Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

In yet another incredulous case, the British justice system has decided in its infinite wisdom that a Somali criminal will be allowed to stay in the UK because returning him to his home country would cause him too much “stress”.

Yes, really.

The Telegraph reports that a judge in the upper immigration tribunal ruled that the asylum seeker would suffer “stress” if deported to his homeland, which would worsen his mental health, thereby breaching article three of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects against persecution and inhumane treatment.

A Somali criminal seeking asylum in the UK has avoided deportation after a judge ruled that returning him to his home country would cause him too much “stress”https://t.co/WbGKmbQ8Ab

— The Telegraph (@Telegraph) April 11, 2025

The unnamed man, jailed for unspecified crimes, is a schizophrenic who hears voices, and has also been dependent on alcohol for almost twenty years, according to the report, another factor which led to him being allowed to stay in the country since arriving way back in 1999.

The Home Office has argued that the man, who has been granted anonymity, would be able to get medications he needs in his home country, but the judge still ruled against them.

The man is described as having a “high level of vulnerability” and “complex needs” with “the severity of his mental health problems closely linked to his stress levels and use of alcohol,” according to the tribunal.

Lawyers assigned to the guy argued that he has “no real prospect” of returning to Mogadishu and making a living and that any financial support he would receive would be “limited”, and that he has a “history of being financially exploited”.

The Home Office has a program to offer financial support to foreign criminals being deported through the Facilitated Return Scheme. In other words, the government even offered to pay for the guy’s rehabilitation in Somalia.

“Evidence from doctors suggested the man could “become well” if he abstained from alcohol and complied with his medication,” the report notes.

Yet, Deputy Upper Tribunal Judge Ian Jarvis said “I conclude that the weight of the evidence before the Tribunal indicates that the [man] will very quickly become noncompliant with his medication.. without the 24/7 support and monitoring which he currently receives in the United Kingdom.”

The judge upheld the appeal and ruled that the man’s mental health would “seriously deteriorate” if he were returned to Somalia.

Commenters on the report were not impressed by the judge’s decision:

The report further notes that its another in a long list of convicted foreign criminals attempting and in many cases succeeding in halting their deportations by claiming breaches of their human rights.

There are currently a record 41,987 outstanding immigration appeals, largely on human rights grounds.

As we highlighted last month, a convicted pedophile has escaped deportation from the UK to his native country of Pakistan after a judge ruled that he would face “inhuman or degrading treatment” there for being an alcoholic.

This case follows similar incidents, including one just last month where another Pakistani pedo was permitted to remain in the UK with a judge ruling that deportation would be “unduly harsh” owing to the fact that his family in Pakistan took a “dim view” of his crimes.

Conservative MP Sir Alec Shelbrooke urged that “The Government needs to stop dangerous criminals being allowed to stay in this country.”

*  *  *

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Via  Eurasianet.org,

• The World Bank is facing a formal complaint regarding its financing of the Rogun Dam project in Tajikistan, with allegations of inadequate assessment of environmental and socio-economic risks.

• Environmental organizations and concerned citizens argue that the Rogun Dam poses a significant threat to regional stability and water resources, particularly the Amu Darya River.

• Calls have been made for an immediate halt to the dam’s construction and a suspension of funding until a comprehensive and transparent investigation is conducted.

The World Bank is under fire over allegations of impropriety in financing the Rogun Dam project in Tajikistan. Specifically, bank officials are facing accusations that they failed to comply with procedures to account for potential environmental and socio-economic harms associated with the project.

A statement issued April 8 by the World Bank’s Inspection Panel, an independent investigative body, announced the registration of a formal Request for Inspection, in effect a complaint, concerning the bank’s involvement in the Rogun hydropower project (HPP). Bank officials now have three weeks to respond to the allegations raised in the complaint. At that point, the Inspection Panel will decide whether or not to conduct a formal investigation.

The complaint was initiated in February by two concerned citizens in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan with the assistance of a Kazakhstan-based environmental organization, Rivers without Boundaries.

“The Rogun HPP project in its current, unfinished form poses a colossal threat to environmental stability and the well-being of millions of people in Central Asia,” said a statement issued by Rivers without Boundaries. 

“The applicants argue that the decision to finance the construction of the Rogun HPP was made by the World Bank’s Board of Directors despite an incomplete and outdated Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA), which does not adequately reflect the transboundary risks and cumulative impacts of the project on vulnerable ecosystems and people in the Amu Darya River basin.”

The complaint characterized the Rogun project, which currently has a price tag exceeding $8 billion, as among the “most expensive and time-consuming false solutions” to address electricity shortages in Tajikistan and reduce carbon emissions. A study published by Rivers without Boundaries in late 2024 alleged that Rogun is a white elephant in the making, and is likely to be outmoded as an efficient and profitable generator of electricity before it becomes fully operational.

