Off Leash Intel · loading
17 direct mentions across 17 briefings, with 24 linked developments.
Latest linked intelligence
Trump threatened at a NATO summit to cut off trade with Spain amid disputes over Spanish military spending; refusal to permit use of Spanish bases for U.S. operations related to Iran.
Unverified development · updated through
Trump threatened at a NATO summit to cut off trade with Spain amid disputes over Spanish military spending; refusal to permit use of Spanish bases for U.S. operations related to Iran.
Open source reportGeography
Marker precision is disclosed on selection. Country and regional centroids show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
NATO dossier
14 mapped developments across 6 map positions. Centroid markers show geographic scope, not an exact incident site.
Brussels
NATO will mark its 75th anniversary on Thursday, with Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg holding a press conference in Brussels.
Approximate map position: country centroid. The extracted place did not have provider-resolved coordinates.
Chronology
Off Leash update 9 July 2026 IRAN •The U.S. and Iran traded strikes for a second day. The U.S. has struck at least 170 military targets in Iran in the latest flare-up, while Iran said it targeted U.S. bases in Kuwait and Bahrain. •Pres. Trump declared the temporary ceasefire "over," but a return to full-scale conflict is probably the worst of his all-bad options. •He could choose peace, but any ceasefire deal Iran would agree to would be on its terms, leaving Trump with nothing to show for the estimated $113 billion that U.S. taxpayers have spent on the war so far. Trump is more likely to choose an awkward middle option, with a fragile peace punctuated by occasional skirmishes like this week's. •Iran's leaders are conflicted, too. Relative moderates like Pres. Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi favor negotiating peace, but hardliners are blocking their path. This week, supporters of a hardline faction physically attacked Pezeshkian and Araghchi while shouting "death to the appeasers." •Separately, the NYT reported that the masses mourning former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were not entirely orchestrated by the government. Many Iranians the visiting journalists interviewed "had come voluntarily to express their grief and, above all, their defiance," and blamed the U.S. and Israel - as opposed to their own repressive leaders - for a war that has made their lives harder. [At least that's what the reporters heard from the Iranians they were allowed to interview through government-provided translators.] UKRAINE •After meeting Pres. Zelensky on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey, Pres. Trump announced that he'd agreed to let Ukraine make its own Patriot missiles. That would make Ukraine the third country - after Germany and Japan - licensed to make Patriots outside the U.S. [Germany is actively producing them; Japan has yet to exercise its license.] •Bloomberg pointed out that it will still take years - and lots of help from one of the two U.S. contractors that make Patriots, RTX and Lockheed Martin - for Ukraine to get a production line up and running. •Lockheed Martin estimates that it will take four years to triple its Patriot production capacity in the U.S., and construction time is likely to stretch far longer under Russian fire in Ukraine. That's why some experts suggested building Ukraine's Patriot factory under NATO's security shield in Poland instead. TRADE •Speaking at the NATO summit in Turkey, Pres. Trump threatened to cut off trade with Spain and its 50 million "hopeless, bad people." •Trump was overall very pleased with the NATO summit and the "tremendous love" he felt there, but he's mad at Spain's leaders for repeatedly refusing his demands to raise military spending and - more recently - refusing to let the U.S. use Spain's bases to support Trump's war in Iran. •It will be hard for the U.S. to make good on Trump's threat. First, the European Union negotiates trade matters as a bloc, and the entire bloc could retaliate against trade actions targeting one of its members. In addition, the U.S. sells more to Spain than it buys from it, so severing trade ties would harm U.S. exporters more than Spanish ones.
Open source reportOff Leash update 6 July 2026 COMING UP THIS WEEK •The Philippine Senate began an impeachment trial for Vice President Sara Duterte, who stands accused of corruption and making public threats against President Bongbong Marcos after the once-allied running mates bitterly fell out. Duterte insists the charges are politically motivated. •Iran is in the middle of a six-day, two-country funeral for slain former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The events conclude on Thursday, when Khamenei will be buried in his northeastern hometown of Mashad. •Turkey will host a NATO summit tomorrow and Wednesday. Pres. Trump plans to attend, and will likely have some gripes to express: last week he complained that it was "ridiculous" for the U.S. to continue its "one-sided" relationship with NATO. •The Paris Court of Appeal will rule on French far-right leader Marine Le Pen's appeal to overturn her conviction for misusing European funds. If the court overturns her conviction and resulting ban on holding public office, then she'll be the National Rally (RN) party's candidate in next year's presidential poll. If the court upholds her conviction, Jordan Bardella will represent the RN. •The 139th Wimbledon Championships conclude with the men's final on Sunday. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $3,091/ton •Antimony (global avg.): $35,245/ton •Bitcoin: $62,747 •Cobalt: $/ton •Copper: $13,367/ton •Ethereum: $1,762 •Gold: $4,143/toz •Lead: $1,892/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.23/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $68.33/barrel •Zinc: $3,541/ton IRAN •Hundreds of thousands of Iranians turned out to mourn Iran's late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the first days of his funeral. •It's not that Khamenei was wildly popular - in fact, he was widely disliked by the end of his reign, as Iranians increasingly blamed him for their country's economic woes and resented the brutal crackdowns his repressive security services inflicted on those who dared to criticize. •Rather, the government engineered high turnout by declaring national holidays and bribing attendees with freebies. •Khamenei's son and successor, Mojtaba, was conspicuously absent as his three brothers prayed beside their father's coffin. Mojtaba hasn't been seen in public since the Feb. 28, 2026 strike that killed his father - and reportedly maimed him. CHINA •China tested a long-range, submarine-launched ballistic missile with a "mock warhead" today - its first such test in nearly two years. •Beijing insisted the launch was just part of "routine" training and "not directed against any specific country or target," but its timing suggests it was a reaction to Australia signing a new mutual defense treaty with Fiji just hours prior. •Australia's foreign minister chastised Beijing for the test, which she called "destabilizing to the region." UKRAINE •Presidents Trump and Zelensky will meet on the sidelines of this week's NATO summit to capitalize on new momentum towards a peace deal. •After the leaders spoke by phone over the weekend, Zelensky optimistically declared: "There is a real prospect to put an end to this war, and America's resolve is decisive." We shall see. VENEZUELA •Venezuela has now tallied 3,342 deaths from twin earthquakes on June 24. Thousands are still missing, and residents are seething at the government over its slow and flaccid response to the disaster. •According to a new NYT report, residents of shoddily-built public housing are also livid with the state for ignoring - and even suppressing - years of warnings that their homes would crumble in a tremor. Last month, many did just that.
