The US Navy is being outpaced by China's rapidly growing fleet, facing challenges in terms of maintenance and shipbuilding capacity.
The US Navy faces delays in vessel repairs and a sluggish pace in construction of new warships.
The crisis was reported by the US Naval Institute (USNI) and the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), according to Asia Times.
Diana Maurer, Director of Defense Capabilities and Management at the Government Accountability Office, testified to the Senate Armed Services readiness subcommittee on May 1. She revealed that fewer than 40 percent of US Navy ships had completed repairs on time, despite available space in shipyards.
According to the GAO, "the Navy has not developed a full cost and schedule estimate for its Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) – an effort to improve its dry docks, facilities, and equipment – and reports that it will not be able to do so until Fiscal Year 2025.".. . More below
China has suspended several 2025 export controls on strategic materials — including rare earths, superhard materials, and lithium batteries – for a year. Is this a concession to the US, or a move in a far more complex game?
"The first aim of China’s export controls was to consolidate its leverage in negotiations. The second was to establish a long-term framework for managing such controls," says Yana Leksyutina, deputy director at the Institute of China and Contemporary Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS).
Сhina could activate this mechanism at any moment, and now everyone knows it’s a lever it holds, she explains to Sputnik.
Balancing the Mineral Market
"The moratorium on export bans to the US essentially resets the rare earth market to where it was previously," Jeff J. Brown, author of 'The China Trilogy' and founder of Seek Truth From Facts Foundation, tells Sputnik.
In the meantime, there will be a global rush by the US and its NATO allies to acquire as many rare earth ...
The Israeli regime has reportedly signed contracts worth millions of dollars in recent months to sway American public opinion as part of attempts to launder the occupying entity’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Friday that the multimillion-dollar campaign aimed to reshape US public opinion, both online and offline, through coordinated influence operations combining digital marketing, AI, geotagging, and religious messaging.
The contracts, signed between the Israeli regime and firms linked to US President Donald Trump, reveal a “hasbara [propaganda] campaign” and schemes to target millions of US churchgoers, deploy bots, hire influencers, and try to make ChatGPT more pro-Israel.
The largest contract, worth $6 million, was signed with Clock Tower X, owned by Trump’s former digital campaign chief Brad Parscale, to produce and distribute roughly 100 core pieces of pro-Israel content per month and thousands......
