WAR IN UKRAINE

What links matryoshka dolls, Belarusian nuns, French churches and Russian troops?

In recent years, visitors to French churches and cathedrals may have come across Belarusian nuns selling matryoshka dolls, religious icons and honey. They come from the Saint Elisabeth Convent in Minsk and present these sales as a means of funding their charitable work. However, the convent openly supports Russia’s war in Ukraine and has helped collect supplies for Russian soldiers.


Issued on: 01/10/2026 - RFI

Matryoshka dolls – commonly known as "Russian dolls" – are being sold by Belarusian nuns at French churches, with the funds supporting Russian troops. 

© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand / picture alliance / Getty Image

“The nuns at the convent look after orphaned children, who are usually abandoned because they have a physical or mental disability. The orphanage is home to 200 children. The sisters are involved in other social work – in particular, they look after the homeless, alcoholics and drug addicts at a shelter 30km from the convent," notes the announcement of a sale organised by the sisters of Saint Elisabeth Convent at the Sacred Heart parish in Val d’Or, central France, in July 2022.

In May 2023, the Diocese of Paris announced a similar "exhibition and sale" at the parish of Saint-Léon, featuring icons, handicrafts, honey and herbal teas. In May this year, the Belarusian nuns were selling their wares at the Celtic Orthodox Church in Saint-Dolay in Brittany.

During the summer, they ran a stall for several weeks in Les Sables-d’Olonne near Nantes on France's Atlantic coast – which was the subject of an investigation by the newspaper Ouest-France. Because since 2022, members of the convent have taken part in fundraising campaigns for the Russian army, financing vehicles and equipment.

Continent-wide network

Natallia Vassilevitch, a Belarusian theologian in exile, is the founder of the organisation Christian Vision – which has been documenting the monastery’s activities for several years.

She tells RFI the community carefully tailors its message to its audience. "On the Russian-language website, there are photos of children with automatic rifles. They know exactly who they’re addressing. They understand what can be said and what cannot be said."

She continued: "These contacts were first established [by the convent] in the late 1990s and early 2000s. [They] would simply load up a car a bit haphazardly, the nuns would set off, arrive at the parishes and say: 'Hello, we've come from Belarus, we do good work, we help children, can we sell our goods here?' At any Orthodox event, any religious festival, any Christmas market, wherever you go in Europe, the monastery sells its products."

According to Vassilevitch, over the years these nuns have built up a network across the continent. Between them, members of the convent speak several foreign languages and organisations linked to the community have been registered in Germany and Poland.

A 2024 investigation by the Belarusian media outlet Buro described Saint Elisabeth Convent as a veritable "Orthodox business conglomerate" around which several legal entities, dozens of retail outlets and numerous workshops are centred. Around 1,600 people are said to work in the various organisations linked to the monastery.

Vehicles and drones

Christian Vision's StopSEM project tracks fundraising campaigns for Russian military personnel and has gathered publications from the convent and its partner groups documenting examples.

Some of these fundraising operations are channelled through a group called Aid to the Brothers, coordinated by the convent's Sister Alexandra, whose secular name is Liudmila Liakhova.

In 2023, Christian Vision identified at least seven vehicles whose purchase had been financed in whole or in part with the help of the convent's network, and which were intended for the transport of military personnel and the evacuation of the wounded.

 Drones were also supplied.

When questioned about these purchases at the time by Vot Tak, an independent Russian-language media outlet operated by Poland's public broadcaster, Sister Alexandra confirmed that her group was assisting the military by purchasing requested equipment.

According to Vassilevitch, however, the convent's involvement goes beyond sending supplies. She reports that it is encouraging vulnerable men, notably former prisoners, to join the Russian army.

"They tell them these stories with great enthusiasm: 'look, our brother went off to fight, he died over there and became a hero', whereas he could have been a homeless alcoholic who died in a gutter."

A priest decorated by Putin

The convent's spiritual father, Archpriest Andrei Lemeshonok, has since 2022 made numerous statements justifying the Russian invasion. In May 2025, he declared that the convent itself was now "a combat unit".

