U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard announced the discovery of evidence of long-standing U.S. government funding of more than 120 biological laboratories in over 30 countries worldwide, including Ukraine.
“After months of searching through intelligence community archives and files, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is revealing new evidence of long-term U.S. government funding of over 120 biological laboratories in more than 30 countries,” according to a statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
According to the statement, some of the laboratories funded by the U.S. government have worked or continue to work with dangerous and highly contagious pathogens, and in some cases have conducted gain-of-function research.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence also stated that among such facilities are laboratories in Ukraine, which, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, could be vulnerable to risks of seizure, damage, or attacks amid the Russia-Ukraine war.
According to Gabbard, information about the existence, location, and funding of these laboratories has long been concealed from the public.
“Politicians, so-called medical professionals such as Dr. Fauci, and members of the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of U.S.-funded and supported biolabs,” the agency’s press service quoted Gabbard as saying.
She also reported that she had issued new directives to the intelligence community to intensify the collection of information on such laboratories and related institutions abroad.
The statement notes that the new data also includes information on clinical trials conducted at these facilities, which, according to the agency, raises ethical, financial, and security concerns.
According to reports, on May 25, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order halting federal funding for research on pathogen gain-of-function worldwide.
It is worth noting that Hubbard released this information a few days before her resignation.
As reported, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard is stepping down from her post to support her husband in his battle with an “extremely rare form of bone cancer,” according to Fox News. Her last day at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) is expected to be June 30.
Source: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2026/4163-pr-10-26
The U.S., China, and Germany remain the world’s most valuable country brands, according to data from Brand Finance’s annual study.
The company valued the U.S. brand at nearly $34.72 trillion, down 7% from last year’s level. The assessment covers a wide range of indicators, including GDP, investment and tourism appeal, policy and trade regulations, social aspects, and more.
At the same time, the value of the PRC’s brand increased by 7% (to $22.02 trillion), narrowing the gap with the top spot.
Germany ranks third, far behind (-8%, to $4.61 trillion), and the United Kingdom ranks fourth (-5%, to $4.23 trillion).
France moved up to fifth place (-7%, to $3.63 trillion), pushing Japan (-14%, to $3.62 trillion) down to sixth place. Canada (-12%, to $2.41 trillion) moved up to seventh place from eighth last year, Italy (-4%, to $2.3 trillion) to eighth from ninth, and Spain (-4%, to $2.12 trillion) to ninth from tenth.
India fell to tenth place from seventh (-30%, to $1.94 trillion).
The total value of G7 countries’ brands fell by $4.5 trillion over the year due to geopolitical tensions, tariffs, and economic uncertainty.
“The weakening of the Western alliance’s cohesion, combined with persistent inflationary pressures and high energy prices, contributed to a deterioration in sentiment toward a number of major economic powers,” the report notes.
According to a Brand Finance study, Russia, whose brand value fell by 11%, dropped to 25th place from 23rd last year; Kazakhstan (-26%) fell to 45th from 43rd; Uzbekistan dropped to 53rd from 55th; Azerbaijan fell to 74th from 82nd; Belarus – to 86th from 88th place, Turkmenistan – to 87th from 80th place, Georgia – to 91st from 97th place, Armenia – to 105th from 103rd place, and Kyrgyzstan – to 120th from 127th place. Tajikistan remained in 136th place.
Among the top 100 countries, Egypt fell significantly in the ranking—to 51st place from 35th a year earlier; Iran—to 63rd from 50th; Kenya—to 90th from 70th; and Angola—to 94th from 76th. Meanwhile, Costa Rica jumped to 70th place from 81st, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to 72nd from 87th, and Iceland to 80th from 90th.
In total, the ranking includes 192 countries. The total brand value of these countries decreased by 6% over the past year.
According to Serbian Economist, the U.S. State Department presented a report to Congress on Washington’s policy toward the Western Balkans, in which it effectively announced a shift from the former model of international intervention and “nation-building” to a more pragmatic policy of partnership, stability, energy, security, and economic cooperation.
The document is titled “United States Policy to Promote Regional Stability and Prosperity in the Western Balkans”.
It states that the era of U.S.-led “nation-building” is over, and Washington’s new policy in the region will be built not around “rescue or reconstruction,” but around stability and mutually beneficial partnerships.
For Serbia, this is an important signal: Washington views the Western Balkans as a region of direct importance to U.S. security and economic interests. The report notes that the U.S. intends to cooperate with Serbia in a way that advances American interests, and plans to launch an official strategic dialogue with Belgrade in 2026.
Stability is cited as one of the top priorities. The State Department notes that unresolved disputes and ongoing political disagreements continue to undermine regional stability. In the case of Serbia and Kosovo, Washington states that it will continue to support the normalization of relations with the aim of reaching a negotiated and sustainable agreement acceptable to both sides.
Regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina, the U.S. reaffirms its commitment to the Dayton Peace Agreement, the country’s sovereignty, and its territorial integrity. At the same time, Washington states that in 2025, American diplomacy helped resolve the most serious crisis in BiH since the 1992–1995 war, preserving the constitutional order and legal integrity of the state.
Special emphasis is placed on the energy sector. The State Department describes the region’s dependence on Russian energy resources as a strategic vulnerability and proposes diversification through U.S. LNG, nuclear technologies—including small modular reactors—and renewable energy. For Serbia, this is directly linked to issues regarding the NIS, gas infrastructure, the future nuclear program, and the modernization of the electricity sector.
The report also addresses competition with Russia and China. Washington believes that Moscow and Beijing are exploiting instability, corruption, and weak governance in the region to expand their influence. According to the U.S. assessment, Russia relies on energy leverage and ethno-political tensions, while China strengthens its position through loans, trade, infrastructure projects, and ties with elites.
The economic component of the new strategy is particularly important for Serbia.
The region is described as an area with a favorable geographic location, transport corridors, natural resources, a growing technology sector, and a skilled workforce. The U.S. intends to reduce regulatory barriers, improve contract enforcement, develop procurement procedures, and promote projects that benefit American companies and the region’s economies.
For Serbia, this strategy opens up opportunities but also creates pressure. The opportunities relate to potential strategic dialogue with the U.S., investments in energy, infrastructure, technology, and defense cooperation. The pressure stems from the expectation that Belgrade will reduce its dependence on Russian energy resources, take a more cautious approach to Chinese capital, and play a more active role in ensuring regional stability.
Thus, the new State Department report reflects a shift in U.S. policy: the Western Balkans remain important to the U.S., but now primarily as a region of strategic corridors, energy, markets, security, and great power competition. For Serbia, this could be an opportunity to strengthen its dialogue with Washington, but only on the condition that economic cooperation is not constantly blocked by unresolved political issues.
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The United States is intensifying pressure on Cuba, and information has appeared in the American media that Donald Trump’s administration is increasingly considering the possibility of using military force against Havana. According to Politico, cited by Anadolu, frustration is growing in Washington that sanctions, energy pressure and attempts to restrict fuel supplies to the island have not forced the Cuban leadership to agree to the required economic and political changes. One Politico source said that the military option is now “on the table” to a greater extent than before.
Officially, Washington has not announced a decision to use force against Cuba. However, the fact of increased pressure is confirmed by the actions of the U.S. administration: on May 18, the State Department announced sanctions against 11 representatives of the Cuban regime and three entities linked to the Cuban authorities, while Reuters reported that the sanctions affected high-ranking political, military and intelligence representatives of Cuba.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel warned that any U.S. military action against Cuba would lead to “bloodshed” and serious consequences for peace and stability in the region. The reason for a new round of tension was, in particular, an Axios report that Cuba had allegedly received more than 300 military drones and discussed the possibility of using them against American facilities, including the Guantánamo base. Havana rejected these accusations and stated that the United States was creating a pretext for a possible intervention.
According to the assessment of the Experts Club analytical center, the situation does not yet mean an inevitable military scenario, but it shows a qualitative change in the American line: pressure on Cuba is ceasing to be only sanctions-based and diplomatic and is increasingly accompanied by military rhetoric. This increases the risk of miscalculation, especially amid the energy crisis on the island, domestic political pressure in the United States and the high sensitivity of the Guantánamo issue.
A comparison of the capabilities of the United States and Cuba shows not a symmetrical military confrontation, but a gap between a global superpower and a country whose defense model is designed primarily for territorial mobilization and resistance. Global Firepower ranks the United States first among 145 countries in the 2026 military strength ranking, while Cuba is characterized as a force with limited conventional capabilities and a strong reliance on a reserve-paramilitary system.
According to open estimates by Global Firepower, the United States has about 1.33 million active military personnel and about 799,500 reservists. The total number of military personnel is estimated at approximately 2.13 million people. By comparison, Cuba, according to the same database, has about 50,000 active military personnel, about 40,000 reservists and a large paramilitary component estimated at more than 1.1 million people.
In aviation and the navy, the gap is even more significant. The United States has global aviation, naval and logistical infrastructure, while the Cuban model, according to Anadolu, citing the IISS and Global Firepower, is focused not on projecting force beyond the country’s borders, but on asymmetric defense, deterrence and prolonged resistance.
A detailed comparison of artillery, mortars, drones and other categories of weapons in such material would be methodologically weak and politically risky: data on Cuba are incomplete, a significant part of the equipment is of Soviet or Russian origin and has an unknown degree of combat readiness, while information about drones is currently the subject of an information dispute between American sources and Havana. Therefore, it is more correct to speak not of “weapons parity,” but of different security models: the United States has global strike and expeditionary power, while Cuba has a defensive system designed for population mobilization, dispersal and political resilience.