The World Bank approved a $350 million grant in December to be used to help complete the dam’s first phase of construction. 

If built to its present specifications, Rogun would be the world’s tallest dam, capable of producing 3,600 megawatts of power per year. Bank officials have described the project as a “transformative clean energy project that will improve domestic and regional welfare and contribute to the decarbonization of regional power grids in Central Asia.”

Initial due diligence conducted by the Inspection Panel found that the complaint was “not frivolous, absurd, or anonymous.”

The complaint alleges that World Bank officials relied on faulty and outdated data to evaluate the environmental impact of the dam’s operation. It goes on to assert the reservoir needed to generate electricity would reduce the flow of the already-stressed Amu Darya River by at least 25 percent, causing a “progressive catastrophe” adversely impacting the lives of up to 10 million people living downstream.

Perhaps the harshest allegation leveled against the World Bank’s approval process is that “the Project’s safeguard documents were not disclosed to impacted persons and communities in Tajikistan and in the riparian countries [Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan] and that meaningful consultations were not held,” according to the Inspection Panel statement.

Even before the Inspection Panel makes a determination on whether to proceed with a full investigation, environmental activists are seeking an immediate halt to Rogun’s construction. 

The Rivers without Borders statement “calls on the World Bank and other financial institutions involved in the Rogun HPP construction project in Tajikistan to suspend funding until a comprehensive, independent and transparent investigation of all issues raised in the request is conducted, and adequate measures are developed to prevent and mitigate the negative consequences of the project.”

Authored by Ted Snider via The Libertarian Institute,

If Chinese soldiers are fighting in the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, that is not the big story. The big story is the effect the claim could have on the possibility of peace.

Ukraine has not yet even proven the months old claim of the presence of North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia on Russian soil. Now they are making the much more provocative claim that Chinese soldiers are fighting for Russia on Ukrainian soil.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on April 9 that the Ukrainian armed forces had captured two Chinese soldiers fighting in the Donetsk region of Ukraine. He then said that Ukrainian intelligence has uncovered 155 Chinese citizens who are “fighting against Ukrainians on the territory of Ukraine” and that they “believe that there are many more of them.”

Independent journalists and organizations have not had access to the two prisoners in order to verify the truth of the claim. Ukraine has provided a video and documents listing names and passport documents. Media outlets have seen them, but CNN and The Independent both say that they have not been independently verified.

There are tens and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese living in Russia. And even if the captured soldiers are from China, that does not mean they were sent by China. They could have enlisted on their own as mercenaries, a possibility that two former U.S. intelligence officers “with knowledge of the issue” now say U.S. intelligence believes to be the case.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs has called the claim that many Chinese citizens are fighting in the Russian army “totally unfounded,” and said that “the Chinese government always asks Chinese citizens to stay away from conflict zones, avoid getting involved in any form of armed conflict, and especially refrain from participating in any party’s military operations.”

Zelensky, though, has made the provocative claim that the Chinese government is allowing its citizens to fight in Ukraine. Asked whether China had a policy of sending soldiers to Ukraine, Zelensky answered, “I don’t have an answer to this question yet. The Security Service of Ukraine will work on it… We are not saying that someone gave any command, we do not have such information.” However, he added that “[o]fficial Beijing knows about this” and did not prevent it.

Zelensky then escalated the claim, saying, “The Chinese issue is serious” and calling on “the U.S. and the rest of the world for a response.”

It is that threat to the peace process and not the possible presence of Chinese soldiers that is serious and significant. Mercenaries from many countries have been welcomed by both Ukraine and Russia since the beginning of the war. Al Jazeera reports that, not only Chinese, but Nepalese and Indians have fought for Russia. They also report that Colombians, Sri Lankans, Indians and Americans have fought for Ukraine. At least nine Canadians have been killed in Ukraine, and more are known to have fought there.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed in March 2024 that 1,005 Canadian mercenaries have fought in Ukraine. They also claim that 2,960 have come from Poland, 1,113 from the United States, 356 from France and others from the United Kingdom and Romania. Ukraine says their international legion comprises around 20,000 fighters from fifty countries.

More seriously, it is not just mercenaries who have arrived in Ukraine. A leaked March 2023 Defense Department document reveals the presence of 97 NATO special forces in Ukraine. A recent New York Times article reports that more than three dozen military advisers were sent to Kiev and that CIA officers were in Kharkiv and “command posts closer to the fighting.” The British prime minister’s office has confirmed that the United Kingdom has boots on the ground in Ukraine. The presence of French forces has also been revealed, and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski confirmed that “NATO soldiers are already present in Ukraine.”