On 4 November 2025, Lemeshonok was received at the Kremlin and presented by President Vladimir Putin with the Pushkin Medal – a Russian state honour awarded, according to a presidential decree, for his contribution to the preservation and promotion of the Russian language and culture abroad.

During the ceremony, Lemeshonok thanked the Russian president for "the hope" he had restored to the people, comparing his commitment to a journey towards Golgotha, the hill outside Jerusalem where the Christian gospels say Jesus Christ was crucified.

This ideological affinity was nothing new. During mass protests against Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko in 2020, Lemeshonok took a stand in favour of the Belarusian authorities. In January 2023, Lukashenko himself visited Saint Elisabeth, where he too publicly defended his support for Russians fighting in the war.

Question over visas

Despite this, representatives from the convent continue to make fundraising trips to France.

In Les Sables-d’Olonne, Father Antoine Nouwavi, head of the local parish, explained to Ouest-France that he had refused to welcome the nuns in 2023 and 2024 after discovering the allegations against their convent.

He finally agreed to their return after receiving a letter from the Mother Superior of Saint Elisabeth stating that reports of her support for the war were false and that the money raised in France was intended exclusively for charitable causes.

The priest acknowledged, however, that he did not have the means to verify the final destination of the funds raised.

Christian Vision says it has alerted church leaders in France to the group's activities. According to Vassilevitch, the number of communities willing to welcome the nuns has since fallen.

Other European countries have taken a stricter approach. In Sweden, the Church last year officially recommended that its parishes no longer host the nuns of Saint Elisabeth. Their stalls have also been banned or closed down in Poland, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. In Germany, a member of the Bundestag has called for an investigation into their activities.

Vassilevitch questions why countries continue to grant the nuns visas, given that it is currently difficult for Belarusians to obtain a permit to enter the Schengen zone.

"The question is, why? Why does no one check, when they cross the border, what they are carrying, or whether the use being made of these visas actually corresponds to the reason they were issued, given the various threats Europe is currently facing?"

When asked by RFI about the presence and activities in France of representatives from Saint Elisabeth Convent, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs replied that it had "no information to provide on this matter".

This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Anya Stroganova.

Will The Horn Of Africa Become The Latest Regional Battleground? – Analysis

October 3, 2026

By Arab News

By Gabriele Malvisi

Key Takeaways:

• Ethiopia closed its Asmara embassy and gave 10 Eritrean diplomats 48 hours to leave, citing hostility; Eritrea called the move absurd and severed ties, ending the 2018 thaw that helped Abiy Ahmed win the 2019 Nobel.
• The break followed explosions in Addis Ababa and fighting in the north with a TPLF-linked alliance; Ethiopia accuses Eritrea, Sudan, and Egypt of backing them (all deny it), while Sudan accuses Ethiopia of aiding the RSF. Analysts tie the split to sea access and Assab, not a proven Eritrean role in the latest clashes.
• The piece links the rupture to GERD, Sudan’s war, and a strained Red Sea, and warns a wider Ethiopia–Eritrea fight could become another front from the Chad–Sudan border to Hormuz—risk, not a declared regional war.

Ethiopia on Thursday closed its embassy in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, and ordered 10 Eritrean diplomats to leave within 48 hours.

Addis Ababa accused Eritrea of “direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence” that pose “a direct threat to Ethiopia’s national security.”

Eritrea’s response was swift. Its foreign ministry called the move “absurd” and said that it “has no option but to reciprocate in kind and sever all diplomatic ties,” warning of “all the negative corollaries that this entails.”

The rupture ends a cold peace that had been fraying for some time. Addis Ababa frames it as a hostile campaign involving Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt. Those countries dismiss the accusations as baseless and tied to Ethiopia’s internal wars and its quest for sea access.

The standoff sits at the intersection of the Nile dispute, Sudan’s civil war and an increasingly contested Red Sea. Together they create the potential for a new front in the Horn of Africa, with implications for Arab states.

The break came hours after powerful explosions were heard overnight in Addis Ababa, including near military headquarters. It also followed a week of fighting in the north between the army and a new alliance of armed groups, which includes forces from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, and allies across Tigray, Afar and Amhara.

