberg.

The arithmetic is unambiguous and brutal. Of a prewar JASSM-ER inventory of 2,300, approximately 425 remain available for the rest of the world, roughly 18 percent of the prewar total. In the shorter-range baseline JASSM variant, approximately two-thirds of total stocks across both versions were committed to the Iran campaign, according to Bloomberg.

CSIS calculates that around 25 percent of the total combined JASSM inventory was expended in just 40 days of combat.

The unit cost of the JASSM-ER is $1.1 million per missile. The JASSM baseline variant costs $2.6 million per unit at current procurement figures. The roughly 1,100 JASSM-ERs fired in the recent war, therefore, represent approximately $1.2 billion in precision strike munitions, consumed in a campaign that failed to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile infrastructure, did not fracture its command structure, and did not alter the strategic balance in West Asia.

Replenishment will not be swift, as per experts. The US Air Force has procured JASSM variants at an average rate of nearly 500 per year over the past decade, and existing orders in the pipeline mean that JASSM inventories will recover more quickly than other systems; CSIS estimates “several months to a year” for baseline replacement.

However, this timeline assumes no new wars, no additional campaign consumption, and full US Congressional funding of the FY 2027 military procurement request, which has not yet been appropriated.

Tomahawk: A thousand missiles in the 40-day war

The BGM-109 Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is the oldest and most combat-proven precision strike weapon in the US Navy’s inventory, having been used in every major American military operation since Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

Its versatility, fired from surface ships and submarines, capable of loitering and retargeting in flight, with a range of approximately 1,000 miles, makes it the Navy’s primary instrument of long-range power projection.

The war against Iran consumed it on a historically unprecedented scale.

The Washington Post reported that US naval assets fired more than 850 Tomahawks in the first month of the third imposed war. The Wall Street Journal subsequently updated that figure to more than 1,000 over the full pre-ceasefire campaign period.

CSIS’s analysis of the first six days alone identified 319 TLAMs expended, representing approximately 10 percent of the prewar inventory in less than a week.

The prewar Tomahawk inventory stood at approximately 3,200 missiles. The expenditure of over 1,000, therefore, represents roughly 31 percent of the prewar total consumed in 40 days, more than ten times the annual procurement rate.

The Pentagon ordered just 190 new Tomahawks in 2026, a figure barely more than half the number fired in the first six days of the war. The US Navy has requested 785 Tomahawks in the FY 2027 budget, a substantial increase from prior years, but CSIS projects these will not begin arriving in US inventories until March 2030, after 34 months of production lead time.

US Tomahawk inventories will not return to prewar levels until late 2030 at the earliest.

The cost consequences compound the strategic ones. Each Tomahawk Block V costs approximately $1.87 million. The 1,000-plus Tomahawks fired in the recent war, therefore, represent approximately $1.9 billion in naval strike capability, consumed against a country that, at the ceasefire, retained its ballistic missile launch capacity, its underground missile production infrastructure, and its ability to control shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The allied dimension of the Tomahawk shortage adds a further layer of strategic damage. Japan, which recently completed modifications on a destroyer to fire TLAMs and had purchased 400 missiles as part of its historic shift toward a more robust conventional deterrent posture against Chinese pressure, has reportedly been told that its deliveries may be delayed indefinitely because the United States must prioritize refilling its own depleted stockpiles.

Australia has also purchased more than 200 Tomahawks, and the Netherlands has purchased 175. All of these allied orders now sit in a queue behind American replenishment needs, weakening the combined deterrent posture of the US alliance network in the Western Pacific at precisely the moment that network is under the greatest pressure.

The defensive arsenal: Patriot, THAAD, and interceptor crisis

While the consumption of offensive strike missiles has drawn significant analytical attention, the depletion of America’s missile defense interceptor inventory may carry even more severe long-term strategic consequences.

These systems, including the much-hyped Patriot PAC-3 MSE, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), and the Standard Missiles SM-3 and SM-6, are not interchangeable with cheaper alternatives. They are the irreplaceable components of layered missile defense architecture, designed to defeat the ballistic and cruise missile threats posed by peer and near-peer adversaries.

In the Pacific scenario, they are the systems that would need to protect US forward bases, carrier strike groups, and allied territory from Chinese ballistic missile salvos in the opening hours of any war. Instead, they are being consumed in the Persian Gulf.

The Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptor, at approximately $4 million per unit, was among the most heavily used anti-missile systems in the recent war imposed on Iran.