Open source reportOff Leash update 29 May 2026 IRAN •The U.S. and Iran have reportedly reached a deal to extend the current temporary ceasefire for 60 days and reopen the Strait of Hormuz while they negotiate the thornier nuclear issues they still disagree on. •Pres. Trump has yet to sign off on the new framework, but wrote on Truth Social that he's close to making a "final determination" on it. Vice Pres. Vance said Trump still had issues with "a couple of language points" in the new draft that were holding up his decision. •In fact, it sounds like they're still far apart on several basic aspects of the proposed deal. For one, Trump said the deal calls for Iran to "immediately open" the Strait of Hormuz to unrestricted traffic, while Iranian state media insisted that "no such clause in the text of the agreement." •Another discrepancy is over money. Trump asserted that "No money will be exchanged, until further notice," while Iranian state media said "the most important part of the agreement” is “the immediate payment of $12 billion of Iran’s frozen assets." ISRAEL •Iran also insists that the temporary ceasefire currently in place covers the wars that Iranian proxies - Hezbollah and Hamas - are fighting with Israel. •Israel disagrees, but the fact that it has escalated its offensive strikes in recent weeks as Iran and the U.S. got closer to a deal suggests Prime Minister Netanyahu may think Pres. Trump may ask him to restrain his forces on other fronts to preserve a fragile truce with Iran. •Israel's escalation continued yesterday and today. The Israeli military struck targets in southern Beirut for the first time in weeks, and Netanyahu also ordered his military to seize at least 70% of Gaza - despite the fact that doing so would violate the October ceasefire agreement, in which Israel agreed to limit its occupation of the territory to just over half its area. RUSSIA •A drone - allegedly Russian - struck an apartment building in Galati, Romania, injuring two people. •European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen complained that the incursion "crossed yet another line," and Romania's Foreign Minister mused about invoking NATO's Article 4, which opens a discussion about threats to a NATO member's security. Article 4 is a step below Article 5, which requires all NATO members to come to the defense of any member under attack.
Open source reportOff Leash update 2 April IRAN •Pres. Trump used his primetime address on Iran last night to declare that the war was "nearing completion" and - having achieved its objectives - would wrap up in the next two or three weeks, with or without a deal. •Critics complained that he moved the goalposts to be able to claim victory in achieving objectives like regime change ("they’re all dead, so I would consider that regime change") and eliminating Iran's nuclear threat (he now says the 400 kg of enriched uranium that Iran could use to race towards a bomb is "so far underground, I don't care about that"). •He also offered no clear plan for ending the month-long conflict, and alternated between threats to "bring them back to the stone ages, where they belong" and claims that "discussions were ongoing" - and going well, since "we have all the cards; they have none." •Iran denies that any such discussions are taking place, and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) seems to still have some cards left. Yesterday, it said it would start targeting the Middle East offices of major U.S. companies like Apple, Boeing, Google, JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft, and Nvidia. •While denying that talks are already underway, Iran's Pres. Pezeshkian told European Council President Antonio Costa that Iran is open to a truce as long as it includes guarantees of a permanent end to hostilities. Iranian hardliners hate the idea of negotiating any kind of truce. •Separately, Long War Journal assessed that Iran and its proxies fired fewer projectiles in the period from March 28 to April 1 than they had in earlier parts of the war, but that their recent strikes have been more accurate and effective at penetrating air defenses. IRAQ •It emerged that Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-linked Iraqi militia, was behind the kidnapping of American journalist Shelly Kittleson in Baghdad on Tuesday. •Though Kataib Hezbollah has links to Iran, its practice of kidnapping Westerners predates the war. It kidnapped a Russian-Israeli researcher in early 2023 and held her for nearly three years before freeing her under pressure from the Trump administration. •It now wants to trade Kittleson for several of its members imprisoned in Iraq. RUSSIA AND UKRAINE •Ukraine is doing its best to hinder Russia's ability to reap windfall profits from high oil prices and temporary partial sanctions relief by targeting Russian oil export infrastructure. Ukrainian drones carried out an unprecedented scale of strikes on export facilities that took up to 40% of Russia's total crude export capacity offline. Some capacity has now been restored. •Separately, Russia claimed that its forces had taken full control of eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region. Russia has long controlled 99% of Luhansk, and has now thrice claimed to have captured the last remaining pockets of it. •Like its two previous claims, this one seems premature: the Institute for the Study of War assessed that the settlements of Nadiya and Novoyehorivka remain outside Russian control. VENEZUELA •The U.S. lifted sanctions on Venezuela's new president, Delcy Rodriguez. Rodriguez had been blacklisted since 2018 for her role as vice president in her predecessor's repressive regime. •Since the U.S. ousted her predecessor, Nicolas Maduro, and installed her in his place, she's been pliant and willing to work with the U.S. on priority goals like opening Venezuelan oil and mining assets to U.S. investment. NATO •Pres. Trump threatened to withdraw the U.S. from NATO, which he called a "paper tiger," over allies' reluctance to join his war with Iran. It's not the first time Trump has threatened to pull out of the alliance, but this time he seems more likely to follow through. Having heard the same threat before, NATO members are also probably better prepared for an alliance without the U.S.
