A profound transformation is underway in the politico-military-industrial complex that has dominated the US defense realm for over seven decades.
As drones, AI, autonomous systems, satellites, robots, and networked platforms reshape the battlefield, Silicon Valley is quietly edging out the US defense market’s big five: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman.
On October 6, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth tapped SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of defense technology firm Anduril, to lead “Project Meridian: The Future of Warfare,” a new 120-day initiative tasked with identifying the technologies and capabilities required for future military dominance.
“We are witnessing rapid advances in artificial intelligence, autonomy, directed energy, robotics, biotechnology, among other critical high-tech areas. Combined, these new domains, new ways of fighting, and technological developments will profoundly alter the character of warfare,” Hegseth said in his one-page memo while announcing Project Meridian on September 30.
“To maintain global dominance, the United States must anticipate future operational environments and act decisively to develop the tools to dominate in them.”
Defining the scope of the study, Hegseth said: “Project Meridian will study the battlefields of the future, identify which weapons and technologies warfighters will need to harness to dominate in these environments, and propose actionable solutions to start developing, testing, and fielding these capabilities such that America will have overmatch for the 21st century and beyond.”
In his memo, Hegseth hinted that the center of gravity is shifting over who defines and decides the parameters of future defense weapons, technologies, and requirements.
“Project Meridian will leverage critical perspectives from outside the Pentagon, drawing upon a group of top technologists, innovators, business leaders, policymakers, and national security experts.”
Its primary function will be to map the trajectory of future warfare, identify critical capability gaps, and propose actionable solutions, Hegseth said.
The Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey-led panel will therefore discuss not a particular weapons platform, but what American warfare and the battlefield will look like in the future.
What they will discuss and define is not merely a change in weapons technology, but the way the Pentagon sees warfare and organizes the production of military power itself.
The study’s co-directors will “identify the domains that we must conquer, and capabilities we must master,” Hegseth said at Marine Corps Base Quantico on September 30.
“The Project Meridian effort will examine the technologies and operational concepts required to sustain U.S. military advantage across the full spectrum of future warfighting domains across a 10-20 year time horizon,” said a spokesperson for the Department of Defense.
The Musk- and Luckey-led study could therefore shape the Pentagon’s defense procurement decisions for decades.
It’s no accident that while SpaceX’s Musk and Anduril’s Luckey are on the panel, the executives of the Big Five are conspicuously missing.
The US military-industrial complex started taking shape in the 1950s.
While the two World Wars saw large-scale mobilizations and the channeling of industries toward weapons production, the distinctive military-industrial complex emerged in the 1950s.
US President Eisenhower himself later described the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry as new in the American experience.”
In April 1950, the top-secret U.S. National Security Council (NSC) policy (NSC-68) concluded that the “only plausible way to deter the Soviet Union was for President Harry Truman to support a massive build-up of both conventional and nuclear weapons.
In other words, the US should maintain elevated defense spending even during peacetime.
U.S. military budget jumped from USD 13 billion to USD 60 billion within a couple of years. Most of these funds went to private contractors, rather than government bodies.
For nearly the next seven decades, military production and weapons procurement in the US followed a set pattern.
The Pentagon defined its requirements, the US Congress approved the budgets, defense production firms, mostly a handful of prime contractors, submitted bids, and the winner developed platforms with lifecycles ranging from a few years to a few decades.
Fighter jets, bombers, submarines, aircraft carriers, missiles, radars, military communication platforms- all these platforms were developed this way.
For decades, they remained industrial objects; however, these platforms gradually became computational systems. The F-35, for instance, has been described as a flying supercomputer.
New-age military platforms, however, are first and foremost computing platforms.
Drones, for example, are all these systems rolled into one.
They are at once a fighter jet and a bomber, equipped with radar seekers, missiles, a network of sensors, a communication system, and a software platform that integrates AI into flight paths and target selection.
Satellite constellations are becoming central to military communication and targeting by drones, as seen in the critical role Starlink is playing in the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian drones use AI to select flight paths that exploit gaps in Russia’s layered air defense network.
Command-and-control software and Battlefield Management Systems (BMS) fuse information from diverse sources, including satellites, drones, ground-based radars, and AWACS, within seconds to create a unified, simplified battlefield picture and propose the most critical sites for targeting.
Underpinning all these systems are software, computing systems, and AI, not just hardware.
In this new warfare, large, expensive defense platforms are often a liability, rather than an asset.
In short, military value is shifting at an unprecedented speed.
Defense platforms costing millions of dollars and once considered invincible could now be targeted by a drone costing just a few thousand dollars.
This shift is also forcing military suppliers to change. Software firms in Silicon Valley that combine artificial intelligence (AI), autonomy, and machine learning (ML) to deliver innovative defense solutions are now at the center of this shift.
In recent years, they have won contracts worth tens of billions of dollars, edging out the Big Five of defense production.
The rise of these new military technology firms marks the biggest shift in the US arms industry over the past five years.
“Companies like SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril have been tapped for multi-billion-dollar contract awards from the Pentagon for communications, targeting, unpiloted vehicles, anti-drone defenses, and hypersonic weapons. The funds from these awards will flow to the companies over time, which should put them in the top ranks of Pentagon contractors by value of awards within the next several years,” a recent report from the Costs of War project said.
For instance,
has received awards for countering Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from the Marines (US$642 million); a contract for its Roadrunner UAV interceptor system (US$250 million); and contracts for its Ghost Shark autonomous underwater vehicle as part of the U.S.-UK-Australia AUKUS project, to name a few.
Anduril has also been selected to build the next generation of Army goggles, the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS), which are “intended to give soldiers everything from night-vision capability to warnings of incoming airborne threats.”
In June this year, the U.S. Air Force awarded engineering, manufacturing development, and production contracts for Collaborative Combat Aircraft Increment 1 to both Anduril (FQ-44) and General Atomics.
However, Anduril’s most lucrative contract could be in border security technologies. The Big Beautiful bill commits over US$6 billion for various border security technologies. However, as Eurasian Times reported earlier, the bill’s conditions mean Anduril is the only firm that qualifies for these border surveillance tenders.
SpaceX is launching most of the U.S. military’s satellites. It is also receiving funding for the military version of its Starlink system.
Separately, the Pentagon is considering investing in SpaceX’s Starship system.
SpaceX and Anduril could also win billion-dollar contracts in the upcoming ‘Golden Dome’ project.
Established tech firms are also challenging the Big Five’s dominance. For example, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, and IBM are collectively investing US$10 billion in the Pentagon’s cloud computing program.
“To the extent that the Pentagon moves towards AI-driven weapons systems, including swarms of drones and uncrewed aircraft, ships, and combat vehicles, the dominance of the Big Five firms may be reduced,” the report by the Costs of War Project added.
In fact, a recent essay on the Anduril Industries blog, ‘Rebooting the Arsenal of Democracy,’ dismissed the Big Five defense contractors as ‘remnants of the Cold War’ that need to be supplanted if America is to take the lead in developing and producing the weapons of the future.
“Why can’t the existing defense companies simply do better? The largest defense contractors are staffed with patriots who still lack the software expertise or business model to build the technology we need.
“Tomorrow’s weapons – autonomous systems, cyberweapons and defenses, networked systems, and more – are enabled through software, while these companies specialize in hardware. These companies work slowly, while the best engineers relish working at speed… These companies built the tools that kept us safe in the past, but they are not the future of our defense,” the essay said.
The trend, therefore, has already started.
Project Meridian, which could profoundly impact US defense procurement for decades, will further accelerate this trend.
Musk and Luckey’s appointment to lead this study suggests Silicon Valley tech firms are quietly edging out the US military-industrial complex’s Big Five.
The post No Boeing, Lockheed or Any of the Big Five: Musk & Luckey Co-Lead Project Meridian on America’s Future Warfare appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.