The New York Times reported that over 1,200 Patriot interceptors were fired during the aggression. CSIS estimates that Patriot usage, combined with the ongoing supply of interceptors to Ukraine, has left prewar PAC-3 inventory at critically reduced levels.

The Army’s FY 2027 budget requests 3,203 Patriot missiles, a procurement figure that reflects the scale of the shortfall, but CSIS projects these will not begin delivery until May 2029, with full replenishment of prewar levels taking three or more years from the present.

Current Patriot production stands at approximately 650 interceptors per year, with roughly half going to allied orders. Lockheed Martin intends to surge production to 2,000 per year, but achieving this capacity requires years of facility and tooling expansion.

In the interim, the United States faces a set of allocation decisions with no good options: prioritize replenishment of its own depleted stocks, continue supplying Ukraine, or fulfill the orders of the 17 other countries that operate the Patriot system and are now watching their own deliveries pushed back indefinitely.

Swiss authorities have already threatened to cancel their Patriot purchase and seek an alternative supplier after being informed of delivery delays. The bilateral friction this production shortfall is generating with allied governments has been explicitly acknowledged by CSIS and represents a tangible erosion of alliance cohesion at a moment of acute strategic uncertainty.

The THAAD situation is, by CSIS’s assessment, the most critical of all. THAAD is the upper-tier component of the US missile defense architecture, designed to intercept ballistic missiles at higher altitudes and longer ranges than Patriot.

Its interceptors are expensive, scarce, and – as of the ongoing fragile ceasefire – severely depleted. CSIS estimates that between 52 and 81 percent of the prewar THAAD interceptor inventory was expended in the recent war and related offensives, building on roughly 150 THAAD interceptors already consumed during the 12-day war in June 2025.

There have been no new deliveries of THAAD interceptors since August 2023. Deliveries are not scheduled to resume until April 2027 at the earliest. The US Army’s FY 2027 budget requests 857 THAAD interceptors, which CSIS projects will not complete the replacement of the usage during the recent war against Iran until the end of calendar year 2029.

Compounding the interceptor shortage is the damage or possible destruction of multiple AN/TPY-2 radar systems – the targeting backbone of THAAD batteries – during Iranian retaliatory strikes on US facilities in the region.

Only 13 AN/TPY-2 radars have been delivered to the United States in total. The loss or degradation of even two or three of these systems represents a qualitative capability gap that cannot be papered over by procurement requests. The US has also maintained only eight THAAD batteries in total, a number that was considered inadequate for simultaneous deployment in multiple theaters even before the war on Iran consumed the interceptors from those batteries at a rate far exceeding production capacity to replace them.

The ship-launched Standard Missiles present a somewhat less acute but still serious picture. CSIS estimates that SM-3 expenditure in the recent war ranged from 31 to 60 percent of prewar inventory, while SM-6 consumption ran between 16 and 32 percent.

[…]

The cost ledger: What was spent and what was not gained

[…]

The principal expenditures, based on CSIS data and DOD reporting, break down as follows. Over 1,100 JASSM-ER missiles at $1.1 million each account for approximately $1.21 billion. More than 1,000 Tomahawk missiles at $1.87 million each represent approximately $1.87 billion. Over 1,200 Patriot PAC-3 MSE interceptors at $4 million each amount to approximately $4.8 billion. More than 1,000 Precision Strike Missiles and ATACMS, at between $500,000 and $1.5 million each, add a further $500 million to $1.5 billion.

[…]

The combined picture across all seven critical munitions categories is that the US will not return to prewar inventory levels for any of its most critical systems before 2028 at the earliest, with Tomahawk, THAAD, and Patriot taking three or more years from the present.

[…]

The production constraint: Why money cannot buy time

[…]

The Trump administration has responded to the munitions crisis with a series of framework agreements with major contractors – Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing – committing to expand production capacity across the full range of critical munitions.

[…]

Manufacturing lead time for advanced missile systems – the period between contract award and first delivery – runs between 34 and 39 months for the most critical systems. Building new production facilities, qualifying new supply chains, training additional skilled labor, and resolving bottlenecks in specialized components such as guidance systems and rocket motors are processes measured in years, not quarters.

[…]

Via https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/06/13/770362/strategic-arsenal-us-lost-war-against-iran-why-replenishment-will-take-years

British lawmakers demand shutdown of secret London expo selling stolen Palestinian land

The Cradle

A coalition of nearly 100 British MPs and peers has mounted a fierce legislative push to halt a secretive real estate exhibition in London dedicated to selling land within illegal Israeli settlements. Organized by Labour MP Andy McDonald and sent to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, the joint letter warns that allowing the event to proceed on British soil could directly implicate the UK in international war crimes.