Open source reportOff Leash update 7 Nov UKRAINE •After 21 months of grueling battle, Russia appears to be on the verge of capturing the Donbas city of Pokrovsk - though Ukraine insists its forces are still resisting and are not cut off yet. •The fall of Pokrovsk would be Russia's biggest battlefield gain since seizing Bakhmut over two years ago, and it would give Russian forces a base for further advances in the Donbas. •More importantly, it would give Pres. Putin a minor win to bolster his case to Pres. Trump that Russian victory is inevitable - and thus that sending U.S. weapons to Ukraine is folly. CENTRAL ASIA •Pres. Trump hosted leaders of the C5+1 bloc (comprising 5 "Stans" - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - and the U.S.) for a summit focused on strengthening partnerships on critical minerals and energy yesterday. •The C5 Stans are rich in uranium, copper, gold, and rare earths; but all maintain strong (but complicated) ties with Moscow as a legacy of the Soviet era. •Ahead of the White House meeting, Kazakhstan announced that it plans to join the Abraham Accords - a series of agreements normalizing diplomatic relations between Israel and its countersignatories. •Kazakhstan already has full diplomatic relations and strong economic ties with Israel, so it has nothing left to gain from signing the Abraham Accords. Rather, its ceremonial inclusion may be a way to reinvigorate momentum for the deprioritized agreements. RUSSIA •After years of warnings that NATO had fallen far behind Russia on ammunition manufacturing, the alliance's Secretary-General, Mark Rutte, announced that NATO members are now collectively producing as many units per month as Russia is. •That may not sound like a big achievement for a bloc with a combined GDP 25 times Russia's, but it took massive investment in new and expanded production lines to overcome the gaping lead Russia had: just five months ago, Russia was making four times as much ammunition as NATO's 32 members. LIBYA •Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) announced a significant new onshore oil discovery in well H1-NC4 of the Ghadames Basin southwest of Tripoli. •NOC's new discovery follows OMV's find in the Sirte Basin last week, and both are signs of renewed confidence in investing in Libya's rich oil and gas potential. •Other companies are keen to join the rush, too: NOC head Masoud Suleiman recently reported that 40 firms expressed interest in the 22 oil exploration blocks being offered in the latest bidding round - which was Libya's first in over 17 years.
Open source reportOff Leash update 13 October COMING UP THIS WEEK •The International Monetary Fund and World Bank hold their annual meetings in Washington this week, starting today. •Pres. Trump will host Argentine Prime Minister Javier Milei at the White House tomorrow. Milei will certainly thank Trump for lending Argentina unprecedented U.S. financial support to lessen the pain of the severe-but-overdue economic reforms Milei is implementing. •The Grand Sumo Tournament opens at London's Royal Albert Hall on Wednesday. It's a rare chance to see sumo wrestling outside of Japan: this is the first overseas competition in 20 years, and only the 14th event the Japan Sumo Association has staged abroad in its 99-year history. •NATO defense ministers will meet in Belgium on Wednesday to discuss Ukraine. •Bolivia votes in a presidential runoff between two right-leaning candidates on Sunday, after the long-ruling leftist Movimiento al Socialismo suffered a surprise defeat in August's first round vote. A La Paz-based analyst noted that the rightward swing fits a pattern of Bolivian voters becoming frustrated with the status quo and embracing the opposite political extreme roughly every 20 years. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $2,748/ton •Antimony (trioxide min. 99.65% fob China): $30,950/ton •Bitcoin: $114,876 •Cobalt: $42,725/ton •Copper: $10,518/ton •Ethereum: $4,155 •Gold: $4,076/toz •Lead: $2,021/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.09/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $59.98/barrel •Zinc: $3,002/ton GAZA •Hamas released the last 20 living hostages in Gaza, in exchange for Israel's commitment to return about 2,000 Palestinian prisoners later today. •Pres. Trump was in Israel to celebrate the hostages' return, which came about because of the 20-point ceasefire deal Trump proposed and successfully pitched to both sides. •The hostage-prisoner swap was only the first phase of Trump's plan - and arguably the most straightforward part of it. •Next, Trump will travel to Egypt, where he'll attend a summit to solidify the trickier next phases of the deal, including a path toward a decisive truce and a plan for administering Gaza after the war. CHINA •Cryptocurrencies and stocks fell on Friday - and gold rose - after Pres. Trump revived his threat to slap 100% tariffs on Chinese goods in retaliation for China's announcement of new export controls on rare earths last week. •Beijing's announcement surprised Trump, who called its timing "especially inappropriate" for stealing the spotlight from Trump's successful peace-dealing between Israel and Hamas. •An incensed Trump threatened to call off his upcoming - but still unconfirmed - meeting with China's Pres. Xi at an Asia-Pacific summit in South Korea later this month, saying "there seems to be no reason" to meet Xi now. •Separately, a new NYT report focused on a massive high-altitude solar project China has built on the Tibetan Plateau (see https://t.co/bKZpG0t8kl), and included an impressive statistic that illustrates the scale of China's solar ambitions: on average, China has added new solar panels with power-generating capacity equivalent to that of the immense Three Gorges Dam every three weeks during 2025. 1/2
Open source reportOff Leash update 29 Sept COMING UP THIS WEEK •The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) - which waived tariffs for U.S. imports from developing African countries - expires tomorrow. AGOA was underutilized but benefitted a few African manufacturing industries that blossomed without tariffs. •China's Golden Week public holiday starts Wednesday, which is also the day Russia assumes the rotating presidency of the UN Security Council for a month. •U.S. lawmakers are frantically negotiating a new funding plan and must agree on one by Wednesday to avoid a government shutdown. The Economist says both Republicans and Democrats "are bullish, betting that the public will blame the other party for a shutdown." •The inaugural edition of African Energy Week (AEW) takes place in Cape Town from Tues to Friday. AEW's organizers want the new event to inspire new innovations in Energy - in contrast to the long-established annual African Mining Indaba, which touches on novel ideas but keeps a higher-level focus on large deals and legacy assets. COMMODITY AND COIN MARKET PRICES •Aluminum: $2,656/ton •Antimony (trioxide min. 99.65% fob China): $30,950/ton •Bitcoin: $112,518 •Cobalt: $35,000/ton •Copper: $10,182/ton •Ethereum: $4,148 •Gold: $3,825/toz - yet another all-time high on expectations of further U.S. rate cuts and rising demand for (perceived) safe-haven assets amidst geopolitical uncertainty •Lead: $2,003/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.20/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $63.69/barrel •Zinc: $2,889/ton MOLDOVA •Despite what Pres. Sandu called "massive Russian interference" to sway the vote, Moldova's pro-European Action and Solidarity party looks likely to win yesterday's parliamentary elections, with more than twice as many votes as the pro-Russian Patriotic Electoral Bloc and 99.9% of votes counted. •Full results are due out tomorrow. Some observers have suggested that Russia may try to provoke protests to overturn the outcome. RUSSIA •Ukraine's military spy agency released its written assessment of Russia's motives behind its recent drone incursions into Polish airspace: "Such hybrid operations likely aim to increase pressure on Ukraine's Western partners, potentially leading to: Reduced support for Ukraine, especially military aid." •While this report covered only the Polish incidents, Russia has seemingly been aerially annoying other NATO countries, too: Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Romania have all reported suspected Russian drone activity in recent weeks, and Estonia observed the even more serious incursion of three Russian MiGs on Sep. 19. •NATO leaders don't agree on how to respond to Russia's incursions, and some are even hesitant to conclude Russia is intentionally violating NATO airspace. •That's precisely the point of this type of "hybrid warfare:" to keep tactics below the threshold of armed conflict that would guarantee a forceful response, while sowing confusion and debate to distract adversaries from mounting a unified response to concurrent campaigns of overt violence. •Ukraine's Pres. Zelensky claims Russia is launching its nuisance drones from the shadow fleet of oil tankers that it uses to evade sanctions. Zelensky called for new sanctions on shadow fleet tankers in response. 1/2
Open source reportOff leash update 17 sept UKRAINE •Poland floated the idea of making the skies over Ukraine a no-fly zone. •It's an idea first raised by Pres. Zelensky early in the war: Zelensky reasoned that if the skies over his country were closed to air traffic, then he could justifiably ask NATO allies to shoot down Russian intruders who defied the ban. •Back then, NATO leaders rejected the idea out of fear of being drawn into a military conflict with Russia. Now, Poland's foreign minister, for one, thinks that "If Ukraine were to ask us” to shoot down drones over its territory, it will be advantageous for us." •The U.S. will likely remain opposed to the idea of a no-fly zone over Ukraine for the same reasons as before. RUSSIA •A new study by war crimes investigators at Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab found that Russia's quiet forced re-education (read: indoctrination) programs for Ukrainian children from occupied territories are much larger than initially understood. •The study documented at least 210 Russian sites holding Ukrainian children (vs. around half that number in initial estimates). Some of those sites are military training schools; others are education camps with a severe pro-Russian nationalist slant. •The Geneva Convention prohibits military recruitment in occupied territories, but Russia argues that the prohibition doesn't apply here because it has annexed - not merely occupied - the Ukrainian areas in question. CHINA •Chinese and Philippine boats had another confrontation at sea near the disputed Scarborough Shoal yesterday. •Last week, China approved plans to turn the waters around the shoal into a national nature reserve to preserve its (disputed) right to the area, which lies well within the Philippines' Exclusive Economic Zone (as well as China's nine-dash line). This was the first run-in since those plans were approved. •The Philippines accused China of "aggressive" actions against its boats that were resupplying fishermen; China blamed the Philippines for the spat, which caused a collision between two boats. AFGHANISTAN •Afghanistan's Taliban government severed fiber-optic internet service to Balkh province "for the prevention of vices." Balkh residents can still get their vices on mobile internet, which remains up. •The Taliban's critics point out that cutting off home internet will disporportionately affect women and girls - many of whom started reading and studying online at home after the Taliban closed their schools and banned them from working. SOUTH SUDAN •Following two years of independent investigations, the UN Commission on Human Rights issued its verdict on South Sudan's festering political feud between Pres. Kiir and his First Vice President, Riek Machar. •The UN commission found both sides at fault for "the plundering of a nation," and blamed the leadership's infighting and corruption for "driving hunger, collapsing health systems, and causing preventable deaths, as well as fuelling deadly armed conflict over resources." •The commission's report cited one particularly damning example: South Sudan's government has collected $25.2 billion in oil revenues since 2011, yet has spent just a rounding error of that on essential services. As a result, "three-quarters of child deaths are preventable — yet funds go to patronage and private pockets, not medicine or clean water and sanitation."
Open source reportOff Leash update 25 June IRAN •Early yesterday, Iran and Israel agreed to a U.S.-proposed ceasefire that seems to be holding - despite some final fire from both sides in the first hours of the truce. •Both sides claimed victory, and - in the sense of avoiding expanded or prolonged conflict - they were indeed both winners. •Their truce was also a win for nuclear diplomacy: shortly after it took effect, Iran's Pres. Pezeshkian told his Emirati counterpart that Iran is ready to return to nuclear negotiations with the U.S. [However, Pezeshkian reiterated Iran's insistence on continuing some nuclear enrichment programs, which means the biggest impasse that stalled prior rounds of talks remains firmly in place.] •Prior to - and independent of - the Iran-Israel ceasefire, Iran symbolically retaliated against U.S. strikes on its nuclear sites by firing a few missiles at the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, Qatar's Al Udeid Air Base. •Iran's retaliatory strikes were carefully calculated to avoid casualties or serious damage to Al Udeid, and Iran gave Qatar advance warning and apologized afterwards - all signs that Tehran seeks de-escalation. UKRAINE •Russia fired ballistic missiles at Dnipro yesterday, killing 17 and causing what Dnipro's mayor called "an unprecedented amount of destruction that the city has not seen in the entire time of [Russia’s] full-scale war." •In the wake of the Dnipro strikes, Pres. Zelensky repeated his concern that Russian ballistic missiles rely on parts imported from other countries - "unfortunately, sometimes even from Europe or NATO countries" - and called on weapons-makers to stop selling to Russia. DEFENSE SPENDING •NATO leaders agreed to raise defense spending to 5% of each country's GDP - including 3.5% of GDP on "hard" defense like weapons and an additional 1.5% on defense infrastructure - by 2025. That will please Pres. Trump, who has long been critical of NATO and has often called on its members to contribute their fair share towards the alliance's collective security.