Ethiopian Army Chief Field Marshal Birhanu Jula has accused Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt of supporting these forces. All three deny involvement. Sudan, in turn, accuses Ethiopia of backing forces hostile to Khartoum, which Addis Ababa denies.

It is a dramatic reversal from 2018, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed restored relations with Eritrea after two decades of hostility. The border reopened and separated families were reunited, with the rapprochement helping Abiy to earn the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.

The latest hostilities are the most serious since the Pretoria agreement ended the Tigray war in 2022, in which an estimated 600,000 people died.

There is so far no evidence of an Eritrean role in the latest fighting, though experts say that it is plausible. In a statement to the BBC before ties were severed, Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel denied involvement, accusing Ethiopia’s governing Prosperity Party of blaming neighbors to divert attention from its domestic problems.

The two countries were allies in the 2020-22 war, when Eritrean troops fought alongside federal forces against the TPLF. Relations have since deteriorated, chiefly over Ethiopia’s push for direct access to the Red Sea, which it lost when Eritrea became independent in 1993.

“The 2018 thaw rested on a shared adversary more than a shared agenda,” Lesley Anne Warner, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US State Department official, told Arab News. “Abiy and Isaias (Afwerki, president of Eritrea) normalized relations while both viewed the TPLF as a threat, and that logic held through the 2020 war, when Eritrean forces fought alongside the federal army.

“It unraveled when Pretoria excluded Eritrea from a settlement it had helped fight for, and Asmara concluded that peace in Tigray left it exposed. Red Sea access then turned a strained partnership into a strategic dispute.”

Abiy has repeatedly called sea access essential to Ethiopia’s long-term economic and security interests. He has not ruled out force, including the seizure of the Eritrean port of Assab.

“The Tigrayan offensive into Afar underscores, for the second time in under a decade, why Abiy treats sea access as existential,” Warner said. “Ethiopia’s trade runs through a single corridor to Djibouti, and that corridor crosses territory that armed actors can contest.”

Abiy has described the loss of Ethiopia’s coastline as a historical “mistake” that will be corrected. Warner said that rhetoric is widely understood in Asmara and elsewhere as aimed at Assab.

“Each time it is threatened, the case for diversifying access gets stronger,” she said, explaining that “that logic is layered on a longer grievance given the country’s’ shared history.”

For Mirette Mabrouk, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, access is a major demand for Abiy. “He has said repeatedly they want to have a navy and build up their naval capacity, which is kind of strange for a landlocked country,” she told Arab News.

More than 90 percent of Ethiopia’s imports and exports pass through Djibouti’s ports, at a cost of billions of dollars a year. Hence, Mabrouk said, “Eritreans are worried that (Addis Ababa) is going to try and invade their territory again.”

The Red Sea handles roughly 15 percent of global maritime commerce and nearly 30 percent of container traffic. It is already under strain after the renewal of Yemen’s civil war and the Houthis’ advance around Bab Al-Mandab, the chokepoint between the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa. That has renewed fears that conflicts on the two shores could converge.

Ethiopia has also escalated with Egypt, declaring at least one Egyptian diplomat persona non grata on Thursday and giving him 48 hours to leave. Addis Ababa accuses Cairo of backing its opponents or obstructing its Red Sea bid, and portrays Egypt as a “strategic spoiler” bent on keeping Ethiopia landlocked, linking the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam — or GERD — dispute directly to Red Sea politics.

Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia have been locked in a water-diplomacy battle for more than a decade over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a $5 billion project on the Blue Nile whose reservoir is roughly the size of Greater London. Ethiopia sees it as vital to its economic growth and energy sovereignty, while Egypt and Sudan view it as an existential threat to downstream flows and to Egypt’s annual Nile share of 55.5 billion cubic meters.

The dam was inaugurated in September 2025, yet the three countries still lack a binding agreement on filling and drought-release rules. Tensions rose further when Addis Ababa advanced plans for three more Blue Nile dams, Karadobi, Mandaya and Beko Abo, which Cairo says would threaten its survival if built without coordination.