Unless the Chinese government has a policy of sending troops to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine, which would be serious, since it could draw China into the war, it is not the alleged presence of Chinese soldiers that is dangerous. At a time when peace talks are at a fragile beginning, and US President Donald Trump is insisting on both sides showing they are serious about peace, it is the provocative statements coming out of Kiev that are potentially serious.

“Russia’s involvement of China, along with other countries, whether directly or indirectly, in this war in Europe is a clear signal that Putin intends to do anything but end the war,” Zelensky said. “This definitely requires a response. A response from the United States, Europe, and all those around the world who want peace.” The suggestion that Putin is not serious about negotiating undermines US-led negotiations.

The first two captured Chinese citizens. Today, investigators from the Security Service of Ukraine spoke with them. We are working to establish all the facts regarding the involvement of these and other Chinese citizens being part of the Russian occupation army. Ukrainian… pic.twitter.com/PkBpBjI2Qm

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) April 9, 2025

The statements are also ill timed and hazardous. The United States and China are engaged in a trade war. It is a volatile time to provide Washington with a cause for turning up its anger against China. Zelensky intends the presence of Chinese soldiers to evoke an American response. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the U.S. is “aware of those reports” and that “It’s disturbing with the Chinese soldiers having been captured,” though the White House has not confirmed the claim. National Security Spokesman Brian Hughes said that “if the Chinese government is allowing their citizens to fight on behalf of the Russia government, this would be a concerning escalation and the U.S. will consider options moving forward.”

Beyond challenging the peace process, the comments coming out of Kiev are provocative to China, questioning its credibility and its lack of involvement in the war. Equally importantly, it challenges any potential role of China both in the negotiations before the end of the war and in security arrangements after the end of the war: both potentially important roles for China.

Ukraine’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrii Sybiha, said that “Chinese citizens fighting as part of Russia’s invasion army in Ukraine puts into question” not only “China’s declared stance for peace” but even that it “undermines Beijing’s credibility as a responsible permanent member of the UN Security Council.”

If the two captured soldiers turn out to be from China, and if they turn out to be mercenaries fighting without the approval of China, then their presence in Ukraine is not the big story. If the claims being made about them and about China resonate in the White House, then the effect of the claims could make difficult peace talks even more difficult. And that is what the potential big story would turn out to be.

Eight billion people in the world generate a lot of municipal garbage. By 2050, the World Bank estimates humans will generate 3.4 billion tonnes of global waste.

That’s enough to line up garbage trucks from the Earth to the Moon and back – several times over.

But, as Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu details below, nearly half of all that garbage is from an unexpected source. We breakdown all the components of solid waste from World Bank data, which uses estimates for 2016 and 2050.

What Fills the World’s Trash Bins

Food and green waste accounts for a majority of the world’s garbage (44% of the total).

Paper and cardboard (17%) and plastic (12%) are the next two major categories of waste.

There’s a positive correlation between income and waste generation. High-income countries account for only 16% of the world’s population but more than one-third of the waste generated.

However, it’s the middle- and low-income countries that will lead to more waste generation by 2050, particularly in Asia and Africa.

Why is this?

As the World Bank explains, waste generation scales up as income levels rise.

For high-income countries, per capita waste generation is already peaking, and is expected to grow 19% by 2050.

On the other hand, low- and middle-income countries (where per capita waste is much lower but where incomes are rising quickly) could see their waste generation grow by 40%.

According to the World Bank, global waste is growing at more than twice the rate of the population.

Want to get more perspective on staggering food waste? Check out: How Much Food is Wasted per Person by creator MadeVisual.

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

For many years now I have been talking about the growing global economic divide between East and West. This volatile opposition between the BRICS nations and the US is not a product of the Trump era. It has been decades in the making with a myriad of complex working parts and numerous US trading partners have been preparing for the fallout as far back as 2008.

At the same time behind the scenes there have been malicious influences at play: Special interests within the Davos community have been working diligently to undermine the US economy and the dollar. But what is the ultimate aim of this agenda?

In 2018 I published an article titled ‘World War III Will Be An Economic War’ – In it I outlined the basic mechanics of the East vs West paradigm and how banking institutions like the IMF and BIS were positioning to take advantage of the chaos. At the time, the “trade war” witnessed a kind of false start, but all the pieces were there for what we are seeing today. Don’t let the 90 day pauses on some tariffs fool you, economic decoupling is going to be the dominant theme of the decade and the tariffs will undoubtedly spring up over and over again.

Trump’s incredible return to the White House sets the stage for the end of globalism (and that’s a good thing), but I want to make it clear that the pitfalls are numerous and the establishment could try to use the end of the old world order to bring in their “new world order”.

