Trump has thanked China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin for being “neutral” during the US-Israel war on Iran.
“I just want to thank them because they made it a lot better,” Trump said, adding that China was “terrific” and made efforts to help settle the conflict.
US President Donald Trump has told NBC News that a deal with Iran is „very close“.
“We have a couple of points. They don’t even seem like big points,” Trump said. “They’ve conceded the fact that they will not have nuclear weapons. We had a clause in there that [they] will not develop nuclear weapons. And everybody was very happy with it except me.”
(June 7, 2026, 1:00 PM GMT)
The two sides are “very close” to signing a pact, Trump said, but he is pushing for Iran to go further in abandoning its nuclear ambitions.
“We have a couple of points. They don’t even seem like big points,” he said. “They’ve conceded the fact that they will not have nuclear weapons. We had a clause in there that [they] will not develop nuclear weapons. And everybody was very happy with it except me.”
Trump said he wanted an additional provision to ensure Iran can’t execute an end run around a deal.
“And I said, ‘Well, what happens if they, not develop, but they go out and purchase, they acquire? I want to put the word, ‘if they buy, purchase or acquire,’” he said. “You know, you’ve got to have that in there, too, because that’s not developing. So, they don’t have the right to develop or purchase, acquire or buy.”
(June 2, 2026)
Britain has begun using SpaceX‘s militarised satellite network Starshield, according to two people familiar with the matter, making it among the first countries outside the United States to adopt Elon Musk‘s government-focused variant of Starlink.
Starshield, developed for the U.S. government, is designed for military and intelligence missions with enhanced security features, while SpaceX‘s standard Starlink broadband service is aimed at consumer and commercial use.
(May 26, 2026)
The ongoing disputes, which have not previously been reported, underscore how the Pentagon’s growing reliance on SpaceX is handing Musk greater leverage over a critical layer of U.S. national security – at a time when SpaceX is seeking to boost revenue ahead of an IPO next month that could be among the biggest in history.
Unlike consumer Starlink terminals available at stores including Walmart, SpaceX sells a military-specific version called Starshield to the Pentagon under a 2023 agreement. Starshield terminals can connect to both commercial Starlink satellites and a separate, more secure constellation, also called Starshield, according to a person familiar with the matter.
(June 2, 2026)
The race to put computing infrastructure in orbit is accelerating as hyperscalers across cloud, AI, and space compete to see who will emerge winners in what many believe will fuel the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The last few months have been a flurry of orbital data announcements, from SpaceX filing for a constellation of up to 1 million satellites to create an orbital data center and collaborating with AI giant Anthropic. Google is exploring Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) clusters in space. Starcloud has plans for an 88,000-satellite constellation aimed at delivering on-orbit compute at scale, to name a few.
(March 20, 2026)
Starlink is far more than a commercial connectivity service. It is strategic infrastructure that increasingly shapes how wars are fought, how states manage internal unrest, and how criminal networks operate in ungoverned spaces. What makes Starlink so politically consequential is not just its globe-spanning reach but also the governance model behind it.
A private company is now a gatekeeper in orbit, helping decide who connects as well as where, under what conditions, and with what technical constraints. In a growing number of conflicts, these decisions carry military and political effects that states struggle to replicate or control. If many strategic supply chains now depend on private firms, Starlink is an unusually concentrated case of private discretion over public security functions.
The Wall Street Journal has obtained leaked diplomatic cables showing that the US plans to form a “Maritime Freedom Architecture” coalition to restart shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The plan focuses on intelligence sharing, diplomatic coordination, and simultaneous sanctions.
Welche Länder teilnehmen sollen und ob etwa Deutschland angefragt wurde, wurde nicht bekannt gegeben.
Nach Informationen des Wall Street Journal handelt es sich nicht um eine militärische Koalition. Die US-Botschaften im Ausland seien jedoch gebeten worden, ihre jeweiligen Ansprechpartner zu fragen, ob sie in der neuen Allianz ein „diplomatischer und/oder militärischer Partner“ sein möchten.
„We are reloading with more power than ever before, and better intelligence,“ Hegseth said at a Pentagon news briefing. „We are locked and loaded on your critical dual-use infrastructure, on your remaining power generation, and on your energy industry. We‘d rather not have to do it.“
The BNPP itself has not been damaged, the IAEA’s analysis of the 5 April imagery shows.
Once again, IAEA Director General @rafaelmgrossi warns that continued military activity near the BNPP – an operating plant with large amounts of nuclear fuel – could cause a severe radiological accident with harmful consequences for people and the environment in Iran and beyond.
