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U.S. launches Operation Southern Spear

The U.S. government has unveiled Operation Southern Spear, a new campaign targeting what it calls narco-terrorist networks operating across the Western Hemisphere. War Secretary Pete Hegseth said President Donald Trump ordered the operation in response to mounting intelligence about drug-trafficking groups that span Venezuela, Colombia and parts of the Caribbean. He framed the effort as a necessary step to protect “America’s neighborhood” and curb the flow of narcotics that, in his words, “are killing Americans.”

The mission is being run by the Southern Spear Joint Task Force in partnership with U.S. Southern Command. Officials describe it as a multilayered operation that blends intelligence collection with maritime and aerial interdiction and expanded cooperation with regional security services. Its objectives are to shield U.S. territory from transnational criminal networks, degrade the financial and logistical infrastructure of those groups, and disrupt established smuggling corridors that run from northern South America into Central America and the Caribbean.

The political language is getting serious. Senator Lindsey Graham argued that Venezuela under Nicolás Maduro functions as a “narco-terrorist state,” comparing the situation to the late 1980s, when George H.W. Bush ordered the removal of Panama’s Manuel Noriega on drug-trafficking charges. Graham said President Trump views Maduro as an illegitimate leader, noting that he has already been indicted in U.S. courts, and warned of what he called a “drug caliphate” spanning Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba. According to Graham, the administration believes that dismantling this network is essential both for regional stability and for reducing the volume of illicit drugs entering the U.S.

It’s the U.S. vs China, everyone else needs to choose a side

Ukraine strike cripples Russian oil exports

Ukraine’s destruction of critical infrastructure at Russia’s Novorossiysk Port has dealt a sharp blow to Moscow’s oil-export system, disrupting one of the country’s most important maritime gateways and forcing an immediate halt to crude loadings.

The attack ignited fires at the Sheskharis terminal and damaged storage tanks and a moored vessel, removing a substantial share of Russia’s export capacity from the market.

Based on typical throughput volumes, the loss amounts to an 8–10 percent reduction in Russia’s ability to move oil by sea.

The strike weakens a central revenue stream for the Kremlin, raises transport and insurance costs for Russian exporters, and illustrates Ukraine’s increasing ability to hit high-value economic assets well inside Russian territory.

Global markets reacted quickly, with oil prices rising as traders priced in the risk of tighter supply. The duration of the disruption will hinge on Russia’s capacity to repair the terminal or reroute flows to other ports, although right now this marks a direct hit on the core of Russia’s wartime economic machinery.

Ukraine capital hit by intense Russian strike

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the Ukrainian capital had come under a “massive” Russian attack overnight, with explosions reverberating through the city center as emergency crews moved swiftly to multiple impact sites.

Sources reported several blasts in rapid succession, suggesting a coordinated barrage.

The pattern resembles previous Russian efforts to saturate Ukrainian air defenses by pairing cruise missiles with drones aimed at critical infrastructure. Local officials confirmed damage to power facilities, interruptions to public transport, and fires ignited by falling debris in residential districts.

Ukrainian authorities said several incoming projectiles had been intercepted, although others broke through defenses.

President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that the strike formed part of a campaign to sap civilian morale and burden the country’s power grid, with emergency teams now gauging the extent of the damage.

Pentagon approves sustainment package for Taiwan

The Pentagon has approved a $330 million sustainment package for Taiwan that covers spare parts, consumables, accessories, and technical support for its fleet of F-16s, C-130 transports, and Indigenous Defense Fighter aircraft, marking the first arms-related transaction with Taipei in the second term of President Donald Trump.

The package focuses on maintenance rather than new weapons, although the timing is critical as Taiwan’s air force faces mounting strain from China’s intensifying “gray-zone” campaign of near-daily incursions by People’s Liberation Army fighters, drones, and naval vessels.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense says the deal will help keep its aircraft mission-ready and preserve operational tempo under persistent pressure.

Washington describes the decision as consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, which commits the U.S. to providing Taipei with defensive capabilities despite Beijing’s objections and its increasingly assertive conduct across the South China Sea.

The birthplace of civilization

Russia resists the U.S. proposal for Gaza

Russia on Thursday rejected the U.S.-led draft UN Security Council resolution that would authorize an international stabilization force for Gaza and establish a governance body known as the “Board of Peace,” instead circulating its own alternative text.

China has sided with Moscow in seeking to remove the Board of Peace provision from the U.S. draft, arguing that it would grant Washington and its allies undue sway over Gaza’s post-conflict administration.

Like the U.S. draft, the Russian proposal retains references to a two-state solution and Palestinian self-determination, a choice intended to appeal to Arab governments and Muslim nations while omitting any endorsement of a foreign stabilization force and placing greater weight on a ceasefire and humanitarian access.

