Latest updates from a wobbly Earth

• In an earthquake vote on Capitol Hill, the House just ordered the withdrawal of all American troops from Iran. Seven Republicans broke party lines to join every Democrat, dealing a STUNNING blow to military leadership. Washington is officially in CRISIS over this war. Is this a long-overdue EXIT or a dangerous retreat that invites chaos? 
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov: ‘Gulf states and Iran agree to meet in one of the cities of Oman, but it was delayed — someone doesn’t want the region to normalize, wants to provoke conflicts and differences between countries.’

• Iran’s IRGC has shot down its 52nd American MQ-9 drone above Qeshm Island, southern Iran.  

• Portugal’s Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel stated that Jewish settlement expansion and economic pressure in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem were weakening prospects for establishing a viable Palestinian state. Rangel said Israel’s E1 settlement plan was "extremely pernicious" because it would split the occupied West Bank, separate East Jerusalem and undermine the possibility of a 'two-state solution.' He also described Israel’s withholding of Palestinian tax revenues as a "brutal strangulation" of the Palestinian Authority’s finances, saying the measures were preventing the Palestinian economy from operating. 

• Israeli reconnaissance drone activity surging across Lebanon, observed extensively over south Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburb. Israeli attacks on Lebanon have killed almost 9,000 people since the initial aggression began in October 2023.
• Palestinians mobilize to defend Majd al-Krum as Smotrich vows to expand Jewish settlements in occupied Galilee. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich escalated tensions by declaring that the settlement "revolution" in the occupied West Bank would be extended to the Galilee and the Naqab (Negev), after his Religious Zionism party attacked what it called a "loss of control" in the Galilee over pro-Palestine chants during protests. Medical Aid for Palestinians says ‘no aid’ is entering the strip, causing severe shortages at the Al-Shifa Hospital that faced numerous Israeli raid and strikes throughout the genocide. 

• The Cradle: Israeli military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir seeks 'legal action' against filmmakers behind NAZA documentary. The film “adopts narratives of Israel’s haters, defames our soldiers and commanders, and seeks to portray the IDF as deliberately acting unlawfully,” he said.  The film includes testimonies from Israeli soldiers describing the Gaza genocide as ‘insanely fun’. Israel’s Culture Minister Miki Zohar said he would work to revoke the citizenship of Oscar-winning filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor after their documentary NAZA won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival. 

• So we are supposed to believe an American pilot flying bombing missions over Iran had his plane shot down and 'hit the ground at 70–100 mph, broke his back, arm, and shoulder, then somehow climbed a 7,000-foot ridgeline to evade capture?' [Expect the Hollywood movie next. This is the kind of story you put out when you are losing a war.]

• Columbia University paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to pro-Israel organizations during a period of intensified repression of pro-Palestine student activism, reports The Intercept. Financial filings show the university paid $100,000 to the Israel on Campus Coalition and $75,000 to the American Israel Education Foundation, AIPAC’s charitable arm, during 2024. The university also paid $450,000 to the United Jewish Appeal Federation of New York that year. Over the past decade, Columbia paid $250,000 to AIPAC’s charitable arm, while it paid $7,200 to the Anti-Defamation League in 2025 for what it described as “program services.” The payments coincided with Columbia suspending Jewish Voice for Peace and Students for Justice in Palestine, calling police to arrest pro-Palestine protesters, and dismantling solidarity encampments. 

• Nat'l Call for Safe Tech: Congress is fast-tracking two bills (HR 8255 and S.3639) to launch of hundreds of thousands of satellites. These bills would accelerate satellite deployments in already crowded orbits.  Applications for a million orbital data centers have already been submitted to the FCC. The FCC has NEVER assessed the health or environmental impacts of satellites, and the GAO has already found that this outdated approach needs to be reexamined.  These bills would further incentivize the FCC to continue to ignore otherwise legally required analysis and public involvement on environmental and human health impacts.

• Antiwar.com: US Africa Command announced that its forces launched another airstrike in Somalia as the Trump administration continues a record-breaking bombing campaign in the country, which receives virtually no coverage in US media. AFRICOM said they targeted al-Shabaab in the vicinity of Quumbi, a village about 50 miles northeast of the southern port city of Kismayo. As usual, AFRICOM offered no other details about the strike, and there were no statements from US-backed forces about military operations in the area that day.  According to AFRICOM’s numbers, the attack brings the total number of US airstrikes in Somalia this year to 81.