Sudan’s leverage has waned during more than three years of civil war, and its army-led government under General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan now accuses Ethiopia of backing the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. It alleges that Addis Ababa facilitated weapons deliveries, hosted RSF training facilities and allowed strategic and kamikaze drones to be launched against Sudan.

Mabrouk was skeptical about the claims.

“There is no evidence whatsoever that Egypt is backing Ethiopian rebels,” she said. “I haven’t seen any proof that Sudan is either,” she added, citing a past Reuters investigation as the only suggestion that Addis Ababa had collaborated with the paramilitary force.

She stressed that these accusations were doing little more than “ratcheting up escalation.”

“This is how you get an escalation,” she said. “You have someone in authority coming out and mak(ing) a claim that is difficult to prove. But at the moment, one imagines that the point is not proof. The point is to provide an excuse for further escalation.”

Analysts see the flashpoints as distinct and the Tigray clashes as primarily a domestic conflict, but the number of external actors involved gives them a foreign-policy dimension.

“The longer clashes in northern Ethiopia persist, the more likely it is that we’ll see an escalating proxy contest layered over the domestic conflict,” Warner said. “Most concerning is the fact that the alignments that have fueled Sudan’s war for over three years will also shape, and perhaps join with this one,” she said.

For now the situation remains contained, but the risk is that an Ethiopia-Eritrea war would quickly intersect with the region’s other crises.

Mabrouk’s fear is that it would draw in regional actors with competing interests. “It is not simply the Horn. We now have a fairly entangled group of proxy rivalries here,” she said. “If it draws into conflict, then the situation is extremely serious.”

She also questioned Ethiopia’s timing.

“If you are going to come up against a country on your borders, Sudan, and when you already have issues with another country on your borders, Eritrea, and you are going to try and aggravate the largest military in the Middle East, that is Egypt, then you must feel that you have the appropriate backing.”

The risk, both agreed, is that the conflict could spread and further destabilize the Red Sea, complicating security around Bab Al-Mandab and the Suez Canal, disrupting shipping and driving large-scale displacement.

“Unless that dynamic is arrested,” Warner said, “the Horn will become a southern front in a Red Sea competition that runs from the Chad-Sudan border to the Strait of Hormuz.”

 

EU adds €130 million to drone funding in border security push

Copyright AP Photo/ Vadim Ghirda

By Luca Bertuzzi & Vincenzo Genovese

Published on 02/10/2026 - EURONEWS

The Commission is adding €130 million for drone technology as Brussels steps up border surveillance and prepares to strengthen Frontex’s role.

The EU is putting an additional €130 million into drone technology as part of a broader push to strengthen border security and counter hybrid threats.

The European Commission announced the funding at a meeting of justice and home affairs ministers in Luxembourg – their first in-person talks on migration and border controls since the Ceuta crisis erupted this summer.

"Another important topic today is how we work with new technologies, drones. That is important also for border protection, but also for protecting our critical infrastructure," European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said on Thursday.

In February, the Commission unveiled an action plan on drone and counter-drone security, including a €250 million call for national authorities to invest in land and maritime border surveillance.

The scheme covers up to 90% of project costs, including the purchase of drones and counter-drone systems, their integration into national surveillance networks and other technologies designed to counter hybrid threats.

"Due to the high demand actually and the excellent quality of many proposals in the member states, we will be topping up the initiative with another 130 million," Brunner said.

"I've just visited the counter-drone centre in Munich last week and saw how much progress our authorities throughout the whole Union are making," he added.

Brussels has separately made €170 million available to EU border agency Frontex and national authorities under the Border Management and Visa Instrument to buy uncrewed equipment for border surveillance.

The latest top-up brings EU investment in new border-surveillance technology to more than €500 million, reflecting the growing emphasis on security.

Greece, meanwhile, has proposed temporarily suspending the right to apply for asylum during emergencies involving mass arrivals of irregular migrants. Several member states, including Poland, Germany, Austria and Denmark, back the idea.

Brussels is also expected to strengthen Frontex's role, particularly in crisis management and in monitoring emerging hybrid threats online. The agency's mandate is up for review later this year.

