🇧🇷🇧🇷📞🇺🇸🗞 — Senator Flávio Bolsonaro says he spoke with Trump about rare earths and stated for the American leader that Brazil is the only alternative to China for the Free World free itself from Chinese dependency:

"Under my government, there will be a strategic partnership in this sector."

📢 🇧🇴 🗳 Bolivia's congress votes to allow President Rodrigo Paz to deploy soldiers and declare a state of emergency to counter huge street protests seeking his resignation over economic hardship

📎 AFP

🎆 🇺🇸 🎉 A football-field-sized American flag and a red, white, and blue light display were unveiled at the Hoover Dam as part of celebrations marking America’s 250th anniversary.

📎 Breaking911

🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷 — Senator Flávio Bolsonaro meets with Federal and State Congressmen in the United States

📢 🇧🇴 🇧🇴 Bolivia: Another Anti-Regime group has been formed in Challapata and demanded the resignation of Rodrigo Paz.

Members of the group are armed with various Mauser rifles —appearing to be a mix of common Bolivian M1907 rifles and M1933 carbines mostly.

📎 War Noir

🇺🇸🇺🇸🗳📝 — Trump-backed Ken Paxton, the former Attorney General of Texas, defeated John Cornyn in the Republican primary for the Texas Senate seat.

🥇 Paxton: 63.9%
🥈 Cornyn: 36.1%

@BellumActaNews

🇷🇺🇦🇲❗️Russia threatened Armenia with the termination of the agreement on gas and fuel supplies if Yerevan continues to align with the EU — Media

The current document of agreements from 2013 stipulates the conditions for supplying gas, fuel, and diamonds to Armenia without export duties and on preferential terms, tied to domestic consumption

@Intelslava

🇺🇸🇵🇸 Donald Trump’s Board of Peace fund is empty

Despite $17bn in pledges, organisation is stuck in limbo with no money flowing to projects in Gaza

The US president described the board, which solicited $1bn “lifetime membership” fees from world leaders, as one of the “most consequential” international organisations created. Member states pledged $7bn for the board’s Gaza “relief package”, and Trump promised a further $10bn in US funding.

But four months after its establishment, the board’s financial fund set up by the World Bank has received no money from donors, according to four people familiar with the matter. “Zero dollars have been deposited,” one said.

Rather than use the fund administered by the World Bank, and endorsed by the UN, the board has received donations directly via its JPMorgan account, the board’s spokesperson and another person familiar with the arrangements said.

While the World Bank must report on the financial position of the Gaza fund to contributors and board members, no independent transparency requirements are in place for the JPMorgan account.

A Board of Peace official told the FT that “a number of options were established to receive funding” including the World Bank mechanism and that “at this point, contributors have opted to use other options”.

The Board of Peace “will report its financials” to its own executive board, which is made up of Trump administration officials and other advisers, “at a time deemed appropriate”, the official added.

Contributions of about $3mn from Morocco and $20mn from the United Arab Emirates have helped fund the office of Nickolay Mladenov, the “high representative” for postwar Gaza, and salaries for the Palestinian technocratic committee that the board formed to govern the strip.

The UAE also recently provided $100mn to train a new police force for Gaza, but the programme has yet to start and the funds are frozen, said two people familiar with the matter.

The US state department intends to reallocate about $1.2bn of aid spending for projects related to the board’s agenda. But the funds, which would not go directly to the board, have also yet to be spent.

A senior congressional aide said: “None of that money [has gone to the board]. None of that money is being managed by the Board of Peace. And State tells us there’s no intent to have any of that money managed by the Board of Peace.”

The state department wants to provide about $50mn directly to the board to fund operations, but that also has yet to be distributed. Officials have assured Congress that the board will not be allowed to use the funds until financial controls and other systems necessary to receive US funds are in place, according to the congressional aide.

Trump launched the board with characteristic fanfare in January, prompting some European capitals to fear its purpose was to rival the UN. Its first main mission was to oversee Gaza’s redevelopment after two years of devastating war.

His son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, later put forward glossy models for a futuristic AI-powered Gaza, replete with gleaming towers and luxury amenities. A recent survey by the EU, UN and World Bank estimated more than $70bn would be needed for Gaza’s reconstruction over the next decade.

🔗 https://archive.ph/20260527081718/https://www.ft.com/content/5ba3bd2c-0e0e-4306-84be-99d6d89b0d49

🇬🇧🇫🇷🌐🇺🇦 Britain and France reject NATO plan for extra Ukraine military aid

The news will come as a double-blow to the UK’s credibility as one of the war-torn country’s staunchest allies

Britain and France have scuppered a proposal for Nato allies to spend 0.25 per cent of GDP on military aid for Ukraine.

Mark Rutte, the alliance’s secretary-general, this week conceded his plan wouldn’t be taken forward because it didn’t have sufficient support.

“I don’t think this one will be proposed,” he told reporters, without naming the opponents.

But now The Telegraph can reveal that the UK, France, Spain, Italy and Canada blocked the idea when it was floated in discussions for how to boost support for Kyiv.

Mr Rutte was hoping to ratify the proposal at Nato’s upcoming annual summit in Ankara, Turkey.

Ministers this week began discussions over what the alliance’s civilian chief believes should be a tangible show of support for the war-torn nation.

An alliance insider said at least seven member states, who all spend over 0.25 per cent of GDP on military aid to Ukraine, had voiced support.

But any proposals adopted by Nato require the unanimous backing of all of its national capitals.

“They’re not very enthusiastic about the idea,” the insider said, labelling London, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Ottawa as opponents.

🔗 https://archive.fo/20260524091635/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2026/05/24/britain-rejects-nato-plan-for-extra-ukraine-military-aid/

🇺🇸🇮🇱 The Disappearing Aid Check: The Future of US–Israel Defense Support

The United States 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.

Since fiscal year 2019, the United States has provided $3.3 billion per year in Foreign Military Financing, or FMF, grants to Israel, plus an additional $500 million per year for missile defense cooperation. About 25 percent of this FMF grant money has gone toward offshore procurement, or OSP, funds allocated to Israel to spend domestically on its own defense industry and military equipment. Effectively, it is a US subsidy for Israel’s military industrial complex.

This OSP precedent is slated to end with the expiration of the current MOU. This has fueled Israeli proposals to phase out FMF grants altogether, replacing them with a relationship centered on US–Israeli defense integration. This would embed Israeli firms and Israeli–origin intellectual property inside larger Pentagon programs and production. Unlike the foreign assistance process, the military procurement framework would not be subject to the political scrutiny of Congress and the State Department, but would be evaluated on bureaucratic criteria such as cost, readiness, and capability. This shift would likely be justified by reframing US support not as a handout to Israel, but as an investment in American military readiness, industrial capacity, and jobs.

At a time when the US–Israel relationship should be scrutinized in light of Israeli actions that run counter to US interests, such a structural shift would be counterproductive. To avoid this outcome, any procurement-centered relationship should meet these three basic requirements:

Clear metrics to assess whether Israeli participation in Pentagon programs serves US defense requirements.

Program-level transparency regarding the existence, scale, cost, and rationale of each procurement program.

Cross-committee coordination in Congress to ensure visibility and accountability to non-military congressional oversight committees.

🔗 https://quincyinst.org/research/the-disappearing-aid-check-the-future-of-us-israel-defense-support/#h-the-current-deal-and-why-it-is-running-out-of-road