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Last week, 7 ARAD-7 rifles of Israeli manufacture were seized by the Brazilian Federal Police at a transport company located in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, while they were being prepared to be sent to drug traffickers of the Terceiro Comando Puro (TCP) organization. These are the same drug traffickers who control a territory called “Complexo de Israel,” which brings together the favelas Cidade Alta, Parada de Lucas, Vigário Geral, Cinco Bocas, and Pica-Pau.
Two years ago, we wrote here at the Strategic Culture Foundation an article about the danger of “narcopentecostalism” – the deep linkage between drug trafficking and neo-Pentecostalism in some favelas – pointing to this new phenomenon as a possible national security threat for Brazil, as well as a potential focus of activities aimed at destabilizing the social fabric and religious persecution. Indeed, in TCP territories, Catholic churches and Afro-Brazilian religious centers are closed and violently attacked.
Nevertheless, at the time we wrote that article, in July 2024, there were not yet enough material elements to incisively affirm the existence of a direct connection between narcopentecostalism and the State of Israel. TCP traffickers exalted the State of Israel, used Israeli patches and uniforms, but all of this was circumstantial and could be explained by mere adherence to evangelical discourse.
Now, however, we have more specific evidence to be able to return to the topic and raise concern about the possible link between Israel and one of Brazil’s main drug trafficking organizations.
After all, to date it is still not known how these modern Israeli rifles reached the logistical branch of an important Brazilian criminal organization, when this specific rifle is still uncommon among Brazilian police forces and nonexistent among the military.
The first objection that could be raised would be about Israel’s “interest” in arming or financing a criminal organization in Brazil. Well, it would not be the first time.
In the 1980s, 500 automatic weapons (including IMI Galil rifles and Uzi submachine guns) and 200,000 rounds of ammunition were found in a warehouse belonging to the Medellín Cartel, one of the largest drug trafficking organizations in Colombia. At the time, “independent investigations” concluded that the person responsible for the operation, the mercenary and retired Israeli military officer Yair Klein, had acted on his own. Klein himself, however, always stated that his activities in Colombia (which involved not only arms sales but also the training of paramilitary groups) had the knowledge and authorization of Israeli authorities.
Klein’s link to the Israeli state apparatus, demonstrating that he was not really an “independent agent,” is confirmed by the fact that when he was arrested in Sierra Leone in 1999 for selling weapons to insurgents of the Revolutionary United Front, the State of Israel intervened to secure his release, as well as refused all extradition requests.
Another interesting and recent piece of news involves Mexico, where authorities declared that 80% of the weapons found with soldiers of the drug cartels were of U.S. origin… and most of the remaining 20% were of Israeli origin. Indeed, Israel officially exported 24,000 automatic weapons between 2006 and 2018 to Mexico’s military and police institutions, and another 18,000 in more recent years. Note, however, that estimates from independent observatories suggest that Mexican cartels as a whole possess an arsenal of several hundred thousand automatic weapons. If something like 15-20% of these weapons are of Israeli origin, then we are talking about any number between 20,000 and 100,000 Israeli-origin weapons in the hands of the cartels. These are numbers that simply do not match the figures of official Israeli arms exports to Mexican security forces.
One last point that may draw attention is the recent attention the U.S. has given to Brazilian criminal organizations, with the PCC and CV groups categorized as terrorist groups by Donald Trump’s government. What draws attention is the fact that the TCP – the 3rd largest criminal organization in Brazil, with a presence in some other countries in the region, operations in several Brazilian states, and at least one verifiable link to an individual connected to Al-Qaeda’s financing network, not to mention an operational alliance with the PCC – was left out of the categorization.
Naturally, it could be a coincidence. But even so, it is an interesting coincidence that the neo-Pentecostal criminal organization apparently armed by Israel is exactly the one that was not categorized as terrorist by the White House.
After claiming it intercepted foreign aircraft on two separate occasions last year, China has made another major claim: a “foreign warship” lost power while pursuing a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N) Type 055 destroyer, seemingly an indirect reference to the USS Benfold.
Zhang Jun, a captain on the PLA Navy’s Type 055 “Zunyi” destroyer, said a foreign warship lost power while his warship, engaged in a routine training exercise at the time, the Chinese state-owned publication Global Times claimed.
Speaking on China Central Television (CCTV), the officer said the destroyer had multiple encounters with foreign warships and aircraft during the exercise.
“During that mission, we were conducting routine training exercises when a foreign warship began tracking our ship. As we sailed at high speed, the foreign vessel had to match our speed. While we were in a standoff, its power and electricity all suddenly went out, its radar stopped emitting, and its navigation lights went dark,” Zhang said. “This lasted for nearly half an hour. But our equipment and our crew had no problems at all,” he added.
When asked whether the engagement made him nervous, the Chinese officer said, “Why should I be nervous? I was definitely not nervous. As long as you are within range of my missiles, I can definitely destroy you.”
The officer stopped short of providing more details, including the time and place of the encounter and the name of the foreign warship. However, the claims appear aimed at the US Navy warship USS Benfold, which apparently lost power and was stranded in the South China Sea in July 2026, as previously reported by the EurAsian Times.
“On July 24, 2026, while conducting routine operations in the Indo-Pacific, Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Benfold (DDG 65) reported an engineering casualty involving its generators, causing a loss of power,” Navy Cmdr. Matthew Comer, spokesperson for the 7th Fleet, said in a statement to USNI News in August 2026.
“There were no injuries to the crew, who demonstrated resilience, grit, professionalism and unwavering steadiness in their response,” he added.
The incident reportedly occurred while the USS Benfold was engaged in routine operations in the Indo-Pacific as part of the USS George Washington carrier strike group (CSG).
After the power loss, the guided-missile destroyer reportedly drifted for four days and was supplied by other ships in the South China Sea, which China claims as its sovereign territory and where frequent standoffs occur between Beijing and other forces.
The Seventh Fleet spokesperson did not mention a high-speed pursuit of a Chinese vessel or any engagement between the US carrier strike group and PLA Navy warships, although these encounters are not uncommon in the region.
When asked whether China’s claimed scenario is plausible, Indian Navy veteran and commentator Rear Admiral Girish Kumar Garg (retd) told the EurAsian Times, “For an Arleigh Burke-class ship, high-speed propulsion has nothing to do with total power loss. Complete power failure can happen if all onboard power generators fail or the power distribution system malfunctions. Although rare, it is not impossible.”
Further, when probed about potential reasons for the complete power loss, Rear Admiral Garg said, “Can be many reasons- fuel contamination can be a major cause. Power overload due to too many systems operating and loaded on the running generators can also cause them to trip. However, generally, if all onboard power generators are running and connected, then they cater for full ship’s electrical load plus some extra load margin.”
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The USS Benfold power loss incident was not the first of its kind. Earlier, the USS Higgins had an “engineering casualty” in its electrical system in May 2026, which caused it to lose power and propulsion for many hours in the Indo-Pacific area. No chase of another vessel had occurred at the time.
Nonetheless, state media and Chinese experts used the opportunity and their purported claims to highlight the enviable capabilities of the PLAN’s Type 055 warships.
Chinese military expert Shi Hong told the Global Times that the Type 055 is considered the world’s best large destroyer in terms of comprehensive capabilities. Meanwhile, Xu Yi, another crew member on the ship that was involved in the purported encounter, said, “We have a powerful offensive and defensive system. In the future, we will definitely conduct operations externally in formation. In fact, we have already begun integrating multiple formations and exploring what makes for the best combination.”
Some pro-PLA observers on social media widely amplified the Chinese claims, aligning with similar previous instances.
However, Beijing deliberately makes specific claims while avoiding direct naming of the foreign assets to avoid a diplomatic response and to eliminate the possibility of a counter-narrative from official sources and a potential bilateral tussle.
In the past few years, China has claimed to have intercepted and expelled unidentified foreign aircraft from the same region on multiple occasions.