Open source reportOff Leash update 4 Dec China •China responded to a new U.S. ban on exporting certain chip technology to China by announcing its own new ban on exports of select rare minerals - including gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard minerals (e.g., tungsten) - to the U.S. •This is a significant escalation in the U.S.-China tech rivalry, but it wasn't a complete surprise: China has been slowly introducing a legal framework for such a ban over the past year-ish, and recently experimented with export restrictions on some of affected minerals. •It also won't have a drastic effect on U.S. supply chains: U.S. manufacturers already buy more semi-finished goods than raw materials and have begun to develop alternate sources of the few raw materials still imported from China. South Korea •South Korea's deeply unpopular President Yoon Suk Yeol tried to ram through political gridlock by imposing martial law and banning "all political activities" late last night. •The public and legislature weren't having it, though: amidst widespread peaceful demonstrations against Yoon's decree, the National Assembly voted unanimously - 190 to 0 - to rescind it. Opposition lawmakers are now seeking Yoon's impeachment for treason. Ukraine •NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte urged members of the alliance to boost their military support for Ukraine so Ukraine can "get to a position of strength when...peace talks start." NATO's members are suffering donor fatigue, and many have slowed their support for Ukraine. •Separately, a new Yale University report concluded that Pres. Putin and other senior Russian officials "intentionally and directly" allowed the forced deportation, fostering, and eventual adoption of Ukrainian children from occupied parts of Ukraine - acts that would constitute war crimes. •These aren't new allegations; rather, they buttress the International Criminal Court's (ICC's) case against Putin and his commissioner for children, Maria Lvova-Belova, on related charges. [Russia isn't a member of the ICC and maintains that the adoptions are noble, patriotic gestures to help abandoned Ukrainian children - not war crimes.] Syria •Ukrainian intelligence reported that Russia plans to send Africa Corps (ex-Wagner Group) mercenaries to Syria to bolster Pres. Assad's counteroffensive against Operation Deterrence of Aggression. This has not yet been confirmed or corroborated. Afghanistan •Afghanistan's Taliban government announced a new ban on women studying medicine and midwifery - two of the few remaining fields that were still open to female students. •One of the reasons the medical education loophole remained open to women when they were banned from most other education was that the Taliban also prohibits female patients in some provinces from being treated by male doctors. •Under the new ban, women who are already doctors will probably be allowed to continue practicing, but their ranks will dwindle without a pipeline of new female students to replace those who retire. Venezuela •Eyeing Pres. Trump's threat to slap tariffs on Mexico and Canada if they don't help reduce the flow of illegal immigrants and drug precursors to the U.S., Pres. Maduro proposed a different version of a similar bargain: he said that if the U.S. lifts its sanctions on Venezuela, then "in less than a year, not a single immigrant will go to the U.S." •Maduro has repeatedly tried to blame Venezuela's economic woes - and now migrant flight resulting from those woes - on sanctions, but the truth is that Venezuelan GDP declined in every year from 2013, when Maduro took office, through 2019, when sanctions went into effect. [As with Maduro's election tallies, his official economic statistics tell a different story that lacks numerical support and begs belief.]
Open source reportOff Leash update 2 DEC Coming Up This Week •The UN Convention to Combat Desertification meets in Riyadh today through Dec. 13. •Pres. Biden is in Angola today through Wednesday for what will likely be his last presidential trip abroad. His visit will celebrate the Lobito Corridor - a $1 billion railway built with U.S. support to expand American access to Chinese-dominated critical minerals like Congolese cobalt. •Ghana goes to the polls on Saturday. Former president John Dramani Mahama is favored to win a fresh (non-consecutive) term. Commodity Prices •Aluminum: $2,594/ton •Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $33,550/ton •Cobalt: $24,300/ton •Copper: $9,011/ton •Gold: $2,637/toz •Lead: $2,071/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $3.16/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $68.60/barrel •Zinc: $3,103/ton Syria •Syrian rebels continued to gain ground in Aleppo, capturing its airport and military academy. They now control an estimated half of the city and are encroaching on the outskirts of nearby Hama. •The attacks caught Syrian forces off-guard and they quickly pulled out of Aleppo. Syrian and Russian warplanes are retaliating with an assault on rebel positions in and around the opposition stronghold of Idlib. •Some analysts think Turkey's Pres. Erdogan incited the ongoing uprising to take advantage of an opportunity to gain ground against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) while Pres. Assad's backers are distracted abroad (Russia in Ukraine and Iran and its proxies by wars with Israel). •I wrote last week that one of the main rebel groups in the coalition fighting over Aleppo and Hama - Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) - is aligned with Al Qaeda, but that's inaccurate. Rather, one of HTS's precursors - Nusrah Front - was aligned with Al Qaeda, but severed ties over strategic disagreements in 2016 - one year before it merged with other anti-Assad groups to form HTS. •HTS retains Al Qaeda's Salafi-jihadist ideology, however, and several countries - including the U.S., EU, and Russia - designate HTS a terrorist group. (Turkey does, too, but still backs HTS's coalition partners when they fight the SDF and other Kurds). China •Taiwan's Pres. Lai Ching-te left Saturday for his first international trip as president. He'll visit three of the 12 countries that still officially recognize Taiwan: Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, and Palau. •En route - at least geopolitically, though certainly not geographically - Lai will stop over in Hawaii to "make some visits" and "meet with old friends" - i.e., hold closed-door meetings with think tanks, pro-Taiwan expats, and perhaps even current U.S. officials. •It's become customary for Taiwanese presidents to jab at China by paying semi-official visits to the U.S., but Lai's visit to Hawaii isn't quite as provocative as his predecessor Tsai Ing-wen's visits to Los Angeles and New York. Nonetheless, it will irritate China, which analysts expect will retaliate with new military drills around Taiwan while Lai is away. Ukraine •In an interview with Sky News, Pres. Zelensky proposed an unlikely solution to end the war: he said Ukraine could agree to a truce if areas now under Ukrainian control were placed "under the NATO umbrella" with negotiations over areas now under Russian control to follow later. •That's not going to happen: Pres. Putin would reject the idea, and NATO isn't unanimously excited about welcoming any part of Ukraine under its umbrella. Mexico •The NYT profiled an unusual tactic Mexico's cartels are using to build their fentanyl empires: they're recruiting talented university chemistry students to add scientific know-how that improves synthetic drug production, Breaking Bad-style. One professor suspects some students are only enrolling in his chemistry classes to learn how to synthesize drugs - and not for the joy of studying chemistry. Sahel 1/2