EU leaders are set to discuss the bloc's approach to migration and border management at a European Council summit on 15-16 October.

Kushner, Key Trump Negotiator on Gaza, Owns Firm With Major Stake in Israeli Military

Kushner’s private equity company is the biggest shareholder in a Tel Aviv firm that invests heavily in arms makers.

By Sharon Zhang , 

Truthout

October 1, 2026

Jared Kushner speaks during a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President's Special Envoy Steve Witkoff in Kyiv, Ukraine, on September 6, 2026.Maxym Marusenko / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Jared Kushner’s private equity company reportedly has major stakes in companies that provide weapons to the Israeli military, as new reporting reveals the latest conflict of interest concerns with regard to Kushner’s role as a top Middle East negotiator for President Donald Trump, including on the Gaza genocide.

A CNN investigation published Thursday finds that Kushner’s company, Affinity Partners, holds the largest stake in a Tel Aviv-based firm called Phoenix Financial. The report, which analyzed just a fraction of Phoenix’s holdings, shows that the firm holds over $450 million across nine companies that provide weapons or equipment to the Israeli military.

The firm’s largest investment related to the Israeli military is in Elbit Systems, which is Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, with $265 million in holdings. Its next three biggest holdings in this realm are $68 million in Next Vision, which sells cameras for attack drones; $56 million in Bet Shemesh Engines, which makes engines for military aircraft; and $40 million in Reshef Technologies, which makes electronic fuzes for artillery shells that have been used in Gaza.

Its other investments include roughly millions of dollars in Boeing, which makes bombs and bomb kits used by Israel in Gaza, and Caterpillar, whose bulldozers are used by the Israeli military to raze civilian infrastructure in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“All nine companies identified by CNN saw their stock value climb last year, with many stating the war in Gaza had driven demand for their businesses,” the report found.

Affinity, which Kushner is the sole owner of, bought a 5 percent stake in Phoenix in 2024, as Israel’s genocide was reaching a high point. It then doubled its stake in the firm just before Trump was sworn into office in 2025, becoming Phoenix’s biggest shareholder.

“Investing in Phoenix in July 2024 was a decision rooted in my belief in Israel’s resiliency and the fundamentals of Phoenix’s business,” Kushner told Bloomberg at the time.

The report raises concerns about Kushner’s true motivations and conflicts of interest in his work conducting negotiations on Gaza and beyond. As a lead negotiator on Gaza, executive board member of Trump’s “Board of Peace,” and Trump’s son-in-law, Kushner has enormous influence over Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza, as well as the financial future of the enclave.

In January, Kushner unveiled his plan for “New Gaza” that contains a dystopic vision of a technocapitalist future for the area at the World Economic Forum. His presentation mentioned very little about life for Palestinians in Gaza, while touting the supposed opportunities for real estate investment and tourist development. The plan, as well as the Board of Peace’s latest plan unveiled on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly last week, is contingent on the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip — which could leave room for Israel to seize permanent security control over Gaza, as Israeli leaders have worked toward.



Kushner has brushed off the idea that conflicts of interest are a problem at all.

“What people call conflicts of interests, Steve and I call experience and trusted relationships,” he told “60 Minutes” in October 2025.

At the same time, Kushner has openly said that the political future of Gaza and Israel’s military — over which he has enormous influence — impacts his firm’s financial decisions. In September 2025, CNN notes, Kushner told the podcast “No Priors” that he believes that Arabs and Israelis “forget about everything else” when he guides them into talking about business opportunities.

“My investors from the Middle East are now looking at Israel, and they’re saying, ‘Wait a minute, maybe there’s a benefit to having these wars done,’” he said.

Kushner went on to discuss his interest in Phoenix in particular. “At the time we made the decision, we had very intense discussions in our investment committee because they said, ‘Look there’s about to be a war in the country,’ which is what we kind of thought was going to happen, and said, ‘How do we explain this to the investors if it goes wrong?’ And I said, ‘Well number one, it’s not a bad thing to have them more vested in the economy of Israel now.’”