Last year, Chinese state media, CCTV, released a video on June 29 showing two J-16 fighter jets—considered the cornerstone of the PLA Air Force’s interception efforts—being dispatched to warn and drive out a “foreign aircraft” that allegedly breached China’s territorial sea boundary.
“The foreign aircraft flew over at a low altitude, not very disciplined, almost at a vertical 90 degrees, breaching our territorial sea line,” air force aviation brigade member Zhang Zhanfang stated on the broadcast at the time.
The Chinese media did not disclose the exact date or location of the incident, making it challenging to identify the foreign aircraft in question.
Later that year, Global Times reported on a documentary shown on CCTV in October 2025, in which a PLA Air Force (PLAAF) pilot from the special mission aircraft formation claimed he could simultaneously lock two foreign stealth fighter jets while flying the J-16 fighter jet and force both jets to withdraw.
“They headed straight toward our two aircraft. Their intention was very clear—it was a provocation. With our backs to the territorial sea line, we had to intercept them,” Li Chao, a pilot from the People’s Liberation Army’s Western Theatre Command, said while recounting the incident that allegedly took place during a coastal training exercise in 2024.
Although the Chinese did not disclose which foreign stealth aircraft it was referring to, only two aircraft fit the description: the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Lightning II of the US Air Force (USAF).
Both aircraft are frequently deployed in the Indo-Pacific for training, war exercises, and other operational missions, as the EurAsian Times noted in a detailed report published at the time.
Washington did not acknowledge the claim, but the incident drew a wide debate over whether a 4.5th-generation jet could intercept US fifth-generation stealth fighters.
Separately, US and Chinese ships have had sporadic encounters in international waters, as the US Navy conducts regular FONOPs (Freedom of Navigation Operations) in the region.
Earlier this year, in January 2026, reports noted that a Chinese warship, CNS Taiyuan, encountered a foreign warship during “a long-range training exercise” in undisclosed waters. The report said the foreign ship meant to provoke the Chinese crew, but the crew instead followed orders and drove the vessel away.
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Similarly, in January 2025, reports noted that China had claimed that its navy “drove away” a “foreign warship that attempted to spy on its Shandong aircraft carrier during a long-distance training mission. At the time, a Chinese sailor attached to the Type 055 destroyer CNS Yan’an crew said a foreign warship attempted to engage in “illegal reconnaissance” and infiltrate a formation led by the carrier during a routine training mission.
In June 2023, a US destroyer, USS Chung-Hoon, had a close encounter with a Chinese warship in the Taiwan Strait. The US Navy alleged that the Chinese ship executed an “unsafe” maneuver, crossed the US ship’s path, and forced it to slow down to avoid a collision.
Another significant incident occurred in 2018 when a Chinese warship came dangerously close to the USS Decatur in the South China Sea. The US Navy described the action as “unsafe and unprofessional.
Despite a thaw in ties between Chinese and US leaders, the fight over Indo-Pacific dominance continues.
The post China Puts USS Benfold Back in Spotlight. Says Foreign Warship Lost Power While Tracking Its Type 055 appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.
O Sicredi foi reconhecido como a Melhor Empresa para Trabalhar no Brasil pelo terceiro ano consecutivo, conquistando o 1º lugar no ranking do Great Place To Work® (GPTW) 2026, na categoria Gigantes. O resultado consolida uma trajetória de excelência em gestão de pessoas e reforça o compromisso da instituição com a construção de um ambiente de trabalho baseado na confiança, no desenvolvimento contínuo e no propósito cooperativista.
A cerimônia de premiação foi realizada na noite desta terça-feira (6), em São Paulo, reunindo algumas das principais organizações do país reconhecidas por suas práticas de gestão de pessoas e pela experiência oferecida aos colaboradores. A conquista mantém o Sicredi na liderança do ranking nacional pelo terceiro ano consecutivo, após alcançar o primeiro lugar também em 2024 e 2025.
O reconhecimento reflete uma estratégia que integra desenvolvimento humano, inovação, bem-estar, escuta ativa e oportunidades concretas de crescimento profissional para mais de 50 mil colaboradores distribuídos em todo o país. Com mais de 10,5 milhões de associados e presença em mais de 2 mil municípios brasileiros, o Sicredi busca reproduzir internamente os mesmos princípios que orientam seu modelo cooperativo de negócios.
A instituição reúne mais de 90 cooperativas de crédito, tendo as pessoas como elemento central tanto na relação com os associados quanto na gestão dos colaboradores. Para Daniele Schmidt, diretora executiva de Pessoas e Cultura do Sicredi, existe uma conexão direta entre a forma como a organização se relaciona com seus associados e com seus colaboradores.
“Existe uma coerência entre o que fazemos externamente e o que praticamos dentro da organização. Nosso propósito é levar a prosperidade para as pessoas, o que cria um ciclo virtuoso: o associado reconhece o trabalho realizado, e o funcionário do Sicredi percebe que contribui para o avanço do associado e o fortalecimento da cooperativa.”, afirma.
Segundo a diretora, o reconhecimento é resultado de uma construção coletiva sustentada pela participação das pessoas e pela evolução constante da cultura organizacional.
“Receber esse reconhecimento pelo terceiro ano consecutivo é motivo de muito orgulho para todos nós. Essa conquista reflete uma cultura construída coletivamente, sustentada pela confiança, pela escuta e pelo compromisso genuíno de colocar as pessoas no centro. Seguimos evoluindo para oferecer uma experiência cada vez mais positiva para as nossas pessoas colaboradoras porque acreditamos que são elas que tornam possível cumprir nosso propósito de construir juntos uma sociedade mais próspera.”
Seguindo esse propósito, em 2025, o Sicredi investiu R$ 409 milhões em projetos sociais, e distribuiu R$ 3,4 bilhões em resultados para os associados. Nos municípios onde a instituição está presente, o Sicredi contribui para um incremento de até 10% no PIB e de 15% na geração de empregos, segundo pesquisa FIPE/OCB de 2024.
Cultura construída com escuta ativa A escuta contínua das pessoas é um dos pilares da estratégia de gestão do Sicredi. Em 2026, a Pesquisa de Clima contou com a participação de 93% dos colaboradores, representando mais de 45 mil respondentes.
Os resultados servem como base para decisões relacionadas à experiência do colaborador, ao desenvolvimento das lideranças e ao fortalecimento da cultura organizacional. Entre as iniciativas implementadas a partir desse processo estão a ampliação da frequência das conversas de desenvolvimento entre lideranças e equipes e o fortalecimento de ações voltadas à construção de ambientes de trabalho cada vez mais colaborativos, inclusivos e orientados ao protagonismo das pessoas.
O desenvolvimento profissional é tratado como uma prioridade estratégica. Em 2025, o Sicredi destinou mais de R$ 68 milhões para iniciativas de educação corporativa, fortalecendo programas de formação técnica, comportamental, liderança e governança. A plataforma Sicredi Aprende é uma das principais ferramentas dessa estratégia. Somente no primeiro semestre de 2026, a plataforma disponibilizou 33 cursos regulatórios, 264 cursos e 124 trilhas de aprendizagem.
Ao todo, foram concluídas mais de 800 mil horas de aprendizagem pelos colaboradores. A valorização das pessoas também se traduz em indicadores de movimentação interna na instituição. Entre setembro de 2025 e agosto de 2026 foram investidos mais de R$ 12 milhões em reconhecimentos salariais. Tecnologia a serviço das pessoas a inovação também tem desempenhado papel importante na evolução da experiência dos colaboradores.
Atualmente, o Sicredi conta com mais de 300 modelos de Inteligência Artificial em produção e cerca de 26 mil colaboradores utilizam diariamente ferramentas de IA para apoiar suas atividades profissionais. As aplicações apoiam processos relacionados à análise de clima organizacional, gestão de talentos, aprendizagem, automação operacional e tomada de decisão.
Na área de Pessoas e Cultura, a tecnologia auxilia na leitura de grandes volumes de dados, acelerando a identificação de tendências e oportunidades de melhoria para a experiência dos colaboradores.