In 2018 I noted:

“The bottom line is this: Russia and China are in full support of globalist controlled institutions like the Bank for International Settlements (the central bank of central banks) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The governments of both nations have called for the IMF to assert their Special Drawing Rights basket currency framework as a foundation for a new world reserve currency system. Again, both Russia and China want the IMF, a globalist controlled entity, to become the de facto ruler of a new global monetary structure…”

“With the rise of simple to generate cryptocurrencies and the easily tracked blockchain exchange mechanism, globalists now have the perfect liquidity tool for replacing the dollar as world reserve. All they need now is a crisis event to provide cover for the transition…”

“…It would appear that a crisis event is now being triggered in the form of an international trade war. This trade war, in my view, is designed to become so widespread that it will one day be considered a “world war.”

As I’ve mentioned many times, the dollar’s world reserve status, instituted with the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944, has long been America’s Achilles Heel.

The US technically enjoys an enviable trade advantage as well as a monetary stimulus advantage because the dollar is used in the majority of international transactions. This means the Federal Reserve can print dollars with wild abandon and most of them will be absorbed overseas by foreign banks, governments and corporations. In this way, the dollar is already a kind of beta test for a one world currency.

However, the Bretton Woods Agreement came with a series of caveats, some of them unspoken. For the “privilege” of controlling the reserve currency, the US is expected to financially backstop allies as well as provide the vast majority of military support for NATO. The revelations behind the DOGE audits alone show an endless flood of dollars from American taxpayer funds into a vast array of subsidies for foreign governments. Americans has been paying for everyone and everything.

You know those supposedly amazing social welfare and healthcare programs in Europe? Yeah, we make that possible through billions in foreign aid to the those countries along with hundreds of billions spent on defense so that Europeans can sleep easy at night.

The situation is even worse when we consider how many trillions of dollars were created from thin air by the Federal Rserve and transferred overseas after the crash of 2008. Not to mention the trillions poured into foreign economies during the pandemic. In the meantime, relentless money creation is finally catching up to us in the form of a stagflation crisis. The dollar system, as we know it, is precariously unstable and more stimulus is not going to save it.

It’s not surprising the US has been hit with an inflationary freight train. We haven’t just been printing dollars for ourselves, we’ve been printing dollars for the entire planet.

The old world agreements are ending, and in many ways this is necessary. European leaders are going full authoritarian; they now throw people in prison daily for online speech and they are also throwing their right-leaning political opponents in prison to prevent them from participating in elections. Europe is no longer our ally and the US public is starting to realize it.

Outsourced production in Asia, the foundation of the current global supply chain, is in need of reform. Because of our reserve status America has become the world’s cash cow. We have been relegated to the position of dutiful consumer nation, spending our increasingly devalued dollars in a spiraling cycle of inflationary decline while we produce very little on our own soil.

Donald Trump’s tariff actions, which I suspect will be cumulative over the next few years, are an expression of America’s desire to end the globalist status quo and bring back balance. That said, the rhetoric from the rest of the world and the media is that these tariffs constitute an “act of war”.

As I predicted years ago, the US is not allowed to stray from the Bretton Woods system without being painted as an “aggressor” nation bent on destroying our neighbors. Keep in mind, most of the countries affected by Trump’s tariffs have had their own tariffs on American goods for decades. When they do it, it’s normal. When we do it, it’s a betrayal.

Enter the BRICS; this international trade body is currently headed by Brazil and includes China, Russia, India, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates among others. The running theory for many alternative economists is that the BRICS will eventually move to fully decouple from the US dollar and introduce their own shared currency system.

I have posited a similar theory, though I argue that the situation is not as simple as some analysts think. This is not just an East vs West division leading to a break in the dollar structure; there is a lot more going on.

Ten years ago the BRICS were in a much better position economically and that would have been the time to introduce a competing monetary framework. Today, Russia is in the midst of a proxy war with NATO in Ukraine, China is on the edge of deflationary collapse and South Africa is on the edge of social collapse. There’s not a single BRICS member beyond oil producers like Saudi Arabia that is not facing extreme fiscal turmoil. In other words, the BRICS do not currently have the ability to counter the dollar.

That said, I don’t think this was ever the plan. Rather, globalist institutions like the IMF, BIS and World Bank have been preparing for the rollout of CBDCs (Central Bank Digital Currencies) along with a single IMF controlled global digital currency attached to the SDR basket. The BRICS cannot compete with the dollar, unless the IMF and BIS help them to do so.

As IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva admitted in 2023:

“CBDCs should not be fragmented national propositions… To have more efficient and fairer transactions we need systems that connect countries: we need interoperability…For this reason at the IMF, we are working on the concept of a global CBDC platform.”

Such program could only be accomplished after serious economic turmoil has made the populations of all nations desperate for a centralized solution. The upcoming BRICS Summit in Rio de Janeiro, slated for July, should be watched carefully because it is timed almost exactly in line with the end of Trump’s 90 day tariff pause. The summit is expected to address the trade war in depth as well as the subject of “de-dollerization”. Trump has previously threatened a 150% tariff on any country that makes an attempt to de-dollerize.

