CAMDEN, Arkansas: As they stood before massive rocket launchers built in part by their Arkansas constituents, Republican lawmakers were getting an unambiguous message Thursday from America’s top military officer: A Ukraine aid package that’s stalled in Congress will not only help in the fight against Russia, but also support jobs in their districts.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff doesn’t normally fly around the United States with members of Congress. But Gen. C.Q. Brown’s trip was part of the Pentagon’s full-court press to get the House to move forward on a $95 billion foreign aid package that’s key to getting critical munitions flowing to Kyiv again.
Brown’s travel companions included both supporters and opponents of the current Ukraine aid package. But even some who have been cautious said they do see a path forward for approval of the bill, which includes roughly $60 billion to support Ukraine.
“We want to be able to help our allies and also help keep our industrial complex to stay afloat,” said Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas. “All of that said, it has to be a bill we can come to agreement on, and it has to be something that members of Congress feel like they understand what the mission is, and what the objective is, and what the plan is.”
Sen. John Boozman of Arkansas and Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma also joined Brown for a tour of Lockheed Martin’s factory in Camden, Arkansas, where they walked past workers assembling massive ring bases for the M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System and the tube components of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS. Both systems have been in high demand in Ukraine.
Mullin, who previously voted against the bill, said he still sees a way to get approval for the aid, which he supports.
“There is a package that’s being worked on the Senate and the House side that could possibly move forward,” he said, citing an idea that would give the US first rights to Ukraine’s mineral resources in return for the aid. It’s a type of loan that former President Donald Trump has supported and that could make the US less dependent on China, Mullin said.
“The whole world is out of ammunition,” said Boozman, who supported the bill. “Eventually we are going to get the dollars, because it’s so important.”
All three cited the impact the massive bill would have on the local workforce.
Brown also met with Oklahoma Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen on this trip, during a second stop at the McAlester Army Ammunition Plant in McAlester, Oklahoma. Brecheen has previously indicated he would not support the bill currently in the House.
In a call with reporters before the trip, Brown said he would use the time with the lawmakers, including during their flights, to talk about the importance of the supplemental national security funding.
“As I have done with other members, and I’ll do with these members, I’ll talk to them about the importance of the supplemental and not only how it helps Ukraine but also how it helps all of us. What I mean by that is much of the money, about 80 percent of the money out of the supplemental, will go back into our defense industrial base,” Brown said.
He said the funding is needed to replenish US military stockpiles that have been sent forward to Ukraine and that increased production ultimately generates income at home. It’s a point the Pentagon has increasingly pushed in recent months as current Ukraine funding ran out — and Ukrainian forces on the front line began to ration munitions against a much more robustly supplied Russian army.
Besides the HIMARS, Lockheed Martin’s Camden plant makes Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, long-range missiles that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said have proved effective against Russian forces.
The McAlester plant produces Navy and Air Force bombs, but is also a major storage site for critically needed 155mm munitions. Brown and the lawmakers visited one of the munitions storage sites at the sprawling plant, where bunkers and storage sites hold an undisclosed number of pallets of 250-pound and 2,000-pound bombs, among tens of thousands of rounds of 155mm ammunition, much of it shipped back to the US from South Korea to be retrofitted for Ukraine. In support of Ukraine, the McAlester plant has also accelerated repair of Stinger and Hawk missiles.
The massive plant, which is one of several similar sites across the US, has orders to be ready at any time to surge and be able to send as many as 435 shipping containers — each able to carry 15 tons worth of munitions — if ordered to do so by the president. For the past year it’s been pulling from its storage sites to fill Ukraine’s needs when each new aid package has been announced.
Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, a high-ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, who negotiated the failed border bill that has now become a sticking point for the Ukraine aid bill in the House, had been scheduled to travel with Brown but were not on the trip.
The lawmakers have taken different approaches on their support for Ukraine as the war has dragged on.
In May 2022, the Arkansas senators split on a $40 billion Ukraine aid package, with Cotton joining Lankford in favor of the aid and Boozman opposed.
Mullin, who was a member of the House at the time before being elected to the Senate, also voted in favor of the 2022 aid package, as did Westerman.