“Acreditamos que a tecnologia deve estar a serviço das pessoas. O maior valor da Inteligência Artificial está em ampliar capacidades, apoiar decisões e liberar tempo para aquilo que é essencialmente humano: o desenvolvimento, a escuta e o cuidado com as pessoas”, destaca Daniele Schmidt. Saúde integral e ambiente inclusivo.
O Sicredi também mantém uma estratégia estruturada de saúde e bem-estar, contemplando iniciativas voltadas à saúde física, emocional, social e financeira. Entre elas estão serviços de telemedicina, apoio psicológico, terapia continuada e programas especializados de suporte ao colaborador.
A construção de um ambiente mais inclusivo também integra a estratégia de gestão de pessoas da instituição. Atualmente, as mulheres representam 60% do quadro funcional e ocupam 47% das posições de liderança, demonstrando avanços consistentes na ampliação da representatividade em diferentes níveis da organização.
O Sicredi mantém iniciativas voltadas à diversidade, inclusão e equidade, incluindo programas de aceleração feminina, ações afirmativas e estruturas de governança dedicadas ao tema. Segundo a pesquisa certificada pelo GPTW, 92% dos colaboradores afirmam que as ações de diversidade e inclusão são evidentes e aplicadas na prática.
Entre as iniciativas de destaque está o Comitê Mulher, que atua no desenvolvimento de lideranças femininas e no fortalecimento do protagonismo das mulheres nas cooperativas e nas comunidades. Somente em 2025, o programa reuniu 5,3 mil participantes e contribuiu para a eleição de 85 integrantes dos conselhos de administração e fiscais das cooperativas.
The post Sicredi é a Melhor Empresa para Trabalhar no Brasil pelo terceiro ano consecutivo appeared first on Diário da Manhã - O Jornal do leitor Inteligente.
Na Galeria de Arte do Convento do Espírito Santo, em Loulé, vai estar patente a exposição intitulada “Presenças“, da artista belga Véronique Sabban, sob curadoria de João Serrão.
A exposição presente de 10 de outubro a 21 de novembro em Loulé, marca a estreia da artista fora da Bélgica e reúne um arco temporal de três décadas de produção (1996–2026), focado na sua contínua e obsessiva investigação em torno do rosto humano.
Entre a pintura e a escultura, a mostra contrapõe o gesto visceral e fluido da pincelada sobre a tela ao processo físico e tátil de peças tridimensionais. Afastando-se da representação figurativa convencional, a artista toma o rosto como um território infinito, em que a matéria e a mancha dão corpo à interioridade e à vulnerabilidade da condição humana.
A exposição será inaugurada esta sexta-feira, 9 de outubro, às 18:00 hrs, e pode ser visitada das 10:00 às 13:30 hrs e das 14:30 às 18:00 hrs.
A entrada é livre.
O artista plástico Juarez Machado morreu nesta terça-feira (6), aos 85 anos, em Vassouras, no interior do Rio de Janeiro. Ele estava internado desde 29 de setembro para tratar uma pneumonia e sofreu uma parada cardíaca. A informação foi confirmada pelo Instituto Internacional Juarez Machado (IIJM), criado pelo artista em Joinville, sua cidade natal. Machado deixa três filhos.
A Prefeitura de Joinville decretou luto oficial de três dias pela morte do artista. O instituto que leva seu nome permanecerá fechado entre esta quarta-feira (7) e sexta-feira (9).
Nascido em 16 de março de 1941, em Joinville, Juarez Machado construiu uma trajetória que ultrapassou seis décadas e transitou por diferentes linguagens. Pintura, escultura, desenho, caricatura, fotografia e cenografia fizeram parte de sua produção. Ele também atuou como escritor e ator.
A formação artística começou ainda no Sul do país. Machado estudou na Faculdade de Belas Artes de Curitiba e, no início da carreira, trabalhou como cenógrafo na TV Paraná. Em 1962, recebeu o prêmio de melhor escultor do Estado. Dois anos depois, realizou sua primeira exposição individual, na Galeria Cocaco, em Curitiba.
Foi no Rio de Janeiro que sua carreira ganhou novas dimensões. O artista passou a colaborar com importantes veículos de imprensa, entre eles as revistas O Cruzeiro e O Pasquim e o Jornal do Brasil. Nesse período, aproximou-se de alguns dos principais nomes do humor e da imprensa brasileira, como Ziraldo, Jaguar e Millôr Fernandes.
A televisão também teve papel importante em sua trajetória. Em 1973, Juarez Machado passou a integrar a equipe de criação do Fantástico, da TV Globo. No ano seguinte, ganhou espaço no programa com uma apresentação baseada em mímica e interação com os próprios desenhos. Com o rosto pintado de branco, o artista criava uma espécie de diálogo silencioso entre seu corpo e as imagens.
Machado também se destacou na literatura visual. Em 1975, lançou “Ida e Volta”, obra construída exclusivamente com ilustrações e considerada pioneira no desenvolvimento do livro-imagem no Brasil. A publicação consolidou uma característica que acompanharia sua produção: a capacidade de contar histórias sem depender do texto.
Em 1986, Juarez Machado se mudou para Paris e instalou um ateliê em Montmartre, tradicional bairro associado à produção artística francesa. A mudança ampliou sua presença no circuito internacional e marcou uma nova fase de sua carreira.
Seu trabalho também chegou ao cinema. O cineasta francês Jean-Pierre Jeunet conheceu suas pinturas durante uma exposição em Paris e utilizou referências cromáticas do artista na concepção de “O Fabuloso Destino de Amélie Poulain”, lançado em 2001. Duas obras de Machado aparecem na decoração do quarto da personagem principal.
Mesmo com a projeção internacional, Joinville permaneceu como um dos principais pontos de ligação do artista com o Brasil. Entre suas obras na cidade está o mural cerâmico “O Grande Circo”, instalado na entrada do Centreventos Cau Hansen. A composição ocupa 90 metros quadrados e reúne 963 peças pintadas à mão. A obra foi inaugurada em 1998.
Anos depois, Machado criou um espaço dedicado à preservação e à divulgação da produção artística. Em 2014, instalou o Instituto Internacional Juarez Machado no terreno onde ficava a antiga casa de seus pais. O local passou a reunir obras e atividades voltadas à difusão da arte na região.
Com uma obra marcada pela mistura entre humor, desenho, movimento e narrativa visual, Juarez Machado construiu uma trajetória que atravessou fronteiras e diferentes campos da cultura brasileira. Sua produção deixou registros não apenas em museus e galerias, mas também na televisão, na imprensa, na literatura e no cinema.
The post Morre aos 85 anos o artista Juarez Machado, referência brasileira nas artes appeared first on Diário da Manhã - O Jornal do leitor Inteligente.
The US Air Force’s next strategic bomber, the B-21 Raider, is moving from flight test to the flight line, and the industrial base is expanding to match that pace. As part of this effort, the Department of the Air Force and the manufacturer broke ground on a new bomber final assembly line at Plant 42 in Palmdale, California.
“It’s more than construction… we’re moving fast to build B-21s! The Department of the Air Force & @northropgrumman have broken ground in Palmdale, CA, on over 1M sq ft of new facilities that will be the final assembly line at Air Force Plant 42,” Secretary of the Air Force Dr. Troy E. Meink recently wrote in a post on X.
The B-21 Raider is the USAF’s next-generation nuclear- and conventional-capable, long-range penetrating bomber optimized for highly contested environments.
The new assembly line likely supports an agreement signed in February 2026 to increase annual B-21 production capacity by 25% using $4.5 billion in funding from the fiscal year 2025 reconciliation legislation.
Separately, Northrop Grumman is investing approximately $2.5 billion of its own capital over several years in related facilities and capacity. In September 2026, the company also opened the East Gate 3 manufacturing campus in Layton, Utah, to produce key B-21 components.