While speaking at the BRICS Summit in 2024, held at Kazan (Russia), Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

“The dollar is being used as a weapon. We really see that this is so. I think that this is a big mistake by those who do this”.

This was the same summit where Putin shared a mock up of a “BRICS dollar” and spoke about the adaptation of a BRICS currency. Of course, Russia is in no position to field a new reserve currency and neither is China, but I believe this talk is a precursor to a larger international push for a new reserve system managed by the IMF.

The BRICS intend to court the Mexican government at the July 2025 summit in Rio de Jeneiro and there is also talk of European nations increasing trade with China as a way to frustrate Trump’s tariff efforts. But again, China’s economy is currently flirting with deflationary disaster and there’s not a single nation or group of nations that will be able to fill the void in consumer markets left behind by the US.

Even though a Chinese-based solution is unlikely, the behavior of the BRICS indicates that there is some kind of plan afoot. China and India have been stockpiling massive gold reserves and this may be in preparation for a break from the dollar, with gold skyrocketing as the dollar falls. The ongoing shift into crypto and CBDCs is also, I believe, an attempt to create a cushion for de-dollerization.

Just remember that none of this is possible without globalist organizations facilitating the spread of the technology. The BIS has been particularly active the past 5 years in testing cross-border CBDC swaps and secure CBDC transactions. The BRICS would be nothing more than a vehicle for the proliferation of a globalist CBDC reset.

Does this mean that the US and Trump are falling into a trap? Do tariffs make it easier to justify an international shift way from the dollar? Is Trump making things easier for the globalists? I argue that this reset is going to be attempted regardless; Trump and conservatives are going to be blamed regardless. Americans will blame the BRICS and Europe – The BRICS and Europe will blame America.

It should also be noted that the middle class and poverty stricken citizens of China and Europe largely HATE their governments. The elites have abused them beyond all measure and what little freedoms they have left are being erased. Most of these people are on the side of anti-globalism. This war is not everyone in the world against the US, though the corporate media would have you believe this is the case.

Tariffs are a way for the US to disrupt the forced interdependency of globalism, but there’s going to be pain involved as things change. In other words, tariffs are necessary. The end of globalism is necessary. America needs to stop relying on the dollar’s reserve status and the global supply chain. But we should be wary of what kind of system ends up replacing the Bretton Woods structure. Meaning, we may have to use any means at our disposal to stop a new global monetary scheme before it can take hold.

The next BRICS Summit should be scrutinized carefully because it could give us insight into when the next stage of the “reset” will begin. Don’t be surprised if their rhetoric is wildly hostile towards the US and decoupling from the dollar is the main topic of discussion. Also don’t be surprised if “de-dollerization” becomes a household term in the next couple of years.

Now that even the shoeshine boy is speculating whether China is selling its US treasuries (to kill three birds with one stone: i) hammer the dollar, ii) push yields higher and iii) prop up the yuan, if only to give the impression that China is winning the trade war something we described here), Mizuho has a “pretty high” degree of confidence that data will eventually show if China has been selling US Treasuries, according to Jordan Rochester, EMEA head of FICC strategy at the bank.

“Annoyingly we don’t get the data quickly enough, the data’s always lagged,” Rochester said on Monday in an interview with Bloomberg TV when asked if the Chinese have been selling US debt.

“You’ve got the extreme tariffs on China and also future reciprocal tariffs that will be extreme on other Asian central banks and they’ve got to defend their currencies.”

“You’ve seen a much slower pace of selloff in the renminbi than you’d expect, given the size of the shock to their system, so there’s clearly some sort of smoothing going on in the FX market, and to do that a central bank has to sell the US Treasuries and others to fund that FX intervention”

Echoing what we said last week, Rochester notes that for now, “we can only speculate” on whether the Chinese are selling, “but we’ll find out in the data in due course,” adding that his degree of confidence that the data will in due course reveal China’s selling is “pretty high.”

Separately, Rochester said he was “surprised” the dollar was “on the back foot” on Monday morning, after Trump provided some exemptions on his proposed tariff activity over the weekend

“This is alarm bells, I think, for US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent,” Rochester said; “He’s now seeing a watering down of tariffs but still dollar weakness and US rates selling off still — it’s a horrible toxic combination”, which however can easily be explained precisely by Rochester’s core thesis, namely that China has been aggressively selling US paper, and is opportunistically converting the US-denominated proceeds into yuan at just the right time to give the impression that, as so many others have been parroting, that the US dollar is losing its reserve status.

His full interview starts around the 37 minutes mark.