Regardless of the nature of the intended targets, DG Grossi says such attacks pose a very real danger to nuclear safety and must stop. DG Grossi reiterates call for all parties to fully respect the 7 indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security during a conflict. A nuclear facility and surrounding areas should never be struck, DG Grossi says.
The UN atomic watchdog said that the confirmation was based on its independent analysis of new satellite imagery and detailed knowledge of the site, adding that one strike had hit only 75 metres from the site perimeter.
“Last night, in a precise and lethal operation, the IDF eliminated the commander of the IRGC Navy, Tangasiri, along with senior naval command officials,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Thursday. “We will continue operating in Iran with full force to achieve the war’s objectives.”
The security chief kept changing his location, constantly moving to new secret hideouts over the last two weeks, the report suggests. That would mean, by the time Israeli intelligence located Larijani‘s hideout, he would have already moved to another.
Larijani was ultimately located when he was visiting his daughter on Tuesday. He was eliminated in a strike on his daughter‘s house in Pardis in Tehran‘s suburbs, reported the Iranian semi-official Fars news agency. His son, a deputy, and several bodyguards were also killed in the attack.
(February 27, 2026)
Hu Bo, Director of SCSPI and Research Professor and Director of the Center for Maritime Strategy Studies, Peking University (and a longtime friend of our newsletters!) tells me he is “100% sure” these recent images released by MizarVision on current US-Iran military posture originated from U.S. and European satellites, not Chinese ones.
Hu says his judgment can be confirmed by the satellite ephemeris, which SCSPI mentioned in its tweet.
(February 28, 2026)
Shortly before the attack, the Chinese satellite company MizarVision, which has published imagery of U.S. force buildups in the Middle East, reported that American fighter jets in the region were “all in position” and that there were no signs of large-scale activity. The company also suggested that any Israeli preemptive strike would likely be carried out independently. Both assessments appeared to be incorrect after it became clear the campaign was a coordinated Israeli-U.S. operation.
(January 13, 2026)
Just weeks into a US pressure campaign to halt all oil shipments to the Caribbean island, a Bloomberg News analysis of satellite imagery finds the level of light at night has dropped as much as 50%
(May 20, 2020)
Over the last 200 years, the magnetic field has lost around 9% of its strength on a global average. A large region of reduced magnetic intensity has developed between Africa and South America and is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Ariane 6 began its commercial journey with missions carrying French and European strategic satellites such as CSO-3, MetOp-SG-A1, Sentinel-1D and new Galileo satellites, supporting sovereignty and security, weather forecasting, Earth observation and navigation.
Alongside Ariane 6, Vega C, delivered Biomass, CO3D, MicroCarb and KOMPSAT-7, continuing to enable missions that help understand and protect our planet.
The arrival of the Lincoln CSG to the region follows a U.S. Air Force Central (AFCENT) announcement on Sunday that it will be conducting Agile Spartan, “a multi-day readiness exercise to demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse, and sustain combat airpower across the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.” AFCENT told us that Agile Spartan is “part of its regular exercise schedule and not in response to current tensions.” However, the optics of the timing are hard to avoid.
As of January 26, 2026, the Lincoln is expected to be somewhere between the Bay of Bengal and the Gulf of Oman, but its exact distance from the Iranian coast remains a mystery.
More than two months ago, Israel and Hamas signed a cease-fire agreement that offered Palestinians in Gaza a hope of respite after a punishing two-year Israeli bombardment that left much of their enclave in ruins.
The destruction has continued.
Israel has demolished more than 2,500 buildings in Gaza since the cease-fire began, according to a New York Times analysis of satellite imagery from Planet Labs.
(December 25, 2024)
2 versions of the model are:
WMM2025: Standard model with a spatial resolution of 3 300 km (2 050 miles) at the equator.
WMMHR2025: A high-resolution model with an improved spatial resolution of approximately 300 km (186 miles), offering enhanced directional accuracy.
“We’re delighted to join with NOAA and BGS to publish WMM2025 and WMMHR2025, and we encourage users, where possible, to transition to the higher resolution model,” Mike Paniccia, a geodetic Earth scientist and the program manager for the World Magnetic Model (WMM) at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), stated.
The United Kingdom is no longer sharing intelligence with the US about suspected drug trafficking vessels in the Caribbean because it does not want to be complicit in US military strikes and believes the attacks are illegal, sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
The UK’s decision marks a significant break from its closest ally and intelligence sharing partner and underscores the growing skepticism over the legality of the US military’s campaign around Latin America.