The construction of an all-new assembly line shows that expansion at the B-21’s production facility has moved from planning and funding to active construction.
This expansion is meant to give the service extra manufacturing capacity as the B-21 advances through flight testing and into initial operational deliveries.
The USAF plans to buy at least 100 B-21 bombers to replace the B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit and eventually complement the B-52 Stratofortress.
The B-21 Raider program remains in low-rate initial production, meaning Northrop Grumman is building a small number of aircraft to test and refine the production process before full-rate production begins.
At the same time, senior officials have said the Air Force may need more than the current minimum of 100.
In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he believed “a lot more” B-21s were needed. Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo had earlier said he would favor a fleet of 200 for nuclear deterrence and penetrating strike.
A Mitchell Institute report has likewise argued that 100 is a raid force, not a campaign force. None of those comments changes the program of record, and the Palmdale construction is tied to the February capacity agreement, not to an approved increase in the buy.
Furthermore, a report by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies said the USAF’s current plans to purchase “at least” 100 B-21s match one-time operations into hostile airspace but are insufficient to maintain pressure in a larger conflict because they are “a raid force, not a campaign force.”
Meanwhile, the USAF has said the sixth-generation bomber—which currently has no analogs in the world—is “close” to entering service. In fact, it is expected to reach Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota, one of the three bases selected to host the Raider, in 2027.
This bomber project has moved at a breakneck pace, going from the official public unveiling in December 2022 to the maiden flight in November 2023. In fact, an operational test pilot flew alongside a developmental test pilot, sharing the B-21 cockpit for the first time in June this year, underscoring the urgency of fielding the bomber.
The B-21 Raider’s rapid path from first flight to operational ramp at Ellsworth AFB in 2027 marks a striking acceleration in how the US fields a complex new strategic bomber.
Observers have lauded the speed, remarking that it has been unusually compressed for a program of this scale and sensitivity. This speed, however, was made possible because of a more fundamental shift: the B-21 was built virtually before it was ever built in metal.
For decades, major US defense programs followed the process, but aspirational designs fell behind schedule and prototypes revealed problems missed earlier, delaying programs and driving up costs. Northrop claims to be breaking away from this pattern.
Northrop states that it built the B-21 virtually first, using an extensive digital ecosystem and high-fidelity digital twins long before cutting metal. Succinctly put, unlike previous bombers that were primarily analog and later adapted for the digital era, the B-21 was built to function, endure, and evolve in the contemporary environment.
Developing and producing combat aircraft previously involved designing, building a prototype, testing it, discovering problems, and redesigning. However, Northrop essentially inverted this sequence, using a constantly changing digital model for the Raider.
This gave engineers, manufacturers, and operators a common reference point, enabling them to evaluate and implement design changes almost instantly.
This method enabled engineers to model aerodynamic performance, stealth features, structural loads, and systems integration long before components entered production.
This meant that design modifications that once required expensive rework could be assessed and verified virtually, often in a few hours rather than months.
The team simulated and refined structural loads, stealth characteristics, flight dynamics, and systems integration in the virtual environment before committing to physical hardware.
As a result, the physical aircraft that emerged from this approach matched or even outperformed the models’ predictions, according to the manufacturer.
This, in turn, has allowed the program to compress testing timelines, accelerate production, and keep costs under tighter control.
Unsurprisingly, the result was an unusually mature aircraft when the first Raider took flight. Northrop earlier said, “Before the B-21 ever took to the sky, the flying test bed completed more than 200 test sorties totaling more than 1,000 flight hours, testing production hardware, software, and sensors in a dynamic environment and enabling teams to tackle discovery well in advance.”
The speed with which B-21 moved from production to testing and into an operational setting at a USAF airbase was best demonstrated by the approach the manufacturer and the Air Force took during flight testing. A major 180-day test cycle was reportedly completed in just 73 days, as revealed in May 2026.
Officials have even stated that the program is exceeding expectations, as test aircraft are achieving high “code one” rates, which is the rate at which the aircraft is ready to fly again with minimal issues
The Combined Test Force achieved half the originally planned missions in less than half the planned time, while supporting significant contract value.
This compression was not the product of rushed flying, and reflected fewer surprises, higher aircraft availability, real-time data analysis, and the ability to clear multiple test points on single sorties.
The advantage of building the aircraft digitally has reportedly extended to the production lines. “Where the digital environment meets the production floor, this digital technology expedites configuration management, facilitating communication between technicians and engineers during the build, in some areas already reducing manufacturing hours by roughly a third,” according to the Northrop Grumman newsroom.
Nonetheless, the B-21 is not without risk, though experts think careful digital engineering, precise digital twins, and a conscious move away from sequential physical prototypes can break the long-standing pattern of delays.
The post B-21 Raider: Northrop, US Air Force Break Ground on New Palmdale Line. Flight Test Runs Ahead of Schedule appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.
Why did the machines suffer a kind of breakdown, if they had been rigorously tested?
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
The counting of votes in the first round of Brazil’s general elections was the subject of great controversy. Flávio Bolsonaro, son of former president Jair Bolsonaro, was ahead of Lula in the official count, with 49.6%, against 42.2% for the president seeking re-election.
64.8% of the polling stations had been tallied up to that point. But the count was halted for more than an hour. Strangely, the votes for governor, senator and deputies continued to be counted normally. Only the presidential count was halted.
And, even more strangely, when the presidential count resumed, Flávio Bolsonaro’s upward trend and Lula’s downward trend were reversed. The opposition candidate’s votes plummeted, while those of the current president rose. Flávio Bolsonaro was less than 0.5% away from the victory that would hand him the presidential sash. He lost more than 2%, ending with 47.03%, while Lula gained almost 3%, ending with 45.16%.
It seemed that Flávio Bolsonaro would dethrone Lula right in the first round. But, after more than an hour of halted counting, Lula managed to recover and the race will only be decided in the second round.
The count was halted at 7:06 p.m. (Brasília time), with 64.8% of the ballots tallied. Only at 8:08 p.m. were the new results presented, already with 84.96% of the ballots tallied.
The official justification was given by the president of the Superior Electoral Court (TSE), Kassio Nunes Marques, who is also a justice on the Supreme Federal Court (STF). “What happened was a data congestion. In every election, we are surprised by some incident, which is natural for those who deal with complex and highly varied systems,” he said. “At first, it is not known whether this was derived from another problem. What our IT found was a flow [of data] above the normal level, and that congestion caused a delay,” he added.
There is an aggressive propaganda campaign in Brazil, spearheaded by the Electoral Justice, to convince citizens that elections are 100% clean. The main focus of this propaganda is precisely the electronic voting machines. Judicial institutions and media outlets give wide dissemination to the Electoral Justice’s claims about the total reliability of the electronic voting machines, even highlighting that they are tested before the election and then sealed so that no one can access them.
So why did the machines suffer a kind of breakdown, if they had been rigorously tested? Well, the oh-so-wise TSE has full knowledge of the number of eligible voters and of the number of votes that can be recorded in the machines, including in each polling station. The Electoral Justice’s propaganda tells the public that the machines are fully prepared in advance to record and tally voters’ votes perfectly.
No flow of data “above the normal level” that would lead to system congestion should occur, because the most varied data and statistics regarding vote recording are known and the calculations are perfectly feasible. The infallibility of the electronic voting machines requires that all possible outcomes be predictable and that, therefore, there be no anomaly whatsoever.
So how is it possible, then, that such a perfect system – as it is portrayed by the institutions of the Brazilian State – suffers a failure which, once supposedly resolved, so radically changed the trend of the presidential votes?
It may be a coincidence that Flávio Bolsonaro plummeted and Lula rose after the voting machines failed. But who knows? The TSE president acknowledged that the electronic voting system is “complex.” Only highly qualified specialists, from the TSE itself and from technology companies, can access it and understand it, according to the Electoral Justice. Thus, the fate of an entire country for the next four years rests in the hands of these specialists – 150 technicians unknown to the public. The tally of votes from the machines is fully automated; it passes through no human being. An even more select number of 22 employees access the automated vote totalization.
