WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The US Space Command (SPACECOM) and US allies expect to finalize a joint plan for future orbital warfare by the end of the year, SPACECOM Commander Gen. Stephen Whiting said.

"We are in the process now of building a defense of orbital assets CONOPS [an orbit Concept of Operations] together," Whiting said on Tuesday at the Mitchell Institute in Washington, as quoted by Breaking Defense.

He expects to have it finished by the end of this year.

According to the general, the US and its allies must determine how to combine their space capabilities, avoid duplicating efforts, and subsequently integrate and synchronize them.

The EU’s imports of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) has reached a record high this year, amid the growing energy crisis triggered by the US-Israeli war on Iran, according to a report by a US-based energy think tank.

The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) reports that the bloc’s imports jumped 16% year on year in January-March, with France, Spain, and Belgium accounting for most deliveries. Russia remains the EU’s second-largest LNG supplier, despite the bloc aiming to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027, it noted.

EU countries spent €5.9 billion ($6.9 billion) on Russian pipeline gas and €6.7 billion on Russian LNG in 2025, according to the report. Russia accounted for about 13% of the EU’s combined natural gas and LNG imports in 2025, according to previous data.

This budget is a Labor dream come true. It will redistribute income from investors to workers.

It will redistribute real estate opportunity from the prosperous old to the aspirational young.

And, because it’s a Labor dream, it’ll be attacked by the Coalition as a nightmare. Which is exactly what the Albanese government is hoping for.

This budget will be attacked as a nightmare. That’s exactly what the PM wants

BY [SMH] Peter Hartcher

As Lebanon marks a month since “Black Wednesday”, when massive Israeli strikes killed 361 people, the international community continues to call on the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah. But the US legal imperative to ensure Israel has a “qualitative military edge” (QME) has kept the Lebanese military under-funded, under-equipped and unable to perform its role.

Keeping the Lebanese army weak: A hardened US military doctrine at Israel's service

By Leela JACINTO

[2025]... Remember when empty shipping containers were worth their weight in gold? Just a few years ago, after COVID-19 turned global logistics upside down, everyone was scrambling for metal boxes. Fast forward to May 2025, and the script has flipped completely.

Turns out we’ve got the opposite problem now. The shipping industry isn’t worrying about shortages anymore—they’re trying to figure out what to do with all these extra containers. Sluggish trade, political tensions, and new economic blocs have left ports with more capacity than they need. To understand how we got here, we need to rewind to the crisis days and track what changed.

France’s star-shaped fortress has fallen, and the colonial ledger is bleeding out in the desert sun. While Emmanuel Macron smiles for the cameras in Nairobi, Ibrahim Traoré is rewriting the rules of African sovereignty with blood, steel, and a 35% stake in the future.

Ibrahim Traore, Labazanga victory, Mali lithium 35%, Goulamina project, Macron Nairobi trip, AES Alliance, Francafrique collapse, Africa geopolitics 2026, Sahel security tax, Pan-African Pulse, black history real time, African sovereignty, lithium price 2026, colonial extraction, Ibrahim Traore speech 2026

The END of FRANÇAFRIQUE: How TRAORÉ’S Masterstroke In LABAZANGA Destroyed MACRON’S Ambition?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn-QkzffFlA

PLEASE VISIT:

The US has launched a probe into more than 120 American-funded biological labs abroad, including in Ukraine, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the New York Post on Monday.

Russia has consistently raised concerns about Pentagon-backed biological labs worldwide, particularly near its borders and in Ukraine, alleging that they are involved in bioweapons research.

Gabbard said that the move aims to halt risky virus experiments and follows President Donald Trump’s order restricting federal funding for “gain-of-function” research – studies that examine how viruses replicate and interact with human cells to increase their transmissibility.

To understand the scale of what India has surrendered in abandoning India’s relationship with Iran, one must understand what that relationship actually was—in civilisational, cultural, strategic and concrete economic terms. This was not a notional friendship maintained by diplomatic courtesy. It was one of the most substantive bilateral relationships in the region, built across millennia of shared civilisation and reinforced by decades of strategic investment and economic interdependence.

The price India paid for abandoning Iran

by Anand Teltumbde

On this day 125 years ago, Australians gathered at the Exhibition Building here in Melbourne for the opening of the first Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia under the Federal Constitution. The Tom Roberts painting of the event – The Big Picture – shows confidence and optimism for the future of Australia as a modern democratic nation. 125 years later that confidence and optimism that dissipated.

Gillian Triggs

Leaders from banks, asset managers, payment companies, and semiconductor companies are joining the delegation to smooth relations with Beijing and make major announcements, such as the sale of 500 Boeing aircraft...

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, begins his official visit to China this Wednesday, a highly anticipated three-day trip amid a tumultuous trade relationship, trade war, and Middle East conflict. He will be accompanied by 16 of the world's top executives, such as Elon Musk, Tim Cook, or Larry Fink.

Trump Takes Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and 14 Other Business Leaders on His Trip to China

PABLO R. SUANZES, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

We are told that the greatest threat to humanity is the nuclear weapon. The mushroom cloud has become the universal symbol of apocalypse, the image that ends history. But nuclear weapons are not the fundamental danger. They are its most dramatic expression. The deeper threat is the system that produces them, finances them, deploys them, and stands ready to use them. That system is imperialism.

On intervention and imperialism

I bring revolutionary May Day greetings here from Berlin, a city that knows bombs, that knows destruction and from which the Nazi war of extermination originated. In World War II, 70 million people lost their lives. Europe lay in ruins and workers all over the world swore: “Never again war, never again fascism!”

German imperialism’s third campaign for world domination

Christoph Vandreier

[This speech was delivered by Christoph Vandreier, National Secretary of the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Germany), at the 2026 May Day Online Rally, organized by the WSWS and the International Committee of the Fourth International.]

We are stepping into a period where multiple systemic failures are colliding rather than unfolding one at a time and the usual vocabulary of crisis feels inadequate. Overlapping conflicts, tightening energy markets, fraying social contracts, sovereign debt burdens that leave little room for maneuver, and an agricultural sector standing on the edge of a perfect storm.

2026 - Of Potatoes and Pitchforks

Both may come in handy

BY ASHES OF POMPEII

What happens when the world simply stops needing the US dollar? We aren't talking about a distant conspiracy theory—we are approaching a specific, mathematical threshold. Once global trade settled in dollars drops below 50%, the fundamental gravity of the global financial system changes entirely.

The Dollar’s 50% Tipping Point (The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History)

In this video, we break down the "physics" of reserve currencies, how the US dollar got its monopoly, and why the BRICS nations are systematically dismantling it. Most importantly, we reveal exactly what the world's central banks are aggressively accumulating to prepare for the inevitable paradigm shift—and how you can position yourself before the window closes.

Wealth doesn't disappear during a crisis; it simply transfers. Are you holding the right assets?