Kushner is already facing congressional inquiries related to his financial entanglements in the Middle East as he conducts negotiations across the region. Affinity’s biggest clients are the sovereign wealth funds run by the Gulf states — the very governments that he negotiates with in his role for the White House.

The New York Times reported in March that Kushner spoke to government figures about raising $5 billion or more for Affinity Partners while he was conducting negotiations with Middle East leaders amid the early stages of the U.S.’s war on Iran.

“The degree of shamelessness is unprecedented,” Jeff Hauser, founder and executive director for Revolving Door Project, told Truthout earlier this year. “The degree of unity among elected Republicans to not speak about the Trump progeny, and their corruption, is the worst conspiracy of silence in American political history.”

Ex-Trump official flags disturbing aspect of Jared Kushner's 'volunteer' status

Bennito L. Kelty
October 1, 2026 
RAW STORY


Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham flagged Jared Kushner's 'volunteer' status (CNN/Screenshot)

A former Trump White House press secretary says Jared Kushner's "volunteer" role with the current administration lets him avoid disclosing how much money he makes.

During a Thursday interview with CNN anchor Erin Burnett, Stephanie Grisham made the claim following a CNN investigation into Kushner's financial ties to an Israeli company with stakes in firms that have seen business grow from the war in Gaza. According to CNN, Kushner's investment firm, Affinity Partners, is the largest shareholder in Phoenix Financial, which holds stakes worth more than $456 million in Israeli defense companies.

"None of this surprises me," Grisham said. "I recall back in our Trump administration, he had his hands in everything."

She also recalled how Kushner talked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I remember he used to bring Bibi up as if it was just like an old guy he plays basketball with. He would drop his name so casually," she said. "Jared had a way of, you know, making it seem like he was this mover and shaker, and don't worry, he'll fix everything."

Grisham then pointed to Affinity's growth since Kushner left the White House.

"After the first Trump administration, as you guys probably know, Affinity Partners was committed $2 billion from Saudi Arabia. And now I believe its assets are around $6 billion," she said. "Meanwhile, he's calling himself a volunteer. I mean, that's great volunteer work if you can get it, I guess."

She added, "I don't mean to be glib, but the reason he's a volunteer is because you don't have to then claim and show a lot of the money that you make during the time as a temporary public worker."

Asked whether the arrangement fit Kushner's past claim that "what people call conflicts of interest, I call experience and trusted relationships," Grisham said it didn't.

 

Preservation Group ‘Gobsmacked’ as Trump Admin Dismisses Public Concern Over Triumphal Arch

By abruptly closing public consultation on the massive project, the administration “decided the public’s role is meaningless, unimportant, and of no value whatsoever,” said critics.


Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department motorcycle police ride past a demonstration in protest of President Trump’s proposed arch planned to be erected near Arlington National Cemetery, near the Lincoln Memorial on May 24, 2026, in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Sep 28, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


A historical preservation group said it was “gobsmacked” on Monday after the Trump administration said it was closing down its consultation with experts about President Donald Trump’s plan for a triumphal arch in Washington, DC, because addressing their concerns and those from the general public would require them to deviate from the president’s vision for the project.

On Thursday, Travis Voyles, the Trump-appointed vice chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), sent a letter informing civil society and historic preservation groups that it was ending the federal review of how the 250-foot-tall arch would harm nearby historical sites.


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That review is required under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act, which mandates that federal agencies, including the National Park Service (NPS), consider how a project will affect historic properties and seek ways to “avoid, minimize, or mitigate” the harms of a planned project.

The federal regulations governing the Section 106 process explicitly state that “the views of the public are essential to informed federal decisionmaking,” and require agencies to “seek and consider” those views.



The administration, via the NPS, has acknowledged that the Triumphal Arch would have “adverse effects” on historical sites, disrupting views of Arlington National Cemetery, the Lincoln Memorial, and dozens of others. Meanwhile, the proposal has received over 107,000 public comments, most of which are negative, according to a sample from the DC Preservation Office.

But rather than taking the public concern as a reason to reevaluate or scale back the project, Voyles explained that the ACHP was choosing to end public consultation altogether because taking it into account would require changing the “fundamental nature” of the project in a way that the administration would never accept.