But more recently, as the Senate last month approved the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and the Indo-Pacific allies, Cotton, Lankford and Mullin voted against it, while Boozman was in favor.
That bill is now stalled in the House, opposed by hard-line Republicans, including Brecheen, who said on social media the “disastrous legislation must be stopped.”
Trump, the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee, has led the party away from Ukraine aid.
On Thursday, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who has championed the Ukraine aid despite objections from his own party, urged the House to “finish the job” by passing the Senate bill.
He said providing equipment to Ukraine for battlefield success is not only “the surest way” to resolve the war, but it strengthens America’s interests. “Investing in our own military and our own defense industrial capacity at the same time is common sense,” McConnell said in a Senate speech.
To push the package forward, some House lawmakers are attempting a rarely used procedural tool — a “discharge petition” — that could force an eventual vote. But it is a cumbersome process that’s also been complicated by dueling approaches, one for the Senate-passed bill and another for an emerging package.
US military chief tours arms plants with GOP lawmakers to show that Ukraine aid boosts jobs at home
https://arab.news/m5wpg
US military chief tours arms plants with GOP lawmakers to show that Ukraine aid boosts jobs at home
US scholar in Thailand jailed pending trial on charges of insulting the monarchy
- Paul Chambers, a lecturer at Naresuan University in northern Thailand, has specialized in studying the power and influence of the military
- Insulting the monarchy in Thailand is an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison
BANGKOK: A US political science scholar accused by the Thai military of insulting the Southeast Asian nation’s monarchy — an offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison — was jailed on Tuesday pending trial.
Paul Chambers, a lecturer at Naresuan University in the northern province of Phitsanulok, was first summoned by police last week to hear the charges against him, including violating the Computer Crime Act, which covers online activity.
Chambers, a 58-year-old Oklahoma native with a doctorate in political science from Northern Illinois University, has studied the power and influence of the Thai military, which plays a major role in politics. It has staged 13 coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, most recently 11 years ago.
Chambers reported to the police on Tuesday to formally acknowledge the charges and was then taken to a provincial court for a pretrial detention hearing, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights, a legal advocacy group.
The court denied Chambers release on bail, allegedly because of “the severity of potential punishment,” his status as a foreigner and the police’s objection to granting it, the lawyers group said.
The group said another request to allow bail would be filed to an appeals court on Wednesday. No trial date has been set.
The officer who answered the phone at the police station handling the case said he could not comment, and referred the matter to his chief, who did not answer a call to his phone.
It is not unusual for Thai courts to deny bail in cases of insulting the monarchy, popularly known as “112” after its article number in the criminal code.
The US-based academic freedom project Scholars at Risk said in a statement that Chambers in late 2024 made comments in a webinar about a restructuring of the military that could have been the cause of the complaint made against him by the 3rd Army Area, covering Thailand’s northern region.
However, Chambers’ wife, Napisa Waitoolkiat, dean of the faculty of social sciences at Naresuan University, said the evidence presented by the authorities was not the words of her husband but came from the website operated by ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, a think tank in Singapore that broadcast the webinar.
Thai Lawyers for Human Right said the charges stemmed from the text of the invitation to the October 2024 webinar, titled “Thailand’s 2024 Military and Police Reshuffles: What Do They Mean?” and that the charge sheet contained the Thai translation of the invitation’s description of the event.
Napisa also said her husband was not summoned for questioning by police before he was presented with the warrant for his arrest, as is typical in such cases.
“It just feels like they wanted to deter Paul from doing his work and research, which often touches on topics like the economics of the Thai army,” she told The Associated Press over the phone.
Thai law envisages 3-15 years imprisonment for anyone who defames, insults or threatens the king, the queen, the heir apparent or the regent. Critics say it is among the harshest such laws anywhere and has also been used to punish critics of the government and the military.
The monarchy has long been considered a pillar of Thai society and criticizing it used to be strictly taboo. Conservative Thais, especially in the military and courts, still consider it untouchable.
However, public debate on the topic has in the past decade grown louder, particularly among young people, and student-led pro-democracy protests starting in 2020, began openly criticizing the institution. That led to vigorous prosecutions under the previously little-used law.
Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has said that since early 2020, more than 270 people — many of them student activists — have been charged with violating the law.
US, Russia to meet Thursday in Istanbul on restoring embassy operations
- State Department says the two sides will hold talks on Thursday in Istanbul
WASHINGTON: The United States and Russia will hold talks on Thursday in Istanbul on restoring some of their embassy operations that have been drastically scaled back following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, the US State Department said.
The talks, the second of their kind, come after President Donald Trump reached out to Russia following the start of his second term and offered better ties if it winds down fighting in Ukraine.
The two sides will “try to make progress on further stabilizing the operations of our bilateral missions,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters on Tuesday.
“There are no political or security issues on the agenda, and Ukraine is not — absolutely not — on the agenda,” she said.
“These talks are solely focused on our embassy operations, not on normalizing a bilateral relationship.”
The talks are going ahead despite Russia rejecting a Ukraine-backed US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday lamented the lack of a US response.
Trump a day later told reporters that he was not happy that Russia was “bombing like crazy right now.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has previously said that it is important for both the United States and Russia to resume higher staffing at their respective embassies to improve contacts, regardless of the situation in Ukraine.
Why aid agencies are forecasting a sharp rise in forced displacement by 2026
- Conflicts worldwide will forcibly displace a further 6.7 million people over the next two years, according to an AI forecast
- Sudan alone will account for 2.1 million new displacements, adding to the 12.6 million already uprooted since April 2023
DUBAI: Ongoing conflicts will force an additional 6.7 million people worldwide from their homes by the end of 2026, with Sudan alone accounting for nearly a third of the new displacements, according to the Danish Refugee Council’s latest predictions.
The agency’s Global Displacement Forecast Report 2025 revealed a massive spike in the number of expected forced displacements this year to 4.2 million, the highest such prediction since 2021. Another 2.5 million are expected to be forced to flee violence in 2026.
“We live in an age of war and impunity, and civilians are paying the heaviest price,” said Charlotte Slente, secretary-general of the Danish Refugee Council.
“Our AI-driven modeling paints a tragic picture: 6.7 million people displaced over the next two years. These are not cold statistics. These are families forced to flee their homes, carrying next to nothing and searching for water, food and shelter.”
DRC’s Foresight model, developed in partnership with IBM, predicts displacement trends by analyzing 148 indicators based on economic, security, political, environmental and societal factors, across 27 countries that represent 93 percent of all global displacement.
It is a machine-learning model created to predict forced displacement at the national level over the next one-to-three years. It is built on open-source data from a variety of sources, including the World Bank, UN agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and academic institutions.
According to DRC, more than half of the forecasts produced by the model for displacements in a coming year have been less than 10 percent off the actual figures.
Sudan is experiencing the biggest displacement and hunger crisis in the world, and DRC projections suggest it will continue to represent the most urgent humanitarian crisis. By the end of 2026, another 2.1 million people there are expected be displaced, adding to the 12.6 million already forced to move within the country or to neighboring nations including Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been locked in a brutal conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Their power struggle began in Khartoum and rapidly escalated into an all-out war that engulfed major cities and cut off humanitarian corridors, sparking the world’s worst displacement crisis. Entire urban areas have been emptied, and civilians caught in the crossfire face hunger, violence and sexual assault.
The DRC report warns that the internal dynamics of the war — fragmented front lines, shifting alliances and a lack of viable negotiations — make any resolution unlikely in the short term. Insecurity is rampant and basic services have collapsed in large parts of the country.
The effects of the conflict on civilians are staggering. Once-bustling cities such as Khartoum and Nyala have become battlefields from which residents have been forced to flee several times. In Darfur, reports of ethnic cleansing have resurfaced, raising the specter of the genocide that occurred there two decades ago.
“The situation in Sudan is quite intense and tragic,” Massimo Marghinotti, a DRC logistician stationed in Port Sudan since September 2024, said in a first-person report filed from the field.
“The fighting has spread across various regions, and civilians are caught in the crossfire. We see how bombings and fighting and targeting of civilians lead to severe displacement and famine.