Authored by Tim Ray & Jim Smith via RealClearDefense,

As DOGE’s eye shifts to the Department of Defense and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth calls on his defense leaders to accelerate their workforce and recapitalization plans by the end of the week, our national security ecosystem has an unprecedented opportunity to radically restructure and set itself not for yesterday’s wars, but tomorrow’s security.

To seize the moment, DOGE and Secretary Hegseth’s team have many reform options at their disposal: streamline bureaucratic processes, overhaul acquisitions, and double down on innovation. These are logical improvements. Many are essential. But like fixing an aircraft mid-flight, time is the defining performance indicator. And it is a sense of urgency, agility, and adaptability that will enable America’s success.

Yet, crucially, outpacing an adversary does not require out-spending them. Apple defeated Nokia with quick design cycles focused on the user experience, despite Nokia spending nearly ten times more on R&D. Outspending creates an impressive collection of capabilities, but, a sustained competitive advantage requires a relentless focus on outcomes, not just capabilities.

The post-Cold War era demanded neither sufficient urgency nor flexibility from defense contractors and industrial base. Industry was comfortable and gave the country most of what it needed under cost-plus contracts at congressionally mandated 10 to 12 percent profit margins. Cost overruns and delays were tolerated and helped increase profits.

When budgets stopped expanding, consolidation resulted. The infamous 1993 “Last Supper” dinner meeting held by then Deputy Defense Secretary William Perry encouraged defense contractors to consolidate to maintain profits. They did. And the number of major contractors went from more than fifty to five. Agility, innovation, and responsiveness evaporated in the process.

Less was not more. The 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) articulated this point when it envisioned a broader National Security Industrial Base (NSIB) as a “network of knowledge, capabilities, and people—including academia, National Laboratories, and the private sector—that turns ideas into innovations [and] transforms discoveries into successful commercial products.” This articulates the whole-of-nation approach to national security that has always given the U.S. its advantage.

Great power competitions – be it between nation states or rival companies – are won by those that out-pace their adversaries. Advancing capabilities at a rapid pace leaves adversaries ‘playing catchup,’ trying to understand and then react. Consider Amazon, innovating quickly to stay ahead of large, capable retailers like Walmart who continually scramble to gain online market share.

No single company can provide what is needed across all categories of defense. Just as one athlete cannot win gold in every sport. Existing and new participants are needed, including entrepreneurs, boot-strapped independent companies, venture-backed companies, research and academic institutions, and close allied partners. A full-range of on-ramps are also needed for new partners to enter the ecosystem—including the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC), innovation hubs like SOFWERX and AFWERX, DoD and academic laboratories, and agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from which so much important innovation has come.

Achieving next-generation overmatch capability isn’t merely about more innovation from the commercial sector. In a world where invention quickly becomes commoditized, getting leverage out of new technology to gain competitive advantage requires an investment in the human capital and institutional capacity needed to quickly operationalize and scale these technologies. As the NDS also stated, “Success no longer goes to the country that develops a new technology first, but rather to the one that better integrates it and adapts its way of fighting.”  And the flexibility to drive this critical adaptation must be placed firmly in the hands of the Services and Commanders in the field—those directly responsible for navigating the complex and uncertain security environment ahead.

Industry must be measured on how fast they can deliver real-world results, not how well they check the boxes of a static requirements document (which they often help write). The risks of underdelivering and overspending are best mitigated by embracing a minimum viable product (MVP) mindset that focuses on rapidly fielding operating prototypes, and continually improving and adapting them. These are hallmarks of modern software development, but the mindset has a place in even the largest hardware-focused projects as well.

Secretary Hegseth gave until last Friday for defense leaders to submit their recapitalization plans—a date that underscores the urgency of this moment. If speed and agility become the driving forces behind America’s defense strategy, industry collaboration, and acquisition processes, the United States will decisively outpace its adversaries to win tomorrow’s conflicts before they begin. The signal flare has gone up, the opportunity to deliver capabilities faster, cheaper, and more effectively is not only possible—it is imperative. We agree with the Secretary that the time to act is now.

General Tim Ray (USAF, ret.) is the former Commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, who today serves as the President and CEO of Business Executives for National Security (BENS). Jim Smith is President of TheIncLab and member of the BENS Board of Directors.

Claiming it held a “command and control center used by Hamas,” Israel chose Palm Sunday to bomb the only Christian hospital in war-shattered Gaza. It was also the last fully-functioning hospital in Gaza City. No casualties from the bombing per se were reported by Gaza’s civil emergency service. However, a child who’d been hospitalized for a head wound died from “the rushed evacuation process,” said the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem, which runs the al Ahli Arab Hospital. The diocese is part of the Anglican Church. 