“It is clear that the proposed undertaking and its potential effects on historic properties have raised significant public interest, and the NPS stated in its September 22, 2026 correspondence that it believes additional consultation on the existing proposal is unlikely to result in agreement... to resolve adverse effects,” he wrote.

“Further, the NPS stated that implementation of alternatives to avoid or minimize the adverse effects would alter the fundamental nature of the proposed undertaking and fail to achieve its goals,” he continued, explaining that “in recognition of the public’s significant concerns,” they were “hereby terminating” consultation.

Voyles said the ACHP would create its own recommendations and deliver them by October 7 to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose office is overseeing the project. Burgum is legally required to consider and formally respond to those recommendations, but unlike a legally binding memorandum of agreement, he does not have to follow them.

The ACHP has set a deadline for public comments for Tuesday night at 11:59 pm and said it planned another meeting with consulting parties.



One of the outside groups involved in the consultation process was The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF), a national historic-landscape preservation nonprofit, whose founder and CEO, Charles Birnbaum, worked at the NPS for 15 years and was the principal author of the federal guidelines for cultural landscapes.

Section 106 requires consultation to begin “at the early stages of project planning.” But TCLF says the review began only after the Commission of Fine Arts had approved the arch’s design.

Meanwhile, the TCLF has said that it and other relevant preservation groups were invited to only a single meeting on September 9, just weeks before public consultation was terminated. They said this indicated that any real alternative proposals had essentially been taken off the table.

On Monday, Scott MacFarlane of MeidasTouch News published a letter from the TCLF savaging the administration’s “extraordinary” reasoning for canceling the public consultation.

“Mr. Voyles has written a singularly audacious letter,” it said. “Rather than address the ‘public’s significant concerns regarding the adverse effects’ on one of the nation’s most revered and symbolically important cultural landscapes through an authentic public engagement process that doesn’t foreclose avoidance as a precondition, the administration, through its proxy, the ACHP, has decided the public’s role is meaningless, unimportant, and of no value whatsoever.”

The question of historical preservation is one of numerous legal issues facing Trump’s effort to build the arch, which is estimated to cost at least $100 million, though the administration has not published an official price tag.

Although it will be partially funded by taxpayers, Congress has not yet authorized the project, leading to a federal lawsuit seeking to block construction.

Outcry over the public funding for the project led Trump last week to propose using the monument as a “military complex” that would house drones, ammunition, and snipers. He has similarly attempted to justify his taxpayer-funded White House ballroom project by giving it a dual national security purpose.

Kurdish leader in Iraq slams 'shameful' withdrawal of US forces

DPA
Sun, September 27, 2026 


PAK Peshmerga members stand stand amidst the debris at the PAKShar camp in Erbil's Ashkawt Saqa district. The Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK) is a prominent opponent of the Iranian regime based in the Kurdistan Region. (is associated with: «Kurdish leader in Iraq slams 'shameful' withdrawal of US forces»)

Ismael Adnan/dpa

Key takeaways

Prime Minister of Iraq's Kurdish region criticizes US withdrawal from the country as "shameful" due to vulnerability to attacks.

The prime minister of Iraq's Kurdish region has described the imminent withdrawal of US forces from the country as "shameful."

"The threat is real - we are vulnerable, we are being attacked," Masrour Barzani told the Financial Times. "Now, to be left alone without any, let's say, appropriate defensive system, it's shameful."

The Kurdish regional government could not purchase its own air defence systems, he said. Only the central government in Baghdad could do so.

The withdrawal of US forces from Iraq is due to be completed by September 30, this coming Wednesday. The move was agreed in 2024, after the combat mission against the extremist militia Islamic State was declared over in 2021.

US forces invaded Iraq in 2003, when ruler Saddam Hussein was toppled. After the mission ended in 2011, US troops returned in 2014 to fight Islamic State.

Since the start of the Iran war in February, the Iraqi Kurdish region has been struck by hundreds of rockets and drones, including an attack on Barzani's own office.