“Millions have fled their homes, and they literally have nothing. No shelter, no water, no access to food or basic health. I have been working in this field for more than 25 years and seen a lot, but this humanitarian crisis is severe, and the suffering in Sudan is heartbreaking.”
Yet despite the scale of the suffering, international attention, and funding, has been minimal. According to the UN, more than 24 million people in Sudan, about half of the population, are in need of humanitarian assistance. But as of March this year, aid organizations had received less than 5 percent of the funds they need to respond. Most agencies are forced to operate with limited access, risk attacks and face bureaucratic obstacles.
While war remains the single largest driver of forced displacements, the DRC’s report also highlights the role of economic and climate-related factors. In countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, millions have been uprooted by a combination of droughts, floods and political turmoil.
In Sudan, climate change acts as a threat multiplier. The country has experienced recurring floods and failed harvests, exacerbating food insecurity and causing intercommunal tensions to rise. Many of the people displaced by war are now living in fragile areas already struggling with environmental shocks.
The effects of the crisis in Sudan extend far beyond its own borders. According to figures released in February by the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, Egypt has received more than 1.5 million Sudanese refugees, straining urban infrastructure and pushing thousands into destitution.
Meanwhile, about 759,058 people from Sudan have fled across the border to Chad, 240,000 to Libya, 67,189 to Uganda, and 42,490 to Ethiopia. South Sudan, itself fragile, has absorbed more than 718,453 people, although the majority of those are returnees who had been living in camps in Sudan.
Host countries, many of them facing their own economic and political challenges, struggle to keep pace with the needs of the displaced. In Chad, for example, water and food shortages are acute. In South Sudan, many returnees face ethnic tensions and limited shelter. Across the region, humanitarian operations are underfunded.
Displacement is no longer a short-term phenomenon. For millions of Sudanese, in common with others caught up in protracted crises, the reality is now one of long-term exile, instability and marginalization.
INNUMBERS
• 6.7m Additional displaced people by end of 2026.
• 33% Sudan alone will account for nearly a third.
In Sudan, many internally displaced persons are now trapped in limbo, unable to return home but lacking the resources or legal status to settle elsewhere. Refugees who do reach neighboring countries often end up in overcrowded camps with limited mobility. Children miss years of school. Families are separated indefinitely.
While Sudan represents the largest and most acute displacement crisis, it is far from the only one. The DRC’s 2025 forecast also highlights hot spots such as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, the Sahel, Venezuela and Yemen.
The organization called for a three-pronged approach to address the crisis: stronger political engagement to help resolve conflicts; greater investment in climate adaptation and resilience efforts; and a humanitarian system that is more predictable and better funded.
The US, formerly the world’s largest donor nation, recently terminated 83 percent of USAID contracts. Other major donors, including the UK and Germany, are also cutting back on aid they provide. These withdrawals come at a time when humanitarian needs are at an all-time high.
“Millions are facing starvation and displacement, and just as they need us most, wealthy nations are slashing aid. It’s a betrayal of the most vulnerable,” said Slente.
“We’re in the middle of a global ‘perfect storm:’ record displacement, surging needs and devastating funding cuts. Major donors are abandoning their duty, leaving millions to suffer. This is more than a crisis. It is a moral failure.”
Ukraine says captured two Chinese nationals fighting for Russia
- President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukrainian troops captured two Chinese citizens fighting alongside Russian forces
- Kyiv says it will demand an explanation from Beijing and a reaction from its allies
KYIV, Ukraine: President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Ukrainian troops had captured two Chinese citizens fighting alongside Russian forces, adding Kyiv would demand an explanation from Beijing and a reaction from its allies.
Moscow and Beijing have in recent years boasted of their “no limits” partnership and deepened political, military and economic cooperation since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
“Our military captured two Chinese citizens who fought in the Russian army. This happened on the territory of Ukraine — in the Donetsk region,” Zelensky said in a post on social media.
“We have the documents of these prisoners, bank cards, and personal data,” Zelensky said in a post that included a video of one of the alleged Chinese prisoners.