This means that 214 million Brazilians need to trust those 150 or 22 Egyptian priests to interpret that occult science. They must be the most enlightened beings on planet Earth – 100% honest, upright, immaculate and virginal. Even the STF justices, who over the past 15 years have been presented as impeccable, virtuous and chaste individuals, now appear embroiled in the biggest corruption scandal in Brazil’s recent history, yet those anonymous specialists deserve citizens’ most absolute trust.
It was for reasons such as these that the Supreme Court of Germany declared electronic voting unconstitutional: “every citizen must be able to understand and verify the central stages of elections in a reliable manner and without any prior specialized technical knowledge.”
The verdict, dated 2009, concludes:
“An electoral procedure in which the voter cannot reliably understand whether his or her vote was recorded in an unfalsifiable manner and included in the tally of the election result, and how the total of votes cast is assigned and counted, excludes central elements of the electoral procedure from public scrutiny and therefore fails to meet constitutional requirements.”
The Brazilian judicial system is mired in its greatest crisis in history and is living through a true Wild West, with partisan feuds interfering in the functioning of its work. Partisanship, in fact, has contaminated most of the judiciary, including the TSE. In the final stretch of these elections, decisions by the Electoral Justice, backed by the dominant wing of the STF, favored Lula.
It is evident that this dominant wing (represented by justices Alexandre de Moraes, Gilmar Mendes and Flávio Dino) does not want a victory of Bolsonarismo, for it is their declared political enemy. These justices have acted, in recent years, as true vigilantes against Bolsonarismo. Now that they themselves have been caught in extremely promiscuous dealings with a banker who corrupted countless high-ranking state officials, their bureaucratic careers are threatened. Lula’s continuity is a hope of salvation for these gentlemen, for the president is beholden to them and cannot break that commitment without risking his own neck, given the level of dependence Lula has contracted toward the STF’s top brass. Meanwhile, a Flávio Bolsonaro victory would tend to lead to a clash with the heads of these institutions – although the opposition candidate himself has shown little willingness to confront them, because those who control elections in Brazil (international financial capital) demand moderation and pacification, otherwise they will make life difficult for anyone elected president.
And the people are treated like cattle, victims of a system they cannot understand, so that their exploitation may be perpetuated through the staging of the “festival of democracy.”
Europe’s energy crisis isn’t over.
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Europe’s energy crisis isn’t over. Gas prices remain stubbornly high across the continent as Europeans confront a long winter.
In response to an energy crisis stemming from Europe’s continued reliance on imported liquefied natural gas against the backdrop of ongoing global geopolitical volatility, Europe’s leaders are pushing to diversify the bloc’s energy mix. While this means that Europe is rapidly expanding its renewable energy capacity, it also marks a significant return to the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel – coal.
Earlier this year, when the United States and Israel began an offensive in Iran and thereby instigated the disruption of one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas trades, Europe awakened to realize that it had sleepwalked into yet another energy crisis – its third in just four years. “We swore we’d learn. We promised things would change, but here we are,” a ‘highly frustrated European diplomat’ was recently (anonymously) quoted by the BBC.
“Instead of concentrating on much-needed long-term plans – about how to make Europe more competitive in this increasingly volatile world, [European] prime ministers and presidents are now in a panic over [energy] prices, worried about angry voters and scrambling for short-term solutions,” the source continued. “Just like the crisis after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Different conflict. Same European divisions; same dilemmas over energy. We can’t keep going round in these circles. Something’s got to give.”
Now, half a year after the outbreak of the war in Iran and the initial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Europe is still grappling with the fallout as gas prices remain brutally high. Just this month, gas prices hit their highest mark in three years, soaring above €80 ($90.98) per megawatt hour.
Prices are so high, in fact, that coal-fired power has become cheaper than gas-fired power in Europe for the first time in years. This has pushed many European nations, and especially the European Union’s largest economy, Germany, back to coal. And, worryingly, experts contend that that trend will continue for years to come.
“Coal is expected to remain cheaper than gas for power generation through next year and potentially until March 2028,” Reuters reported earlier this week, based on a conversation with Marta Wroniszewska, an analyst at Veyt. “Longer-dated gas prices indicate traders expect supply constraints to persist.”
However, there are notable limits to coal’s growth potential in Europe. Years of policy aimed at phasing down and phasing out coal have left the continent with dramatically fewer coal-fired power plants than it had previously. In 1990, the European Union derived more than a third of its electricity production from coal. By 2025, that share had fallen to just 9.2 percent, according to data from Eurostat. So while Europe’s remaining coal plants will receive a windfall from the current gas prices, there is a ceiling to coal’s potential rebound in the region.
Outside of Europe, however, it’s a different story. Globally, coal is still the single-biggest source of power production. And while Europe is shutting down its coal-fired capacity, many emerging economies are continuing to build theirs up, with particularly strong growth from the Philippines, Indonesia, and other rapidly developing countries across Asia. Not coincidentally, this was also the region hit hardest by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
While coal is cheap, abundant, and seen as a critical tool for enabling economic development in poor countries, the continuously extending timeline of coal’s reign presents trade-offs that far outweigh the benefits. Coal is the single largest driver of global warming, responsible for about 40 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. However, it’s not all bad news – coal’s comeback is happening in tandem with a major global increase in clean energy resources. Increasingly, renewable energies are being adopted for their role in a more energy-secure future, and are seen as a critical buffer against the next global energy crisis.
Unlike natural gas, oil, and coal, “Wind and solar cannot be embargoed, blockaded, or shut off by a foreign power,” David Frykman, General Partner at Stockholm-based venture capital group Norrsken, wrote in an op-ed for Fortune earlier this year. “Every terawatt-hour of domestic renewable generation is a terawatt-hour that no adversary can weaponize.”
Washington has sent two contradictory signals on Taiwan in the last few days. Whether these signals reflect strategic ambiguity or strategic confusion in the coming days has become a matter of debate among the strategic experts.
On the one hand, Trump is holding back a $14 billion arms package for Taiwan, pre-approved by the U.S. Congress, despite a bipartisan group of senators explicitly urging him to “formally notify . But the U.S. President has described his decision to pause as a “very good negotiating chip” for his talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Whether that worked in his summit meeting with Xi last week in Washington is not known. But Taiwan’s Defense Minister Wellington Koo confirmed yesterday (October 6) that he has “not heard” of any new sale being cleared, even in smaller chunks.
On the other hand, the Pentagon is seemingly doing the opposite of this pause.
According to reports, the U.S. Department of Defense will station two representatives on a long-term basis inside Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense headquarters in Taipei from 2026 to 2028.
One official will come from the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy [OUSD-Policy] — the office that writes U.S. national security and defense strategy. The second will come from the Institute for Defense Analyses [IDA] — a federally funded think tank that does mathematical modeling for war games and combat capability assessment.
The program is called the “Taiwan-US Defense Ministry Joint Cooperation Assessment,” with a total budget of NT$471 million [$14.8 million], including NT$152.5 million this year for personnel, consultancy, travel, data collection, and even interpretation for classified-level meetings.
If confirmed, this will be unprecedented.
This would mark the first time U.S. defense officials are permanently embedded inside Taiwan’s military headquarters, shifting cooperation away from traditional channels managed through the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), Washington’s de facto embassy.
The military relationship between the United States and Taiwan is highly integrated yet formally unofficial. It is governed by the legal framework of the “U.S. Taiwan Relations Act” (TRA), which Congress passed on April 10, 1979.
Congress enacted it immediately after the U.S. formally terminated its previous “Mutual Defense Treaty with the Republic of China (Taiwan)” to officially recognize “the People’s Republic of China (PRC)” in Beijing.
Rather than abandoning Taiwan, Congress designed the TRA as a legal framework to ensure that “robust, unofficial security, commercial, and cultural ties” continue uninterrupted.