Open source reportOff Leash update 26 Nov Tariffs •President-elect Trump said he would sign an executive order on his first day in office - Jan. 20, 2025 - to slap new tariffs of 25% on imports from Canada and Mexico, and 10% on China. Trump called the levies a "price" those nations must pay for their failure to stop the flow of illegal drugs and immigrants to the U.S. •All three affected countries immediately objected to the proposed tariffs. Canada objected politely, explaining that it's already working well with U.S. officials to block fentanyl trafficking "from China and other countries." •China, meanwhile, objected with hostility, calling the idea that it would deliberately send fentanyl precursors to the U.S. runs "completely counter to facts," and ominously warning that "no one will win a trade war or a tariff war." Hezbollah •It sounds like Israel and Hezbollah are close to finalizing a ceasefire deal that would give Israeli forces 60 days to withdraw from Lebanon and require Hezbollah to disarm along the border with Israel, where 5,000 Lebanese troops will deploy to help enforce the peace. •The terms of the latest proposal aren't public, but are said to closely track UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. Except this time Hezbollah won't be allowed to rebuild its forces along the border. •Prime Minister Netanyahu and his cabinet will meet today to discuss the proposal, and Netanyahu is thought to be open to agreeing to the tabled terms - for once. That may mean Hezbollah and Lebanon gave in to his demand reserving the right to resume hostilities if Hezbollah breaks the truce first. •Meanwhile, Israeli forces have now reached the Litani River, which would form the northern frontier of the border buffer zone the Lebanese army will enforce after Israel withdraws south and Hezbollah withdraws north. Ukraine •Russia launched another new record number of drones at Ukraine overnight, once again targeting Ukrainian infrastructure. •Ukraine said it shot down or blocked most of the 188 drones that were launched over its border, but some reached their targets. •Russia is also making rapid gains on the ground: Reuters reported - citing analysts and war bloggers - that Russian ground forces are currently advancing at their fastest rate since 2022 using rapid, small-scale incursions to achieve footholds and then follow up with reinforcements to secure gains. •Meanwhile, Ukraine requested an emergency meeting of NATO ambassadors in Brussels today to discuss Russia's recent use of an intermediate-range ballistic missile against Dnipro last week. Ukraine hopes for "concrete and meaningful outcomes" from the meeting, but it's unlikely to win enthusiastic support from tired donors. Sudan •The Economist reported that the Sudanese army has made clear recent gains against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in central Sennar state and Khartoum in recent weeks. •The weakened RSF has signaled openness to a truce, but the army isn't willing to talk just yet. The RSF still controls most of southwest Sudan, and the army likely wants to improve its negotiating position by locking in more territorial gains before talks begin. Venezuela •Venezuela's opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, called for a new day of demonstrations against Pres. Maduro's election theft on Dec 1. •Maduro's Minister of the Interior then accused Machado of orchestrating another conspiracy against Maduro and launched another bullying campaign against the opposition. In this case, police deployed to the Argentine Embassy to intimidate the many opposition figures from Machado's party who have taken refuge there.
Open source reportOff leash update 17 October ***The IDF successfully eliminated Hama's leader Yahya Sinwar Venezuela •Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado denied Pres. Maduro's claim that she's fled the country for Spain: "Venezuelans know that I am here in Venezuela, the people know it and Nicolas Maduro also knows it." •Machado remains - wisely - in hiding and out of reach of police seeking to arrest her on bogus, politically-motivated charges. She told an independent TV channel that Maduro and his cronies "are desperate to know where I am and I'm not going to give them that pleasure." Ukraine •Pres. Zelensky was deprived of an opportunity to do a grand reveal of his "victory plan" during last week's multilateral meeting on Ukraine, but he instead pitched the plan bilaterally during a whirlwind tour meeting leaders of the UK, U.S., France, Italy, and Germany. •Yesterday, Zelensky shared the high-level plan with Ukraine's parliament and the media. •Its centerpiece is a request for NATO to extend an unconditional invitation to Ukraine to join its alliance - which has not been forthcoming - and it also calls on partners to expand their military support for Ukraine. •None of the plan's five public points contained any major new proposals - yet Zelensky insisted that "if we start implementing this Victory Plan now, we may be able to end the war no later than next year." (The plan also proposed three "secret" points that were selectively shared with partners). •So far, it's received a muted response. NATO's SecGen, Mark Rutte, said the alliance would "take note" of Zelensky's proposal, and several partners announced minor new aid packages (the U.S. offered $425 million in fresh military support - including for air defenses - and Australia said it would send Ukraine 50 old M1 Abrams tanks worth $164 million). Hezbollah •Israel brushed off a U.S. warning that it "had concerns with and [is] opposed to" Israel's strikes on Beirut and carried out more airstrikes on Hezbollah targets near the Lebanese capital yesterday, killing at least 16. •Israel didn't officially comment on the other U.S. critique conveyed yesterday - an ultimatum to improve aid flows to Gaza within 30 days or risk losing access to new U.S. weapons - but there was a slight uptick in humanitarian aid flows to Gaza. Yesterday, 50 aid trucks entered the strip - more than the recent rate of 30 per day but still far short of the 350 per day that aid officials say Gazans need. Iran •U.S. B-2 Spirit bombers targeted five underground Houthi weapons facilities yesterday. •The airstrikes were ostensibly carried out to "further degrade the Houthis' capability" to threaten Red Sea shipping, but the choice to use B-2s to strike underground targets was also intended to send a message to Iran that its underground nuclear sites could be next. •(The B-2 is the only U.S. plane that can carry the largest "bunker buster" bombs capable of destroying Iran's underground nuclear sites, and it has never before been used in Yemen - where F/A-18s can do the same job cheaper and with less fleet risk). •SecDef Austin alluded to the Yemen operation being a broader signal to Iran by calling it: "a unique demonstration of the United States’ ability to target facilities that our adversaries seek to keep out of reach, no matter how deeply buried underground, hardened or fortified." •Separately, there are unconfirmed reports that Iranian border guards massacred dozens - or perhaps scores - of Afghans trying to illegally enter Iran from Pakistan on Sunday. •Beijing's latest war games succeeded in scaring Taiwan. A senior Taiwanese security official told Reuters that the unprecedented drills showed that the People's Liberation Army is "increasing the building up of their capacity to turn military exercises into a conflict" and assessed that "this drill presented more of a threat than ever before to Taiwan."