According to a report by Middle East Eye, the metadata and promotional material for the “Great Israeli Real Estate Event” explicitly market properties in occupied West Bank territories, including the Gush Etzion settlement bloc.

The expo, which has triggered widespread outrage and left its exact London venue hidden from the public to avoid disruption, is part of a broader international roadshow aimed at the western diaspora. Lawmakers across multiple parties, including the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Greens, have condemned the event as a blatant attempt to monetize the ongoing displacement of Palestinians.

In the text of the letter, McDonald emphasized that the newly formed British government has a binding opportunity to uphold its obligations under international law by aggressively targeting Israel’s project of colonial expansion. The political backlash in Westminster has been bolstered by human rights organizations and local leadership calling for immediate law enforcement intervention.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan publicly condemned the exhibition, while Amnesty International UK described the commercial gathering as “apartheid and annexation with a sales pitch.” Legal advocacy groups have formally requested the Metropolitan Police to investigate whether the event violates the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018, noting that while foreign buyers are invited to purchase stolen land, millions of displaced Palestinian refugees remain legally barred from exercising their right of return.

Via https://t.me/thecradlemedia/61857

Tehran recruits psychologists to tailor messages for ‘mentally ill’ Trump

(Photo credit: CNN)

Press TV

JUN 13, 2026

Iranian officials reported that treating the US president ‘like dealing with a patient’ has already yielded ‘some progress’ in negotiations.

Iranian negotiators hired senior psychologists to vet diplomatic messages for US President Donald Trump during indirect talks between Washington and Tehran, US journalist Jeremy Scahill reported on June 13, citing Iranian sources.

Speaking on the Breaking Points podcast, Scahill said the shift was implemented a few weeks ago as the Iranian delegation believes Trump is “legitimately mentally ill” and “operating in an impaired mental state.”

Negotiators told Scahill the decision was not made with “any lightness” but as a response to what they perceive as a “mentally incapacitated” leader.

After having medical professionals “work up a psychological profile,” the team began to “cater” messages before delivering them to mediators.

This strategy coincides with renewed scrutiny of the President’s health as he celebrates his 80th birthday Sunday.

Earlier reports noted physical symptoms in the president, including hand bruising, swollen ankles, a neck rash, and frequent dozing during cabinet meetings.

Iranian officials reported that treating the interaction “like dealing with a patient” has already yielded “some progress” in negotiations.

Mediating nations, including Qatar and Turkiye, have also reportedly shared concerns regarding the President’s consistency.

The increasing worry about Trump’s mental condition arises as the US narrowly escaped a potentially catastrophic ground invasion of Iran.

CNN revealed on 12 June that senior US military officials nearly approved a risky plan to seize Iranian uranium, with Gen. Dan Caine visiting CENTCOM in May to review invasion plans.

Trump ultimately stopped the plan, allegedly over concerns about provoking strong Iranian retaliation, ongoing escalation, global economic turmoil, and substantial US casualties.

Intelligence warnings also pointed to potential regional repercussions, including the possible closure of the Bab al-Mandab Strait by Yemen.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi revealed on Friday that a proposed memorandum aims to formally end regional war, including in Lebanon, and stressed Iran “will never leave Lebanon alone.” He added that ending the war requires Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territories.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/tehran-recruits-psychologists-to-tailor-messages-for-mentally-ill-trump-report

US military begins construction of ‘huge base’ outside Gaza to oversee Trump’s colonization plan

(Photo credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD)

The Cradle

JUN 13, 2026

While talks in Cairo center on disarming Hamas, Israel has kept killing hundreds of Palestinians without accountability and is expanding its control over the strip despite an alleged ‘ceasefire’

The US military has begun constructing a “huge base” on the Gaza envelope to implement US President Donald Trump’s plan to “take over” the strip, Israel Hayom reported on 13 June.

The US base, being built near the Israeli military base at Reim settlement, will function as both a military and civilian headquarters for the organizations and forces arriving in the area to implement the Trump plan.

In February 2025, Trump proposed a US “takeover” of the Gaza Strip.

The plan called for the forced displacement of approximately two million Palestinians to neighboring lands and redeveloping the territory as a high-tech business and tourism hub that Trump said would become the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

The new base will replace the US facility in the Israeli town of Kiryat Gat, established under the direction of Trump’s Board of Peace in the wake of the October 2025 “ceasefire.”