Citing Gaza Civil Defense, Middle East Eye reports that the bombs resulted in “the destruction of the surgery building and the oxygen generation station for the intensive care units.” St. Philip’s Church was one of multiple nearby buildings that also suffered damage. The IDF attributed the low casualty count to its effort to “mitigate harm to civilians or to the hospital compound, including issuing advanced warnings in the area of the terror infrastructure, the use of precise munitions, and aerial surveillance.”

A local journalist told BBC that the IDF called an emergency room doctor and urged the hospital’s immediate evacuation, saying “You have only 20 minutes to leave.” A previously-injured Khalil Bakr said he and his three wounded daughters — two amputees and a third “full of platinum plates” — managed to get out of the hospital just a couple minutes before destruction rained down.  

“For the only Christian hospital in Gaza to be attacked on Palm Sunday is especially appalling,” said British Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell in a statement. “I share in the grief of our Palestinian brothers and sisters in the Diocese of Jerusalem. I pray for the staff and patients of the hospital, and for the family of the boy who tragically died during the evacuation.”

The British government joined the condemnation, with Foreign Minister David Lammy saying the “deplorable attacks must end…Israel’s attacks on medical facilities have comprehensively degraded access to healthcare in Gaza.” Before the attack, the hospital stood alone as the only one still fully functioning in Gaza City, after Israel blew up the Al-Shifa Hospital and others. 

The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem issued its own statement: 

“This hospital, already strained by months of siege, stood as one of the last beacons of medical hope in Gaza, where dozens of healthcare institutions have been systematically destroyed. The stripping away of such sanctuaries of life and dignity is a tragedy that transcends all boundaries of politics and enters the realm of the sacred.”

While the British government and many other entities have decried the attack, there’s been no official statement from the Israel-catering Trump administration.  

Previous IDF claims of hospitals being used as Hamas facilities have grown suspect under scrutiny, with credible accusations of the IDF staging evidence before ushering in journalists to see the “proof.” Throughout the war that’s raged since the Oct 7 Hamas invasion of southern Israel, the IDF has repeatedly bombed medical facilities and fired on ambulances. 

One of the most troubling such incidents came last month, when 14 medical and other aid workers were found in a mass grave in Gaza after the IDF destroyed a convoy of ambulances and other first-response vehicles. The IDF originally claimed the vehicles “were identified advancing suspiciously” without either their headlights or emergency lights on. Then cell phone video of the IDF attack captured by one of the slain ambulance crew members proved the IDF account was completely false. The vehicles’ headlights and emergency lights were on, and the vehicles carried clear markings of their nature. 

As withering IDF gunfire rakes over the first responders, the dying Palestinian video narrator can be heard reciting the Shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith: “There is no God but God, Muhammad is his messenger.” Then, perhaps anticipating the video may be recovered after his murder by Israeli soldiers, he said, “Forgive me, mother. This is the path I chose — to help people. God is Great.”   

Last week we explained how the escalating trade war between the US and China has gradually transformed into a theatrical war of who has the upper hand on any given day. And since it takes a long time for trade obstructions to hit the underlying economy, investors are keenly eyeing the stock, and especially FX, markets for any and every (early) indications of who has the upper hand (even if they are, as we show below, completely false).

Meanwhile in China, it’s all about the optics of not appearing to lose the trade war:

China state firms vow to boost share purchases to stabilize plunging markethttps://t.co/BkliKGFTIW

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 8, 2025

Yet so far in the trade war, there has been one notable difference: while US stocks have tumbled (and rightfully so, as Trump institutes shock treatment to ween the US out of its debt-funded reserve currency, trade deficit addiction) and the US dollar has been in freefall, Chinese stocks have been surprisingly resilient and barely dropping, while the yuan reversed its losses last week, which pushed it to a record low only to rebound sharply higher.

There is just one problem: like everything else out of China, it’s market reaction has also been 100% fake. 

While the US reaction is understandable, since the political Fed is doing everything it can to tarnish Trump’s approval rating and rugpull the market, and economy, from under him… and for those who say this is nonsense, may we remind you this is precisely what Bill Dudley told the Fed to do during the first Trump trade war…

The day is August 27, 2019. Former NY Fed president Bill Dudley writes a Bloomberg oped saying “the Fed shouldn’t enable Donald Trump” and urged the central bank not to “provide offsetting stimulus” in Trump’s trade war with China.

Six years later, here we are pic.twitter.com/H6WT5O0cMD

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 11, 2025

… China, whose central bank is directly controlled by the CCP Politburo, has no such qualms, and as we reported last week, in order to stabilize the stock market China’s Plunge protection team, aka the “National Team”, unleashed a record buying spree of ETFs, which has prevented an all out rout. 

At the same time, China has also clearly intervened in the FX market, ordering local banks to sell dollars and buy yuan after last week we saw the offshore yuan plunge to a record low against the dollar. To be sure, China wants devaluation, but not chaotic, uncontrolled devaluation which would spark the mother of all capital runs (Chinese banks have $63 trillion in assets (and by extension deposits), almost triple the US total).