In short, the TRA provides a domestic legal workaround for treating Taiwan as a country without formal diplomatic recognition. However, under it, the U.S. is also obligated to maintain Taiwan’s capacity to resist force or coercion in general and the forcible annexation by the PRC in particular.
Over the years, U.S. personnel have served in Taiwan as trainers and advisers. Hundreds of active-duty U.S. military advisors—often colloquially referred to locally as “English teachers” to maintain a low profile—are routinely deployed across Taiwan.
U.S. military observers are present within Taiwan’s annual “Han Kuang live-fire military exercises”. They actively guide Taiwan’s defense strategy toward decentralized command, logistics, and real-world combat readiness.
Taiwanese fighter pilots undergo advanced combat training at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.
The US remains Taiwan’s primary foreign weapons supplier, with a total backlog of orders nearing $20 billion.
In fact, Taiwan received its first new batch of two advanced Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 fighter jets on October 2. This was part of an $8 billion deal approved in 2019 for 66 new-build F-16 Block 70 jets, with the remaining 64 aircraft scheduled for future delivery. out of a 66-aircraft fleet on order.
However, all these coordination efforts between Washington and Taipei are usually routed through the AIT intermediary, as the U.S. adheres to its One China” policy. In that sense, the new proposal to station Pentagon personnel directly inside the Taiwanese Defense Ministry represents a shift from this historical status quo.
The new arrangement puts Americans directly into the core of Taiwan’s defense policymaking, including policy coordination, Han Kuang exercise planning, asymmetric warfare doctrine, and major weapons procurement evaluations, it is said.
Of course, the U.S. routinely sends military and civilian defense officials to work directly inside the defense ministries of partner and allied nations. Established by the Pentagon in 2009, the Ministry of Defense Advisors (MODA) Program specifically trains and deploys high-performing senior U.S. Department of Defense civilians.
These advisors are embedded in partner-nation defense ministries to support institutional capacity building, strategy, financial management, and logistics.
The U.S. also actively deploys specialized defense consultants directly to the defense ministries of nations looking to transition away from historical adversaries such as Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia, and various Balkan nations looking to exit Moscow’s orbit.
The U.S. has a long history of embedding liaison officers in allied countries. For example, it has a Joint Political-Military Group in Israel that embeds officers in missile-defense cooperation for Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and now Iron Beam. But American officials do not operate inside the Kirya (Israel’s defense headquarters).
Similarly, despite 54,000 US personnel stationed in Japan, no U.S. officer sits inside Japan’s Ministry of Defense to assess combat capability.
Perhaps in NATO countries and South Korea, U.S. military officials are believed to sit together often.
There are also “Offices of Defense Cooperation” (ODC), or United States Military Groups, which are technically attached to the local U.S. Embassy for diplomatic protection. These teams provide security assistance and work in routine, day-to-day coordination with host ministry personnel.
However, what makes the proposed U.S. officials sitting directly within Taiwan’s military headquarters unique is that Taiwan is not an ally of America in the strict sense, as the U.S. lacks formal diplomatic recognition of Taiwan, and these officials will bypass the traditional AIT.
Of course, multiple reports in recent years have claimed that U.S. special forces are permanently stationed in Taiwan to assist its 101st Amphibious Reconnaissance Battalion special operations force, though Washington has officially denied it. The same has been the case with the speculations about the coming and going of U.S. military personnel from the Army Special Operations Command base in Taoyuan.
At the time of writing, Beijing had not issued an official reaction, possibly because Taiwanese media outlets only recently brought details of this long-term Pentagon deployment to light. It has not been declared officially.
But it goes without saying that Beijing would be “certain to protest” and could respond “with expanded exercises and intimidation”, according to Zivon Wang, a military analyst at the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies in Taipei.
He expects U.S. personnel not to wear uniforms at the Ministry of National Defense because it could be interpreted as a more formalized US-Taiwan military relationship and might further provoke Beijing.
Incidentally, China has made more air and naval incursions across the median line in the Taiwan Strait since 2022. Although Chinese military aircraft had occasionally crossed the median line (established informally in 1954) in the past, the practice became significantly more frequent from 2022, particularly after Nancy Pelosi (then Speaker of the House of Representatives) visited Taiwan in August that year. What had once been an informal but largely respected buffer increasingly became a zone of routine Chinese military activity.
Therefore, it remains to be seen whether China will respond to the Pentagon’s proposed deployment with loud exercises.
It may also remain silent, as nothing is official yet and Trump has his “negotiating chip” of holding back Taiwan’s military package.
Trump’s admirers often see his unpredictability as useful in negotiations with an adversary, because the other side cannot be sure how far he is willing to go.
But his critics argue that his unpredictability becomes counterproductive when allies cannot distinguish a negotiating threat from a real change in American policy.
It remains to be seen who will prove to be right in the case of Taiwan.
The post Trump’s Big Taiwan Move: Despite $14B Arms Freeze, Permanent U.S. Military Officials May Sit at MND appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.
Lula has failed to meet the demands of the people and is now facing the consequences.
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The first round of Brazil’s presidential election ended with candidate Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) ahead of Lula da Silva (PT), 47% to 45%. In the parliamentary elections, the PT and the left suffered overwhelming defeats across the country, indicating growing rejection of the left among ordinary Brazilians. Now, with only a few weeks remaining before the final decision on who will govern the country from next year onward, the question remains open: what factors will voters take into consideration when choosing the president?
The Lula government has taken several measures considered “desperate” attempts to reverse its popularity crisis and regain support in the final stretch of the election. Expanding social programs is one such measure, but its political effectiveness is becoming increasingly questionable. After decades of income redistribution under PT governments, without this producing any real transformation in the situation of working people, public perceptions of these policies have become increasingly negative.
Lula’s central problem is that a significant portion of the electorate appears less interested in new palliative measures and more concerned with problems that remain present in their daily lives. Public security, employment, income, inflation, and the quality of public services have a much more direct impact on the population than the major debates promoted by the government.
Security is perhaps the clearest example. The expansion of criminal organizations, the territorial growth of organized crime, and the perception of impunity have made violence one of the country’s main concerns. For millions of Brazilians, this is no longer an abstract discussion about security policy. It is a daily reality that determines where people can live, work, travel, and even open a business – particularly in major urban centers such as Rio de Janeiro, where organized crime is estimated to control between 60% and 70% of the city’s total territory.
In this context, proposals associated with the progressive cultural agenda may also carry significant electoral costs for the left. Brazilian debates over gender, identity, education, and minority rights have increasingly reproduced political conflicts originating in the United States and Europe. A considerable portion of the population, however, does not identify with this agenda and believes that the state should concentrate its efforts on more urgent material problems.
This helps explain why the runoff will likely be determined much more by domestic issues than by foreign policy – which is the aspect of the Lula government most frequently praised by the international expert community. BRICS, Palestine, or Brazil’s position toward the United States may mobilize politically engaged sectors of society, but they are unlikely to constitute the main concerns of the average voter when deciding how to vote.
Foreign policy has strategic importance for the Brazilian state. Ordinary citizens, however, tend to evaluate it through its concrete effects on their own lives. A foreign policy regarded as successful will not, by itself, compensate for perceptions of insecurity, unemployment, or deterioration in public services. As the Lula government avoids directly confronting the problem of organized crime, support may naturally grow for a right-wing camp that welcomes the United States’ designation of Brazilian criminal factions as terrorist organizations.
The same applies to the aforementioned income-transfer programs. Such mechanisms may have an important social function in a country marked by profound inequalities, but their use as the principal instrument of social policy has serious limitations. Transferring income can alleviate poverty, but it does not automatically create skilled employment, increase productivity, or rebuild national industry. Instead, it can contribute to the emergence of a large precarious population dependent on government assistance. When welfare becomes a permanent substitute for development policies, the structural problem remains.