Representatives from more than 24 countries staffed the multinational headquarters and were tasked with overseeing the ceasefire and the entry of humanitarian aid.

The Kiryat Gat base was also meant to direct the operations of an International Stabilization Force (ISF) tasked with providing security in Gaza.

However, Israel has continued to severely restrict the entry of aid into Gaza, recently suspending all shipments, while the ISF has yet to be formed.

After the US and Israel launched a war on Iran on 28 February, the overwhelming majority of personnel left Kiryat Gat.

Israel Hayom noted that plans for the new US base include the construction of a tower intended for the command and control of forces in the field.

The US military has already begun issuing tenders to private contractors, including for the supply of mobile structures to house personnel and serve as a headquarters until permanent buildings are established at the site.

The new base will also host troops from the ISF if it is formed.

Five countries previously agreed to send forces to Gaza, namely Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania. Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Azerbaijan have expressed a willingness to participate but have made no firm commitment.

Currently, no countries are willing to send troops due to fears that their forces will be tasked with disarming the Palestinian resistance, as well as concerns about the ongoing US-Israeli conflict with Iran.

The construction of the new US base is being fully coordinated with the Israeli Defense Ministry. Military officials expect the base to be constructed and staffed within a few months.

The report comes as talks continue between Hamas and Israel via negotiators in Cairo.

Israel persists in demanding Hamas disarmament before progressing the ceasefire, while simultaneously continuing to kill Palestinians in Gaza without consequences and expanding its occupation rather than withdrawing from the territory seized during the genocide.

Israel has killed nearly 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza and expanded its control of the strip from 50 percent to at least 60 percent since the ceasefire.

One security source told Israel Hayom that the “chance of renewed fighting in the Gaza Strip is greater than the possibility that Hamas will actually be disarmed through a diplomatic agreement.”

“Demilitarizing Gaza became a bigger aim than stopping Israel’s genocide; such is the absurd truth,” wrote author Ramona Wadi.

While “colonial expansion as the reason behind Israel’s genocide in Gaza, utterly exposed for the entire world to see, [it] is never discussed by the international community. On the contrary, the Board of Peace promotes it and sets the conditions that justify colonialism instead of preventing it, using an extension of the same narrative Israel used to destroy Gaza,” Wadi added.

[…]

Via https://thecradle.co/articles/us-military-begins-construction-of-huge-base-outside-gaza-to-oversee-trumps-colonization-plan

Iran Still Standing and Still Controlling the Strait While Trump Uses War for Insider Trading for Profit

 

by Brian Shilhavy
Health Impact News

Earlier this week, trading in the U.S. Stock Exchanges were significantly declining, leading many analysts to speculate that the AI bubble might finally be bursting.

But by Thursday, one day before Elon Musk’s SpaceX IPO listing on the NASDAQ, Trump made sure that the failing stock markets would not derail what was going to be the largest IPO entry into the U.S. Stock Market in the history of Wall St., so he did what he has done so often before during the Iran War, and he announced that they had agreed on a “peace deal” with Iran, and the stock market skyrocketed to new heights, wiping out all of the losses from earlier in the week.

 

But is there actually a peace deal in place with Iran to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz?

If you only get your news from the U.S. corporate media, which all for the most part print the same thing about the war whether they are “Left” and “hate” Trump, or from the “Right” who support Trump, you probably think that Iran is giving up and caving to the demands of Israel and Trump.

To understand how the rest of the world outside of the U.S. and the West view the events now happening, you need to read what the Iranians and others are saying.

Now as I have stated multiple times since this war started, BOTH SIDES will lie and use psychological warfare to their advantage. So when I present the Iranian view, I am not endorsing it as 100% true.

But it does give the alternative perspective, and the fact Iranians seem to still be taking to the streets in large numbers each day seems to suggest that their regime is not about to fall, and in fact may be establishing Iran as one of the major superpowers in the world today.

This is from PressTV, the major English language news source coming out of Iran, and it was just published today. While the author is not named, you will quickly see it is someone who is highly educated and whose native language is probably English.

It is literally written like a legal brief, and probably accurately describes Iran’s current position on where this war is at right now. It marks the one-year anniversary of when Israel and the U.S. began bombing Iran in the “12 Day War” last year. See One Year After 12-Day War, Iran Rises Regional Super Power While US Empire Sinks into Oblivion

[…]

Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2026/iran-still-standing-and-controlling-strait-of-hormuz-after-one-year-of-being-bombed-by-israel-and-u-s-trump-uses-war-for-insider-trading-for-profit/