“From a military point of view, the United States and Cuba are in incomparable weight categories. But precisely for this reason, a potential conflict would not be a classic clash of equal armies, but a crisis with extremely high political, humanitarian and regional risks. The history of the Caribbean Basin shows that even limited actions around Cuba can quickly become an international problem,” says Maksym Urakin, founder of the Experts Club analytical center.
According to him, the main risk lies not in Cuba’s ability to wage an offensive war against the United States, but in the possibility of uncontrolled escalation. “Cuba is objectively not a military power of the U.S. level, but it has symbolic and geopolitical significance, a developed system of internal mobilization and experience of living under pressure. Any use of force could cause not only military, but also migration, energy, diplomatic and regional consequences,” Urakin believes.
For Latin America, the possible use of force against Cuba would be a serious blow to regional stability. Even countries that are critical of the Cuban regime may not support direct military intervention, since the region retains a historically strong sensitivity to external U.S. interference. For Washington, this creates a risk of diplomatic isolation in part of the Western Hemisphere.
For the global economy, a direct conflict around Cuba would not have the same scale as a war in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, but it could hit the Caribbean region, tourism, migration flows, maritime shipping insurance and U.S. political relations with Latin America. The oil dimension remains a separate factor: Reuters reports that the United States has already tried to block most oil supplies from Venezuela to Cuba, which has intensified the fuel and energy crisis on the island.
Experts Club’s conclusion: the Politico information does not yet confirm that Washington has made a decision on a military operation against Cuba, but it does confirm a change in the atmosphere of American politics. Sanctions pressure, the energy blockade, reports about drones and Havana’s response statements form a dangerous linkage in which a diplomatic crisis could shift into the military sphere because of an error, provocation or domestic political calculation. For de-escalation, the sides need a channel of negotiations, since a force scenario around Cuba will almost certainly have consequences far beyond the island itself.
EU member states and the European Parliament have so far failed to agree on the internal mechanism for implementing the trade agreement with the United States, despite pressure from Washington and the threat of new tariffs on European automobiles.
Negotiations between representatives of the European Parliament and EU countries took place on the evening of May 6 and lasted more than six hours, but no final decision was reached. According to Bloomberg, Cyprus, which currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union, confirmed that the parties discussed possible amendments to the transatlantic agreement concluded in the summer of 2025, but failed to reach a final compromise.
The issue concerns EU-US trade arrangements announced in July 2025. Under the agreement, Brussels is expected to abolish tariffs on a range of American industrial goods, while Washington maintains a baseline tariff rate of 15% on a significant share of European exports. Stricter conditions remain in place for steel, aluminum, and copper, including 50% tariffs.
The main dispute within the EU is related not so much to the principle of the agreement itself as to guarantees in case the United States fails to fulfill its obligations. The European Parliament insists on additional safeguard mechanisms, including the possibility of suspending concessions if Washington violates the arrangements. Some EU countries, by contrast, support a faster approval of the deal in order to avoid further escalation of the tariff conflict.
The situation escalated after threats by US President Donald Trump to raise tariffs on cars and trucks from the EU from 15% to 25%. Brussels fears that this would hit Germany and other countries with major automotive exports particularly hard. According to Reuters, most EU countries are interested in completing the procedure as quickly as possible, while the European Parliament demands stronger safeguards be built into the agreement.
Chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade Bernd Lange stated that the negotiations had moved forward, but that “there is still a way to go” before a final decision is reached. The next round of consultations between the European Parliament and EU member states is scheduled for May 19 in Strasbourg.
For the European Union, this dispute is a test of its ability to conduct a unified trade policy under pressure from the United States. Some countries emphasize the need to quickly remove the risk of new tariffs for industry, while others fear that an overly soft EU position would create a precedent in which Washington could secure concessions through threats of additional duties.
For European businesses, the main uncertainty is currently linked to the automotive sector, industrial supplies, and transatlantic production chains. If the EU fails to coordinate its internal position in time, the risk of higher US tariffs will remain, and trade relations between the world’s two largest economic blocs could once again enter a phase of acute confrontation.
The U.S. administration has so far approved only one application under the new Trump Gold Card immigration program, despite earlier claims of potential revenue in the billions. This was stated by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Latnik.
The program, launched in December 2025, offers the opportunity to obtain residency in the U.S. under a scheme similar to a green card, in exchange for a $1 million investment following a security check. An additional fee of $15,000 is also required for expedited processing. At the same time, Latnik claims that hundreds of applicants are currently in the review process.
The modest current results stand in sharp contrast to the authorities’ initial expectations. Reuters notes that at the program’s launch, Latnik spoke of high interest and thousands of potential participants, as well as the potential to generate billions of dollars through the sale of such visas. AP also notes that the program was initially presented as a potential replacement for the EB-5 visa and as a tool for attracting wealthy foreigners and capital into the U.S. economy.
Thus, at this point, the program remains more of a politically significant initiative than a truly substantial source of revenue for the U.S. budget.