Russia likely sees the Board of Peace as a template for externally crafted political structures that could later be applied in ways that limit its own geopolitical flexibility. The competing drafts reveal a deepening division over who will shape Gaza’s political trajectory and the distribution of authority in any eventual settlement.

Tanker diverts toward Iranian waters

A Marshall Islands–flagged oil tanker traveling from the UAE to Singapore abruptly departed from its planned course today and began steering toward Iranian territorial waters.

The deviation was abrupt and unexplained, a pattern that usually signals either pressure placed on the crew or outside interference rather than a routine navigational correction.

The incident comes amid heightened tension in the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran has previously intercepted or detained commercial ships during periods of regional friction or sanctions pressure.

Move fast and break things

White House to release incomplete October jobs report

The White House says the October jobs report will be partial because the federal shutdown prevented the Bureau of Labor Statistics from conducting the household survey that generates the unemployment rate, leaving only the non-farm payrolls figure from the establishment survey available for publication.

Officials say the household survey cannot be reconstructed after the fact without introducing large errors, so the unemployment rate for October will not be produced at all.

Its absence removes one of the most closely followed gauges of labor-market health, creating a blind spot for policymakers and financial markets that depend on a full dataset to judge economic momentum.

The omission is likely to complicate the Federal Reserve’s deliberations and increase market uncertainty.

America First

White House unveils new trade frameworks in Latin America

The White House has announced a set of trade-framework agreements with Argentina, Guatemala, Ecuador and El Salvador, describing them as a fresh attempt to widen U.S. export access while bringing down the cost of several widely consumed imports.

These are not full free-trade deals, rather they are targeted accords that open partner markets to American pharmaceuticals, machinery, agricultural goods, medical devices and vehicles.

In return, Washington will grant selective tariff relief on goods such as bananas, coffee, cocoa and some textiles that are not produced in the U.S. in sufficient volumes.

Each partner government has pledged to streamline regulatory approvals, accept U.S. industrial and safety standards, strengthen intellectual-property protections and avoid imposing digital-services taxes on American technology firms.

Most tariff levels will remain in place and the frameworks still require formal signatures, although officials argue that the measures will ease supply-chain strains, support U.S. exporters and lower consumer prices.

The broader intent is political as much as economic, since Washington hopes to deepen economic ties across the Western Hemisphere and curtail China’s influence in the region. The eventual impact hinges on the pace of implementation, the stability of domestic politics in the partner countries and the degree to which lower trade barriers translate into meaningful savings for American households.

State Department targets Antifa-linked groups

The State Department has designated four Antifa-linked groups as Foreign Terror Organizations, describing a network of loosely connected cells across Europe that, in Washington’s view, have moved from street-level agitation to more organized and premeditated political violence.

In Germany, authorities have long monitored Antifa Ost, a hard-line faction active in Leipzig and in parts of eastern Germany. The group is accused of stalking political opponents and orchestrating a series of hammer-based assaults, including attacks on individuals identified through online “doxxing” campaigns. German intelligence assessments likely informed Washington’s decision, since domestic officials have warned that Antifa Ost operates with a level of discipline, reconnaissance, and operational secrecy more akin to clandestine extremist cells than to spontaneous protest groups. Hungary earlier classified the same network as a terrorist organization after nine people were attacked in Budapest in what prosecutors described as a coordinated campaign against perceived right-wing activists.

Italy’s International Revolutionary Front, a diffuse constellation of insurrectionary anarchists, has been active for more than a decade. The group claims responsibility for shooting an engineering executive in Genoa, an attack presented as retaliation for the firm’s role in infrastructure projects. It has also sent parcel bombs to politicians, embassies, and civilian targets. Italian investigators argue that the network’s structure, comprising small semi-autonomous units bound by ideological manifestos, has made it difficult to dismantle. Washington’s decision to list the group reflects the transnational reach of its propaganda and its history of encouraging copycat actions abroad.

Greece hosts the remaining two entities. Armed Proletarian Justice, a Marxist-inspired offshoot of earlier far-left movements, has pledged armed confrontation with police and attempted to detonate a dynamite-based device near riot-police headquarters in Athens. Although the device failed to explode, Greek authorities said the attempt signaled a shift from symbolic vandalism to potentially lethal attacks.

The second Greek group, Revolutionary Class Self Defense, has claimed improvised explosive-device attacks on the Ministry of Labor and on a major railway operator. Analysts in Athens describe the group as part of Greece’s post-crisis extremist landscape, in which economic discontent and anti-state sentiment have fostered new militant cells. Its operations have tended toward high-visibility but low-casualty attacks, designed to advertise capability without provoking an overwhelming security response.

Taken together, the designations represent one of Washington’s most assertive steps against extremist far-left groups overseas.

While critics may question how effectively the classifications can be implemented, U.S. officials say the aim is to restrict financing, limit international travel, and signal a broader recalibration of counterterrorism priorities that no longer concentrate solely on jihadist or far-right threats.

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