The video showed a man wearing military fatigues with his hands bound, mimicking sounds from combat and uttering a small number of words in Mandarin, during an apparent interview with a Ukrainian official not pictured.
At one point he is heard saying the word “commander.”
A senior Ukrainian official told AFP that the prisoners were likely Chinese citizens who were enticed into signing a contract with the Russian army, rather than being sent by Beijing.
They were captured “a few days ago,” the source said, adding there may be more of them.
“Nothing is completely clear yet. When they are delivered to the SBU (Ukraine’s security service) and at least interrogated, we will understand,” the source added.
The source sent images of ID cards linked to one of the prisoners, which showed the date of his birth as June 4, 1991 and said he belonged to the Han ethnicity — the majority ethnic group in China.
There was no immediate response to the claims from either Moscow or Beijing, but Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said on social media that China’s charge d’affaires had been summoned for an explanation.
“Chinese citizens fighting as part of Russia’s invasion army in Ukraine puts into question China’s declared stance for peace and undermines Beijing’s credibility as a responsible permanent member of the UN Security Council,” Sybiga said.
China presents itself as a neutral party in the conflict and says it is not sending lethal assistance to either side, unlike the United States and other Western nations.
But it is a close political and economic ally of Russia, and NATO members have branded China a “decisive enabler” of Moscow’s invasion, which Beijing has never condemned.
US President Donald Trump has been pushing for a speedy end to the war since taking office, but his administration has failed to reach a breakthrough.
Kyiv has repeatedly urged Beijing to pressure Moscow to end its invasion, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and so far failed to achieve the Kremlin’s core objectives.
Zelensky said Kyiv had evidence that “many more Chinese citizens” are fighting alongside Russian forces and that he had instructed his foreign minister to find out how China intends to respond.
He said the capture of the two men and Moscow’s involvement of China in the conflict were “a clear signal that Putin is going to do anything but end the war.”
Zelensky also demanded “a reaction from the United States, Europe, and everyone in the world who wants peace” in his post online.
“I think the United States should pay more attention to what is happening today,” he said separately at a press conference in Kyiv.
The war in Ukraine, now grinding through its fourth year, has attracted thousands of foreign fighters to both sides.
Ukraine has been urging its Western partners to respond to the Russian deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to the western region of Kursk.
Ukraine has been struggling to hold ground after launching an offensive on the border region last year.
“The North Koreans fought against us in the Kursk region, the Chinese are fighting on the territory of Ukraine. And I think this is an important point that we need to discuss with our partners, I think urgently,” Zelensky added in the press conference.
Kyiv, which dispatched its then-foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba to China last year, has been seeking to deepen ties with Beijing.
Zelensky appointed a new ambassador to China this week.
Taliban deny reports of American airbase takeover
- Chief spokesman: ‘The Islamic Emirate will not allow such an action’
- Rumors spread after US military flight landed at Bagram reportedly carrying top intelligence officials
LONDON: The Taliban have denied rumors that Afghanistan’s Bagram airbase has been handed back to the US, The Independent reported on Tuesday.
The denial followed the flight of a US military cargo plane into Afghanistan over the weekend.
The C-17 aircraft took off from Al-Udeid in Qatar and arrived in Afghanistan via Pakistan, landing at Bagram on Sunday, local media reported.
Khaama Press reported that the flight was carrying top US intelligence officials, including Michael Ellis, the CIA’s deputy chief.
It added that the Taliban handed the base to the US in the wake of comments by President Donald Trump expressing an interest in the facility, located north of Kabul.
However, the Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid dismissed the reports as “propaganda” and said the government maintains full control of the base.
“There is no need for any country’s military presence in Afghanistan at present and the Islamic Emirate will not allow such an action,” he added, describing an American takeover of the base as “impossible.”
Zia Ahmad Takal, deputy spokesman for Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry, told The Independent: “This news (of the takeover) is not correct.”
Bagram, the size of a small city, served as the command node for coalition forces during the 20-year war against the Taliban before the group recaptured Afghanistan in 2021.
It has two runways, 100 parking spaces for jets, a passenger lounge, a 50-bed hospital, and numerous hangar-sized tents housing equipment.