• Israeli 'defense' technology company Capture Systems Ltd. plans to establish its US headquarters in Sterling Heights, Michigan, with nearly $1 million in state incentives and an expected 125 new jobs. The Michigan Economic Development Corporation approved the incentives for the company’s US expansion. The new facility is expected to manufacture counter-drone platforms, optical surveillance equipment and mobile defense systems, while also testing advanced counter-drone technology and remotely operated weapons systems. The expansion comes as Michigan seeks to strengthen its role in drone and defense technology, with Camp Grayling in northern Michigan also designated by the US government as a testing site for drone research.
• Sovereignista: Economics Prof. Michael Hudson holds the idea that the ‘pesky middle countries’ must repudiate or default or suspend payments on IMF debt. He explains that incoming world depression from soaring oil prices will strain the balance of payments and they simply cannot afford to pay BOTH the higher oil prices and food import prices AND pay their dollarized debts.
• CBS has obtained new images of the damages to US facilities at Prince Sultan Air Base, Camp Arifjan & Camp Buehring due to Iranian missile attacks. 

• Space News: Air Force Secretary Troy Meink revealed that the US has deployed space-control weapons in orbit, while also disclosing new milestones for military satellite programs tied to missile defense and long-range targeting. Meink says Space Force will begin launching air-target tracking satellites this month and has reached flight-ready hardware on a Golden Dome interceptor effort. “This is why the Space Force now has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the joint force against hostile adversary action,” he said. “It is critically important that we maintain our dominance, not only in the air but in space,” he said. [Trump's Space Force knows that the Golden Dome costs in the trillions is problematic for the nation, already strapped with $40 trillion debt. So they are rushing some kind of 'space weapons deployment' in order to make it harder to stop the program.]

• The Yemeni Armed Forces show they shot down a Saudi F-15 fighter jet during their current offensive. 

• Pepe Escobar, The Global South Is Building a World Beyond US Control: Yemen’s advance and the shutdown of Saudi Arabia’s East–West pipeline have raised the stakes around the Red Sea and Hormuz. Meanwhile, BRICS has issued its strongest condemnation yet of secondary sanctions and is expanding trade in national currencies. Russia and Iran are coordinating more closely, BRICS Pay is moving forward, and China is pressing for deeper financial, industrial and digital ties across the bloc. Each new route and payment mechanism leaves the Global South less exposed to US sanctions and financial pressure.
• Russian strikes targeting the De Novo data center in Kiev will create “an information vacuum and eliminate databases used to target our facilities – including those deep inside Russian territory,” Col. (ret.) Anatoliy Matviychuk told Sputnik. Besides being used to store “vast amounts of intelligence data to support the operations of Ukraine’s military” and drawn upon by Palantir, the massive data center served several other functions, including waging “information-psychological warfare on the Russian population” using local platforms.
• K. J. Noh: President Lee Jae Myung has announced he will not be sending South Korean (ROK) troops to Iran.  He is the first Korean president to refuse to send ROK troops to an illegal US war (they are all illegal). Prior to this, ROK sent troops to every US major war since 1950. It has had secret deployments with almost every US operation, and it has had Special Warfare forces in UAE since 2011. This refusal is a historic first. However, by taking this stand, he has put himself in US crosshairs.  The US is unlikely to give up its pressure. In fact, it could retaliate, including staging a coup. There is already a coup US Ambassador in place, Michelle Steele.

• Exxon Mobil has shut down one of the largest diesel refineries in the US. The refinery produced 11 million gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel per day.
• Northern Siberia’s oil reserves, which Russia is developing and shipping via the Arctic Ocean, could give Moscow a major geopolitical advantage.  By linking Siberian production to Arctic sea routes, Russia is building a new energy corridor aimed at Asian markets, thereby expanding its export options beyond traditional routes. The first crude shipments have already departed. Situated on the Taymyr Peninsula, Vostok Oil combines the existing Vankor fields with new deposits in the northern Krasnoyarsk Krai, drawing on a resource base estimated at around 7 billion tons of liquid hydrocarbons.