This is precisely where the electoral dispute enters a decisive phase. Voters will have to choose between different proposals for addressing problems that have not disappeared in recent years. The ability to present convincing answers on security, employment, income, and social order may carry greater weight than speeches about major geopolitical projects.
The first-round result also demonstrates that Brazil’s right was able to transform domestic discontent into electoral strength. Flávio Bolsonaro’s lead and the composition of the new Congress indicate significant demand for change. This does not mean that all these voters share the same views on the economy, foreign policy, or cultural issues. It means, above all, that dissatisfaction has become sufficiently broad to alter the country’s political balance.
In the remaining weeks of the campaign, therefore, the fundamental question will be whether the government can convince voters that its policies offer lasting solutions, or whether the perception will prevail that it has adopted temporary measures to manage problems that remain unresolved.
Talking about gender, human rights, or Palestine will definitely not help Lula secure reelection.
O Município de Olhão, em parceria com os Agrupamentos de Escolas do concelho e outras entidades parceiras, disponibiliza aos seus munícipes a oferta da Escola a Tempo Inteiro, procurando reforçar a articulação entre a escola, as famílias e a comunidade local e reconhecendo o papel fundamental desta resposta no desenvolvimento pessoal e social das crianças e dos alunos.
No âmbito desta parceria, a Associação Portuguesa para a Inovação e Empreendedorismo Social e Digital (AI9) disponibilizou os “Baús da Brincadeira” às escolas do Município de Olhão, tendo concluído, na passada sexta-feira, a sua entrega em todos os agrupamentos escolares do concelho. A última entrega decorreu na EB1 n.º 4, onde foram disponibilizados os baús destinados ao Agrupamento de Escolas Professor Paula Nogueira.
Cada escola tem agora quatro baús, que disponibilizam um conjunto diversificado de materiais para utilização pelas crianças durante os intervalos.
Os baús incluem materiais criteriosamente selecionados do ponto de vista pedagógico, como jogos de tabuleiro, bolas de diferentes tipos, cordas, arcos, jogos tradicionais e jogos de água, entre outros recursos que estimulam diferentes formas de brincadeira, movimento e interação.
Disponíveis durante os intervalos, estes materiais permitem que as crianças escolham livremente as atividades que querem realizar, explorando os recursos ao seu ritmo e de acordo com os seus interesses, num ambiente de brincadeira espontânea e com a necessária supervisão dos adultos.
Mais do que proporcionar atividades organizadas, a iniciativa pretende valorizar o brincar livre, dando espaço à imaginação, à criatividade, à autonomia e à interação entre pares. O recreio deve ser também um espaço de descoberta, onde as crianças possam experimentar, criar, partilhar e, acima de tudo, ser crianças.
Os “Baús da Brincadeira” constituem, assim, um importante contributo para a criação de recreios mais ativos, inclusivos e estimulantes, reforçando a importância do brincar no desenvolvimento e bem-estar das crianças.
A iniciativa evidencia ainda o valor da parceria entre o Município de Olhão e a AI9, contribuindo para a construção de ambientes educativos mais ricos, participativos e promotores do desenvolvimento integral das crianças.
O Nintendo 64 foi um marco dos anos 90, reunindo clássicos inesquecíveis que marcaram gerações. Títulos como Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time e GoldenEye 007 ainda são lembrados com carinho. Graças à emulação, hoje é possível reviver essa nostalgia no PC. Aplicativos como o Retrofy permitem jogar esses clássicos no computador. O Retrofy é o aplicativo oficial que reúne mais de 20.000 jogos e 40 consoles emulados, oferecendo acesso vitalício. Nesta retrospectiva, vamos destacar os melhores jogos de N64 e dar dicas práticas de gameplay, estratégias e curiosidades, além de explicar como aproveitar tudo isso via Retrofy sem precisar de hardware antigo.
Lançado em 1996, o N64 introduziu várias inovações técnicas: foi o primeiro console a trazer um analógico (thumbstick) no controle padrão e permitiu até quatro jogadores simultâneos. Com acessórios como o Rumble Pak e Expansion Pak, mostrava gráficos 3D avançados para a época. A máquina vendeu quase 33 milhões de unidades e ficou famosa por sua biblioteca de jogos de alta qualidade. Vários títulos do N64 estão frequentemente em listas dos melhores games de todos os tempos. Por exemplo, Super Mario 64 (11,6 milhões de cópias vendidas) foi eleito o melhor jogo do console, assim como Ocarina of Time e GoldenEye 007. Esses sucessos ajudaram o Nintendo 64 a ganhar o título de “Máquina do Ano” em 1996 pela revista Time. Nesta era de ouro, exploramos mundos tridimensionais e novos gêneros, o que tornou os jogos mais complexos e envolventes. Por isso, jogar esses clássicos é tão especial – e com o Retrofy você não precisa do console original: basta um PC para curtir.
Depois de lembrar desses clássicos, você deve estar pensando: como jogar tudo isso hoje? É aí que entra o Retrofy. O Retrofy é um serviço brasileiro que emula 40 consoles clássicos no PC, incluindo o Nintendo 64. Com um pagamento único você ganha acesso vitalício a mais de 20.000 jogos. No plano básico já estão incluídos os jogos do N64, sem assinaturas mensais. Basta baixar o aplicativo, instalar no Windows, e todos os jogos virão pré-configurados com os emuladores certos. O próprio site oficial diz: “Retrofy é o aplicativo oficial para jogar mais de 20.000 jogos e 40 consoles no PC, com acesso vitalício”.
Instalar é simples: após comprar, você faz o download do Retrofy e dos jogos desejados. O aplicativo faz o resto. Você nem precisa procurar ROMs na internet ou configurar emulador. Se tiver dúvidas, o Retrofy oferece suporte humano via WhatsApp para ajudar na instalação. Em suma, o Retrofy permite revisitar os melhores jogos do N64 sem complicação. Você aproveita as aventuras, corridas e batalhas mencionadas acima no seu PC. E como o acesso é vitalício, pode voltar a qualquer hora. Por exemplo, se quiser jogar Super Mario 64, basta abrir o Retrofy, selecionar o jogo e usar seu controle ou teclado preferido – tudo configurado de fábrica. Este artigo deu várias dicas práticas para cada jogo; com o Retrofy você pode colocá-las em ação agora mesmo.
Esperamos que essas dicas ajudem você a explorar cada cantinho desses clássicos. E você, qual seu jogo favorito do Nintendo 64? Já usou algum emulador ou o Retrofy para jogar no PC? Tem alguma estratégia secreta para compartilhar? Deixe sua opinião nos comentários abaixo e participe da discussão!
O que é o Retrofy? É um aplicativo de emulação brasileiro que reúne milhares de jogos clássicos de dezenas de consoles em um único lugar. Com ele, você paga apenas uma vez e ganha acesso vitalício aos títulos, sem precisar comprar cada jogo ou console original.
Preciso ter um PC potente para emular o N64? Não necessariamente. Como o N64 é um console antigo, qualquer PC razoável roda esses jogos. O Retrofy vem com emuladores otimizados e configurações prontas. Basta instalar, escolher o jogo e jogar.
Como encontro os jogos do Nintendo 64 no Retrofy? No menu de consoles do Retrofy, selecione “Nintendo 64” (incluso no plano básico). A partir daí, verá a lista de jogos disponíveis. Basta clicar no título desejado para baixar e jogar.
Preciso instalar algo extra no console original? Não. Todo o processo é pelo PC. Você não precisa ter o N64 físico nem seus cartuchos. O Retrofy já vem com o emulador e os jogos, tudo pronto para uso.
O Retrofy é seguro e legal? Sim, o Retrofy é um serviço legítimo e conta com mais de uma década de comunidade por trás. Ele oferece garantia de 7 dias para reembolso completo caso você não fique satisfeito. Além disso, há suporte via WhatsApp para dúvidas técnicas, garantindo um uso tranquilo.
The post Os melhores jogos de Nintendo 64 appeared first on Diário da Manhã - O Jornal do leitor Inteligente.
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