US Inching Towards a Deal With Iran  - Donald Trump’s envoy leading the negotiations with Iran, Mr. Steve Witkoff, is behaving like an Olympic gymnastics gold medalist, performing an amazing series of verbal backflips. A week ago, he…

 The Strategic Case for Designating the Polisario Front as a Foreign Terrorist Organization

 NGA field testing new processor to speed imagery to US regional commands  - “COCOMs reported after these tests that J-REN and SlimGIMS not only met the capability gap, but also reduced the time to create a collection request from an hour to 5 minutes,” an NGA spokesperson told Breaking Defense.

+2 from  breakingdefense

 Earthquake Magnitude 4.3  - 20 km W of Beluga, Alaska 2025-04-19 07:18:56 (UTC) Pager Alert Level: Green MMI: IV (Light Shaking) 83.3 km

 US to reduce military footprint in Syria to fewer than 1,000 troops  - The departure would return force levels to where they had been for years, after the U.S. and its allies waged a multiyear campaign to defeat ISIS.

+1 from  militarytimes

 Serbian leader to attend Moscow Victory Day parade despite EU warnings  - President Aleksandar Vucic is undeterred by warnings from Brussels that a Moscow visit would amount to an endorsement of Russia's war against Ukraine.

 Bendable Solar Cells Smash Efficiency Records – And May Soon Outperform Rigid Panels  - A breakthrough by Chinese scientists has pushed flexible solar technology forward by solving a major design challenge: bonding smooth perovskite layers to rougher CIGS substrates. Their new technique uses smart solvent manipulation and a seeded layer to improve adhesion, efficiency, and durability. The...

 Everything is possible – unfortunately  - The situation in this world is becoming increasingly muddled and unpredictable. Trump has misjudged the Chinese, Putin is not backing down and Iran is too big a chunk for the Americans. In addition, there is historic instability in the financial markets.

+1 from  sonar21

 What Can the United States Do to Counter Growing Chinese and Russian Influence in Antarctica?  - CSIS Americas Program Senior Associate Bill Muntean lays out the implications of reduced U.S. funding for the Antarctic amid China-Russia collaboration in the South Pole.

 Australian thinktank warns of ‘less reliable’ America, high pricetag for AUKUS sub program  - “The spend, still seven years or so from the first Australian-flagged nuclear submarine, already has the submarine arm of the ADF on its way to becoming a fourth service: this newcomer is outpacing the Army, Air Force and surface Navy in its spending, complexity and risk,” the report’s summary notes....