Open source reportOff Leash Update 8 July Coming Up This Week •India's PM Modi will meet Pres. Putin in Moscow today. It will be Modi's first visit to Russia since Russia invaded Ukraine - and his first trip abroad since he was reelected. He hopes to secure the release of Indian nationals who India says were "duped" into serving in the Russian army. •NATO meets for its 75th anniversary summit in Washington tomorrow through Thursday. •Sunday is a big day in sports: the UEFA 2024 final, the Copa America final, and the men's Wimbledon final all take place on the same day. Commodity Prices •Aluminum: $2,535/ton •Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $22,700/ton •Cobalt: $27.150/ton •Copper: $9,944/ton •Gold: $2,378/toz •Lead: $2,237/ton •Natural Gas (Nymex): $2.32/MMbtu •WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $82.69/barrel •Zinc: $3,001/ton Iran •Reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian won Iran's runoff presidential election. •Pezeshkian seeks warmer relations with the West via experienced diplomats who he hopes will negotiate a softening of sanctions. •However, Iran's presidency has little power to effect real change, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei - who truly calls the shots - doesn't want change. Analysts say he'll block Pezeshkian's efforts to warm up to the West. •Turnout was around 50% - much higher than the record low 40% logged in the first round. Israel and Gaza •Thousands of Israelis staged anti-government protests across the country yesterday. Demonstrators want fresh elections as well as a ceasefire deal with Hamas to free Israeli hostages. •There's a sliver of a chance that they'll get their wish on the ceasefire deal: Hamas finally dropped its opposition to one of Israel's key demands and indicated that it could agree to release some hostages during an initial six-week ceasefire before further peace talks hash out the long-run plan. •There are still some big obstacles blocking a final agreement, but this removes one of them. That said, Hamas still wants assurances that Israel will commit to continue peace talks after the first round of hostages are released - and Israel has already said it can't agree to that (it wants the option to resume fighting if necessary). •Meanwhile, an Israel strike killed Ehab Al-Ghussein, a senior Hamas administrator, in a Gaza City school where he was sheltering with civilians. Ukraine and Russia •Hungary's Viktor Orban retroactively announced that he had met with Russia's Pres. Putin in Moscow and China's Pres. Xi in Beijing following his surprise talks with Ukraine's Pres. Zelensky in Kyiv. •Orban portrayed his haphazard outreach as a victory for diplomacy: "Hungary is slowly becoming the only country in Europe that can speak to everyone." •Others would say Hungary is the only country in Europe still willing to talk to Putin. NATO SecGen Jens Stoltenberg sought to downplay Orban's visit to Moscow as unrepresentative of NATO's position on Russia: "different NATO allies interact with Moscow in different ways." China •China sailed its largest coast guard vessel into the Philippines' exclusive economic zone and anchored it there, leading the Philippines to (fairly) accuse it of "intimidation." Afghanistan •The Taliban shifted some senior government officials around: the acting Central Bank (Da Afghanistan Bank) head, Hedayatullah Badri, is now Minister of Mines and Petroleum, replacing Shahabuddin Delawar, who will become the acting head of the Afghan Red Crescent Society. Other News •France's legislative elections yesterday resulted in a hung parliament - and a clear loss for Pres. Macron, whose party and coalition lost a third of its seats to both the far-left and the far-right.
Open source reportOff Leash update 17 May Ukraine •Russia's rapid recent advances have Ukraine and its allies worried, and a senior U.S. military official hinted - for the first time - that NATO will probably eventually send military trainers to Ukraine to support its defense directly: "we'll get there eventually." •Deploying U.S. or NATO troops to Ukraine would not only put NATO trainers at risk on the battlefields; it would also raise the risk of turning Russia's war on Ukraine into a broader Russia vs. NATO war. •Though Ukraine is struggling to repel Russian advances in the north, it carried out two days of successful drone strikes on Sevastopol in occupied Crimea. Satellite images showed at least three destroyed Russian jets and significant damage to buildings, including a power substation. Russia •Pres. Putin finished his two-day trip to China with a visit to Harbin, a northeastern Chinese city with strong Russian ties where China carries out some of its most advanced defense research. •Putin's trip seemed to go well, and he'll probably benefit from some of the defense technologies developed at the research centers he visited in Harbin. Pres. Xi even hugged him goodbye in a rare show of affection between the two uncuddly leaders. Gaza •Israel is sending more ground troops to support its invasion of Rafah, which started out as a limited incursion to avoid crossing the "red lines" Pres. Biden set. Even with added troops in Rafah, Israel will still likely stay clear of any real "red lines" that could jeopardize U.S. weapons shipments. •Aid shipments began arriving in Gaza via the new, U.S.-built pier that opened this week. CentCom was careful to clarify that no U.S. troops went ashore in Gaza during or after the construction of the pier. •The Arab League met in Manama and called for a return to pre-1967 borders and the deployment of a new UN peacekeeping force in "the occupied Palestinian territories" (Gaza and the West Bank). •A UN spokesman responded that it would be premature to send peacekeepers to Gaza now: "there first has to be a peace to keep." North Korea •Kim Jong Un's influential sister, Kim Yo Jong, denied that North Korea has supplied any weapons to Russia, calling suggestions otherwise "the most absurd paradox." •The U.S. and South Korea disagree: they believe North Korea has sent Russia artillery, missiles, and other conventional weapons; and some analysts think North Korea's recent short-range missile tests were demonstrations of weapons it planned to sell to Russia. Mozambique •Human Rights Watch reported that some of the perpetrators of Al Shabaab's May 10 attack in Cabo Delgado were child soldiers as young as 13, suggesting the Islamic State-aligned terrorist group (which is unrelated to Somalia's Al Shabaab except in name and violent inclination) is getting desperate for new recruits. •It's a war crime to recruit and employ child soldiers - but groups like Al Shabaab aren't exactly upstanding defenders of the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Other News •Billionaire data privacy defender Frank McCourt said he was amassing a group of investors to offer to buy TikTok from its Chinese parent company. •McCourt sees the acquisition as an opportunity to "create the alternative to the current internet, which has been colonized by large platforms," and envisions a new scenario where users can "control their identity, [and] own and control their data." Note: he should have just invested in https://t.co/fvHOU3SWuy