Context: US commercial bank assets ($23.5 trillion) vs China commercial bank assets ($62.6 trillion). pic.twitter.com/6mYaVI2ORJ

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 19, 2025

As an aside, China’s FX intervention would fully explain the bizarre concurrent weakness in both the dollar and TSYs, which some overeager commentators are ascribing to the death of US dollar reserve currency status…

… when in reality it was just a few days of China dumping US bonds and selling the proceeds (US Dollars) to buy yuan.

what if pic.twitter.com/34mLPz8FAC

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 11, 2025

So going back to the core thesis, namely that in China it’s all about the optics of not appearing to lose the trade war at least through day to day indicators meant for simplistic, first-order indicator observers (which these days is pretty much everyone in the market), Beijing’s core prerogative remains to prevent a crash in either Chinese stocks or the yuan. And while we described above how China is defending the yuan (at the expense of Treasuries and the dollar, if only up to a point – the point being when China runs out of US reserves to sell), preserving stock market calm is just as important.

Which is why we weren’t at all surprise to read that Chinese bourses have set daily restrictions on net share sales by hedge funds and large retail investors, Reuters reported noting that Beijing has stepped up support for its stock markets in an intensifying trade war with the United States.

Two investor sources said a soft limit on daily net sales by individual hedge funds and big retail investors – implemented through verbal warnings from brokerages – had been set at 50 million yuan ($6.83 million).

Failure to comply risked a suspension of trading accounts by the stock exchanges, which have issued the directive, the Reuters sources added.

Echoing everything we have said in the past week, Reuters also adds that “China has taken a slew of measures to stabilise its domestic stock markets, reeling from an escalating trade war with the U.S.” and notes that “the moves have largely shielded stocks in China from the massive selling seen on global markets.”

Brokerages have been asked to closely monitor transactions by private funds and big retail clients, according to a notice issued late on Thursday and seen by Reuters.

The current 50 million yuan daily limit on net sales by investors could be lowered further if the market slumps again, the notice said.

It stands to reason that if you can’t sell, you will- drumroll – buy, and sure enough China and Hong Kong stocks reversed early declines on Friday and narrowed the week’s losses.

“Such a restriction is understandable as you don’t want to act against state will,” said one of Reuters’ brokerage sources. It’s also understandable since China can not afford to give the impression that Trump has leverage in the escalating trade war. Instead, since Chinese stocks are stable, it afford Beijing the optics of being treated almost as an equal, or someone who can match Trump’s tariff escalation blow by blow… when in reality China’s economy is disintegrating below the calm surface.

Furthermore, as we also reported last week, China’s state fund Central Huijin has vowed to increase stock holdings, a growing number of listed companies are buying back shares, and Chinese brokerages have pledged to steady the market amid higher tariffs and global recession risks.

And just to make sure there is no selling at all, on Tuesday Chinese press reported that certain China banks have cut deposits rates below 2%. Why? To push depositors into risk assets of course.

Needless to say, without the moves, Chinese stocks would be in freefall – just like its economy in a month or so – and the yuan would be plunging, while the narrative that Trump is flip-flopping or otherwise “losing” to China, would be DOA. Yet, since the Fed has so far refused to counter its Chinese peers, Trump indeed finds himself at a disadvantage.

But that may soon change, because while the Fed may pretend it has no choice but to wait until the hyperinflation from the tariffs manifests itself (some time in 2035, especially since tariffs are actually deflationary as we have explained for the past year) before easing, Bessent may take matters into his own hands, and without waiting for the Fed, ramp up the amount of treasury buybacks the US Treasury currently conducts every other day or so, in the open market (see full Buyback schedule here).

In fact, the Treasury secretary hinted at this himself in an interview with Bloomberg, when asked if he has contingency plans if the selloff becomes “more unnerving” (for example if foreign countries, i.e. China, may be selling US Treasuries in response to the trade war). 

His answer: “we are a long way” from needing to take action, but “we have a big toolkit that we can roll out” if so, and included in that toolkit is the department’s buyback program for older securities, Bessent said. “We could up the buybacks if we wanted” (15’40” in the view below).

And that’s precisely what will happen in a few weeks (or even days) if China’s selling of Treasuries persists, sending yields plunging. The good news, is that this “soft QE” wouldn’t have to be in place too long: only long enough for China to run out of reserves… mostly via Belgium’s Euroclear…

Belgium (mostly China via Euroclear) Treasury holdings are where they were… just before China devalued its currency in 2015 and sold $1TN in US paper ($250BN via Belgium) to contain yuan collapse pic.twitter.com/DUYWqtUl60

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 11, 2025

… to sell. Which at the current pace of liquidations should be done by the end of the month.