Iran demands ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon - will US-Israel comply?

• Tasnim News Agency reported: Following Israel’s escalation in Lebanon, Iran suspends all negotiations with the US. Iran has paused the exchange of messages with the US via mediators in protest against the Israeli crimes in Lebanon. Tasnim added that “Iranian officials and negotiators emphasized the immediate cessation of the aggressive and brutal operations by the occupation army in Gaza and Lebanon,” as well as “the necessity of Israel’s complete withdrawal from the occupied territories in Lebanon. There will be no talks unless Iran’s and the Resistance’s stances regarding a ceasefire on all fronts are met,” the agency added. In response, “the Resistance Front and Iran have enlisted in their agenda the complete closure of the Strait of Hormuz and the activation of other fronts, including the Bab al-Mandeb Strait,” Tasnim further reported. 
• Trump claimed that if reports about the suspension of negotiations between Iran and the US are true, "it's okay." He added: "I think we have talked too much. This does not mean that we go and start dropping bombs. We just remain silent. We maintain the blockade."
• The Lebanese Embassy in Washington announced that Hezbollah has agreed to a US-backed proposal for a reciprocal cessation of attacks following contacts between President Joseph Aoun and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Under the proposal, Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs would cease in exchange for Hezbollah refraining from attacks against Israel, with the ceasefire framework later expanded to cover all Lebanese territories. The embassy added that Trump informed Lebanon’s ambassador in Washington that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approved the arrangement. Since when has Israel honored any ceasefire anywhere?
• Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee: “If the attacks against Lebanon are not completely halted, dark days await the Zionist regime and American forces in the region. They themselves know full well that this is not a threat; our fingers are on the trigger.”

• Sovereignista: Both serious wars [Ukraine and Palestine/Iran] are against the West and as a result of Western attacks because they want war and will agitate, propagandize, create pretexts and shoot children and nuclear power plants one way or the other, until they get it. They want a global war as they have nothing else left. They have burnt through their own collateral and now they want the collateral of the rest of the world, even if they have to burn it down first. Russia, China and Iran changed tactics and major war strategy on the same day. They realize that the current world shift cannot be done any longer via a process of evolutionary change, but only with revolutionary change. Revolutions as change agents are fickle instruments. 

• In Venezuela, the US has taken control of all incoming oil revenues.  Fuel payments must now be transferred to the US treasury.  Venezuela’s state oil company (PDVSA) in an official notice to its clients, including airlines and shipping companies, ordered that fuel payments be transferred not to the Venezuelan government’s accounts, but directly to the US Treasury. In essence, this decision transfers control over Venezuela’s energy revenues to the US government.
• Belgium has revealed that 2 of their 3 MQ-9B SkyGuardians are being stationed on the island of Sicily. They say their mission there is primarily to address "irregular migration."

• President Catherine Connolly of Ireland has openly described Israel as a “terror state,” intensifying diplomatic friction between Dublin and Jerusalem. Her remarks are some of Ireland’s most forceful condemnations of Israel during the ongoing Gaza war and reflect a growing change in political discourse across Europe, as governments and leaders continue to respond to the conflict. Connolly's sister was recently abducted and terrorized by Israel while on the flotilla to Gaza.

• We will never seriously stop the US war machine until we create a national movement to convert the military industrial complex to building public mass transit systems, tidal power systems, solar power, wind turbines, rebuild crumbling roads, bridges, sewer and water systems, hospitals, rural health clinics and much more. All of these efforts would create good jobs across the country and help lead toward real peace.

July 4 parade in Bath, Maine (the largest parade in the state) some years ago. Bath builds destroyers for the navy.

• Financial Times: The US is considering deploying nuclear-capable assets to additional NATO countries in Europe. While no agreement is expected soon, Poland and some Baltic states are reportedly interested in hosting bases for dual-capable aircraft that can carry nuclear weapons.

