MoU controversy: IAEA inspections in Iran or not?

• How long will the Lebanon ceasefire last? The IDF shelled the towns of Masha’a al-Mansouri and Byout al-Siyad in southern Lebanon. This was the first violation of the ceasefire after the first 37 hours.  Hezbollah says an Israeli attack in southern Lebanon killed two civilians and breached the ceasefire. Israeli soldiers posted footage today of the uninterrupted demolition of displaced Lebanese homes in southern Lebanon, joking as they defy the so-called US-Iran deal that supposedly required Israel to stop such actions in Lebanon.  

• Netanyahu: 'The directive from me and the Minister of Defense to the IDF is clear and has not changed: Our forces in southern Lebanon have full freedom of action to thwart any direct or emerging threat against them or against the residents of the north. The IDF faces no restrictions in this regard. I stand behind them, and the entire nation stands behind them. I remain firm in my position that we will stay in the security zone in southern Lebanon for as long as necessary in order to protect the residents of the north and all citizens of the State of Israel.' 

• US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent: Under President Trump and V-P JD Vance, we continue to make the world safer and more prosperous. As part of the framework, Treasury has issued a temporary 60-day general license authorizing the production, delivery, and sale of Iranian oil.
• Yemeni Military Media: 'We affirm our continued readiness to confront any escalation or developments in the current situation by the American and Israeli enemy targeting the region, seeking to isolate Gaza again, or any arena within the axis of resistance, the countries of the region, and the peoples of our Islamic nation.
• Fars News: An informed source has denied US V-P JD Vance’s claim that IAEA inspectors will return to Iran, calling it false. The source said the inspectors’ presence in Iran was never discussed during the Switzerland negotiations. Iran’s Foreign Ministry states there was no plan for the IAEA to inspect its damaged nuclear facilities, a day after Vance said conversations with inspectors could happen imminently.

• Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei: 'We have no plans for the IAEA to inspect Iran’s nuclear facilities that were damaged as a result of the enemy’s aggression. We have not had any meeting with the Director General of the IAEA.' [It is obvious that the US keeps saying Iran agreed to inspections so at some point Trump can blame Iran for violating the MoU.] 

• Reuters: Crude oil inventories in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve have fallen to their lowest level since 1983.
• France’s Renault Group will produce military drones with defense technology firm Thales marking a further push by the automaker into defense manufacturing. Renault will build Thales’ Toutatis remotely operated loitering munitions at one of its factories, with production of 1,000 units a month starting as early as next year, and targeting mainly 'overseas markets'. Thales currently produces around 100 units of the Toutatis drone per year. [This is the way it works. EU sends 90 billion Euros to Ukraine. Then EU weapons corporations ramp up and build weapons/drones for Ukraine. They get paid by Ukraine with the funds from the EU. So EU taxpayers are just indirectly funding a major increase in their own military spending. Of course with some cuts for Zelensky and his mob.]
• Wall Street Journal: Trump will meet with Pentagon leaders and major [military] contractors this week to push for faster production of missiles and munitions as US stockpiles have been strained by the [war] with Iran. The Pentagon has reached preliminary agreements with companies including Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, L3Harris, Northrop Grumman, and Honeywell to increase output of key weapons such as Patriot interceptors and Tomahawk missiles. However, many of those plans remain unfunded while Congress and the administration negotiate the [war] budget.
• Reuters citing a UN investigation: The Israeli army intentionally attacked children in Gaza. An independent UN commission concluded that the actions of the IDF led to genocide and crimes against humanity in the region, as well as war crimes. The commission emphasized that about 30% of those killed during the war in Gaza were children. Israel, in turn, rejects the report's findings, calling them 'slanderous,' and states that the army is taking measures to minimise civilian casualties. 

• Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov’s statements: 'At the G7 summit in Evian, the West did everything it could to bury the spirit of Anchorage and prolong the war until the last Ukrainian; The summit also marked a reshuffling of roles among Western nations in the Ukrainian drama they continue to orchestrate; The global majority, including Russia, will have to continue navigating the confrontation between an emerging multipolar world and the so-called 'rules-based order'; Russia welcomes the ceasefire between the US and Iran and hopes their talks will lead to meaningful results; Russia’s proposals on nuclear issues aimed at resolving tensions surrounding Iran remain on the table.'

• Surveillance in US about to get a whole lot worse. A military contractor is selling technology that enables license plate reading cameras to also sense driver and passenger phones, laptops, and even pet microchips as you drive past. Police and others can now purchase them. SignalTrace clips onto those same cameras already installed across the country. When your car passes one, it does not just photograph your plate. It sweeps every radio frequency signal in range: your phone's Bluetooth identifier, your laptop's Wi-Fi signature, your fitness tracker, your smartwatch, your car's tire pressure sensors and info-tainment system. Your pet's microchip, a small chip under the skin that sends out a radio signal, gets logged too. All of it is timestamped, linked to your plate, and stored in Leonardo's database for future searches. 
• The Intercept: Company records show that Israel petitioned Meta to take down Facebook and Instagram posts expressing support for Iran, opposition to Israel, and even depictions of Iranian missile impacts. The government flagged a variety of materials related to the war, including posts mourning the death of Ayatollah Khamenei following his assassination by the US and Israel on the opening day of the conflict, content supportive of Iran’s retaliatory attacks, and Iranian accounts that shared military analysis and propaganda sympathetic to the Iranian regime’s perspective. When asked how many Iran-related takedown requests had been granted to date since the war began, the company did not answer.

• DefenseOne: The US Space Force should prepare to put active-duty troops on the moon and on space stations to counter China’s lunar and military ambitions, a new research paper argues. The Mitchell Institute’s paper calls for the Space Force to prioritize the creation of a 'human spaceflight' program and redefine federal, active-duty Title 10 orders to compete against China’s military-focused space initiatives—such as the reported goal of putting its Taikonauts on the moon by 2030. Although Chinese officials as recently as last month have said the country believes in the 'peaceful use' of space, the paper claims future 'competition for control of lunar resources and territory will likely reach a tipping point' and the US military must be prepared. The 22-page policy report calls for blurring the long-standing boundaries between space exploration and militarized operations by allowing Title 10 active-duty federal orders to include 'space and lunar habitation' and 'warfighting authorities and a national defense mindset in the advancement of human spaceflight.' The 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which the US and China are parties to, calls for the governments to use the moon and other planets for 'peaceful purposes' and forbids military bases, testing, and maneuvers. Kyle Pumroy, a retired Space Force colonel and the paper’s author, called for pushing back against those norms.

These two pages from this book, a congressional study from 1989, spell out the strategy connected to the Mitchell Institute report above. On the bottom left last sentence "Armed forces might lie in wait at that location to hijack rival shipments on return.' Then on the other page at the top the last 2 sentences read "Nature reserves decisive advantage for L4 and L5, two allegedly stable libration points that theoretically could dominate Earth and moon, because they look down both gravity wells. No other location is equally commanding." So the US Space Force is now calling for the control and domination of access 'on and off' the planet as mining the sky becomes possible in the years to come. Capitalism is moving into the heavens and the US intends to be the 'Master of Space'.