Open source reportOff Leash 3 April update China Presidents Biden and Xi held a rare phone call yesterday to try to improve mounting tensions between the two superpowers they lead. The White House said Biden addressed China's support for Russia in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, TikTok, and North Korean missiles; Beijing said Xi brought up economic tensions and U.S. support for Taiwan. Following the Xi-Biden call, the U.S. announced that Treasury Secretary Yellen and SecState Blinken will visit China in the coming weeks to follow up on the presidents' discussions. Separately, Taiwan suffered its biggest earthquake in 25 years, killing at least nine people and disrupting chipmaking at several of TSMC's factories. Fifty people are still missing. Ukraine After initially resisting calls to lower Ukraine's military draft age, Pres. Zelensky finally gave in and signed a bill lowering the conscription age from 27 to 25. That should help Ukraine recruit more of the 500,000 additional soldiers Zelensky estimated would be needed to round out Ukrainian forces so that war-weary soldiers can be rotated from the front lines, where the average age is 43. An Economist article pasted below describes why this recruitment push is necessary for Ukraine to defend against an expected Russian spring offensive. Separately, NATO foreign ministers are meeting on the sidelines of alliance anniversary celebrations in Brussels this week to discuss a proposal for a €100 billion ($108 billion) five-year military support plan for Ukraine. Even if they do align on a deal, it likely won't be finalized until July when they meet again in Washington. Russia U.S. officials confirmed that the CIA alerted Russia about intelligence suggesting that Islamic State-Khorasan terrorists specifically planned to target Crocus City Hall - which we now know was indeed their target on March 22. Russia dismissed the American warnings as "blackmail" - perhaps because the first warnings in early March suggested the attack was imminent within days. Moscow may have let its guard down when nothing happened immediately after the first warnings. Sudan Sudan's government was offended by what it called "unprofessional reporting and harmful publications" by Saudi and Emirati media outlets and suspended several of them, including Saudi's Al Arabiya and Al Hadath and UAE's Sky News Arabia. Sudan's leaders have long accused the UAE of supporting the Rapid Support Forces it's fighting against, so the Sky News Arabia ban made sense. However, the ban on the Saudi outlets is more of a shock: both Saudi broadcasters expressed "surprise" at the news.
Open source reportOff Leash Daily Update?: NATO celebrates its 75th anniversary on Thursday. SecGen Stoltenberg will commemorate the occasion with a press conference in Brussels. Kuwait votes in a general election on Thursday, and Slovakia votes in the second round of its presidential election on Saturday. Commodity Prices Aluminum: $2,337/ton Antimony (ingot min. 99.65% fob China): $13,450/ton Cobalt: $28,550/ton Copper: $8,867/ton Gold: $2,233/toz Lead: $2,055/ton Natural Gas (Nymex): $1.76/MMbtu WTI Crude Oil (Nymex): $83.17/barrel Zinc: $2,439/ton Gaza and Israel Israel and Hamas resumed ceasefire talks in Cairo yesterday. Then Israel announced an end to its two-week operation in and around al-Shifa hospital, which Israel says Hamas has been using as an operating base. Israel carried out airstrikes on another militant group, Islamic Jihad, in the courtyard of another hospital, Al Aqsa in Deir al Balah. Those strikes reportedly injured seven journalists but killed four members of Islamic Jihad, according to the BBC. Tens of thousands of Israelis took part in protests against PM Netanyahu in Jerusalem yesterday. They want Netanyahu to resign over his handling of the war and hold fresh elections. The demonstrations are set to continue through Wednesday. Meanwhile, The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an Iran-backed Iraqi militia, targeted a naval base in the southern Israeli city of Eilat with what it called "appropriate weapons" that penetrated Israel's air defenses and triggered alarms but caused no casualties. Eilat is the southernmost large city in Israel, which is why Israel's enemies to the south (e.g. this militia and the Houthis in Yemen) often target it. Russia Insider - a Riga-based and Russia-focused investigative journalist outfit - ended a year-long investigation with the conclusion that Russia's military intelligence unit known as 29155 may have been responsible for the mysterious "Havana syndrome" attacks that affected U.S. diplomats and personnel in multiple locations around the globe: Insider found evidence placing 29155 members on the scene of several of the attacks. The Kremlin dismissed the report as "nothing more than baseless, unfounded accusations by the media." Donald Tusk, Poland's PM and a former European Commission President, said Europe is entering a "pre-war era" and encouraged European countries to boost their defense spending in preparation for a possible future war against Russia. The Economist hinted that he was responding to an intensified Russian assault on Ukraine's energy structure. Pouria Zeraati, a UK-based Iranian journalist known for criticizing Iran's regime, was wounded in a stabbing attack in southwest London Friday. UK terror police are investigating whether he was targeted because of his work. Turkey Turkey's main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), stunned Pres. Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development (AK) party by winning local elections. Analysts say the vote signaled a rebuke of Erdogan's plans to introduce a new constitution and consolidate power. Ekrem Imamoglu, Istanbul's CHP mayor, won his bid for re-election against Erdogan's chosen candidate, which led to speculation that Imamoglu could challenge Erdogan for the presidency in the future. Afghanistan A landmine apparently left behind during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s exploded in Ghazni this week, killing at least nine children - and drawing attention to the problem of unexploded ordnance scattered across the country from prior wars. Many minefields have been cleared, but some haven't yet. Libya Assailants attacked Tripoli PM Dbeibah's residence with rocket-propelled grenades yesterday, causing alarm but no casualties. It's not clear who was responsible, but it could have been one of the militias that supports the rival government in Benghazi. China Syngenta, a Swiss pesticides firm owned by China's state-owned ChemChina, cancelled a long-delayed $9 billion IPO (at a valuation of $60 billion) on the
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