• Sputnik: Russia's FSB has uncovered a foreign spy operation using malware implanted on the smartphones of high-ranking Russian officials. The goal? To extract data, eavesdrop on conversations, and covertly monitor the situation. Think of Fastly and Cloudflare. These aren't basement startups. They are the largest CDN (content delivery network) providers and "security perimeter" operators on the planet. They serve half of the Fortune 500, EU and Asian government websites — including, for example, the official site of the British government, major EU institutions, and critical financial infrastructure spanning the world’s democratic nations. In plain terms: they are the infrastructural spine of the internet. When you access a government service, a bank, or a news outlet in most of the Western world, your data almost certainly passes through their networks. The same digital spine that guards the West also feeds allies, neutral nations, and every global power. Break that trust — and the internet shatters. So, get ready for national clouds. Localized walls. Sovereign webs. Welcome to the fragmentation that the open internet promised would never happen. 
• DefenseNews reports: In a remote Chinese desert, a vast military complex is taking shape that some security scholars say appears built to ensure no American first strike on China’s nuclear arsenal could reliably knock out Beijing’s ability to hit back. China’s nuclear missiles can already reach any city in the US. Now, satellite images reviewed by Reuters show Beijing is building a sprawling web of launch pads, bunkers and communications nodes near the isolated nuclear silos that hold the Chinese military’s longest-range missiles. The scale of the construction, which hasn’t been previously reported, points to a sweeping expansion of hardened infrastructure designed to protect and operate China’s land-based nuclear forces. Taken together, the network signals a significant upgrade in Beijing’s efforts to ensure second-strike capability, underscoring intensifying nuclear competition with the US as tensions rise over issues such as Taiwan’s sovereignty.

• Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action reports: The Columbia-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) are the planned replacement submarines for the Ohio-class SSBN submarines that first arrived at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in 1982. The twelve proposed Columbia-class submarines are expected to cost $126.4 billion according to the Navy’s FY 2025 budget submission. Six of the new submarines are expected to be deployed at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor, approximately 20 miles from Seattle in the state of Washington. Each Columbia-class SSBN has an expected life span of 42 years, and the first submarine is expected to arrive at Bangor in 2032.  The new Columbia-class SSBN will carry 16 Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The estimated total cost for the lifespan of the Columbia-class program is approximately $348 billion. How much longer can a nation with $38 trillion in debt afford to keep building these nukes?
• The ruling Democratic Party of South Korea (DPK) openly criticized Gen. Xavier T. Brunson, commander of US Forces Korea, with its spokesperson Rep. Boo Seung-chan saying in a written briefing that the USFK commander’s comments “arbitrarily defined Korea’s strategic status, infringed upon the sovereignty of its people and even fueled diplomatic tensions. The situation on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia should be addressed through the language of diplomacy, not military metaphors. Such remarks risk creating unnecessary misunderstandings and tensions, which is deeply concerning,” Boo said. Concerns arose after Brunson’s podcast interview hosted by the US Army War College on May 22. "When they [the Chinese] look out from the east coast of China, what they see is there's Korea, the dagger in the heart of Asia," Brunson said. He added that Japan serves as "a shield" and a defensive barrier against China's ambitions beyond the South China Sea.

• Quincy Institute: The US and Israel are now approaching the renegotiation of their 10-year defense Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU. Israeli officials have said they want to phase out US military grant aid — a position that sounds like a step toward ending US military assistance to Israel. It is not. What top Israeli officials — including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — are quietly backing is not a reduction in American support, but a reorganization of it: shifting billions in resources from State Department–administered foreign aid grants into general Pentagon procurement accounts, industrial partnerships, and sustainment pipelines. The shift will strip away the political and diplomatic oversight mechanisms that make the relationship publicly accountable, moving it from a visible annual aid vote into the opaque machinery of defense acquisition, where oversight is limited and political accountability is minimal. The result would be a defense relationship that is simultaneously deeper and less transparent. 

• RT: Professor Marandi stated: 'The Western media has a full presence in Beirut, yet they try to justify the slaughter of civilians by calling these Hezbollah targets.' (Seyed Mohammed Marandi, political analyst, Tehran University professor.)
• Elon Musk wants a SpaceX IPO valuing the company at upwards of $1.75 trillion. To get there, he got the rules changed so that index funds, with millions of Americans' retirement savings, are forced to buy in. Retirees could take huge losses, while insiders cash out.
• Released by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the draft of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year running to September next year showed revised language related to maintaining 28,500 US troops in South Korea. In the section on the oversight of Pentagon military posture on the Korean Peninsula, this year's version says that amounts authorized to be appropriated by the act may not be expended to 'reduce the number of troops' in South Korea below 28,500.