Iran regards the autonomous Kurdistan Region as an ally of the West and Israel on Iraqi soil. Erbil is home to a multinational base where US and German soldiers are stationed. That base has also come under fire. US forces repelled some of the attacks.

The Kurds are an ethnic group of an estimated 30 million people living mainly in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. They have fought for decades for their own state and were long persecuted and suppressed in both Iraq and Iran.

The semi-autonomous Kurdish region in Iraq emerged after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. Before that, the region had been protected by a no-fly zone enforced by the US military from 1991. Relations today between the Kurdish government, based in Erbil, and the central government in Baghdad are marked by ongoing disputes.

7 takeaways from Hegseth’s address to officers: Warfare’s future, faith and a new base

CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM AND KILLER ROBOTS 

WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!

Filip Timotija
Wed, September 30, 2026

THE /HILL

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made a flurry of announcements during a wide-ranging speech to active-duty officers Wednesday.

At the beginning of the address, the Pentagon chief stuck to his bread and butter: culture-war grievances, stripping the "woke" out of the Department of Defense (DOD), bashing the news media for its coverage of the Iran war, and proclaiming the "warrior ethos" has been revived and the U.S. military has been "rebuilt."

But the Defense secretary made several newsy announcements that lean into Hegseth's elevation of faith, create a combatant command, partner the Pentagon with different universities and tease a new domestic military base for which governors will compete.

Here are the takeaways from Hegseth's 52-minute speech at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia:

New combatant command focused on autonomous warfare

Hegseth announced the formation of a new four-star combatant command focused on developing autonomous warfare like drones and defense robotics.

The Defense secretary said it would have "service-like authorities built to scale autonomous and robotic capabilities across the joint force in the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history," with the aim of being operational by Oct. 1 next year.

The Autonomous Warfare Command, or "AutoWarCom," will be initially led by Owen West, a former Marine who is now the director of the Pentagon's Defense Innovation Unit, and Max Strasiser, a Navy SEAL senior chief. Later, a four-star military leader will be announced.

"This command will possess directed manpower, budget, acquisition authorities and create dedicated military career pathways for Officers and Enlisted personnel," Hegseth said in a Wednesday memo.

The new command will test equipment and force designs with "realistic opposition" in exercises and rugged environments to figure out what works on the battlefield, the Defense secretary said in the memo.

Project Meridian and warfare's future

Hegseth revealed that SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) will lead a new Pentagon effort to study the future of warfare, dubbed Project Meridian.

The Pentagon chief said the project is meant to harness America's innovators, senior leaders and technologists to look decades into the future and "forecast the creative solution for tomorrow's conflicts."

"It is futuristic on purpose," he said of the project, which he clarified was not meant to develop new strategies or policies.

"We should have the humility to recognize that the best forecasters of future conflict do not solely reside inside the Pentagon," Hegseth said. "There are obvious biases and risks to asking ourselves to both ask the questions and answer them."

Hegseth said Musk, Luckey and Gingrich, under the leadership of Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael, "will be focused on discovering, developing, and fielding the weapons and systems that our children and our grandchildren will need in their lifetimes, without any creative limitations or restrictions, on any future battlefield, from under the Earth to beyond the moon."

All three men were in attendance at the Pentagon as Hegseth made his announcement, and the Pentagon chief said their first meeting on Project Meridian would happen immediately following the event in a sensitive compartmented information facility in the building.

States invited to bid for 'next great American' base

Hegseth invited governors to bid for their state to be the home of the "next great American" base.

"We're calling on every governor in the country and adjutant general, every tag across this great republic, to step up to the plate and bring us their best sales pitch," the Defense secretary said.

"If your state wants the honor of hosting 15,000 to 25,000 of America's great troops, show us why and how you're going to do it, cutting through the red tape, offering up the land and rolling out the red carpet for our military families," he said during the speech.

Naval Station Everett in Washington state was the most recent base built inside the U.S., opening in the 1990s. The base is home to several guided-missile destroyers and Coast Guard ships.

Hegseth said the new base will not be a "soulless government installation," arguing the Pentagon will "plan out and chart out a dynamic, self-sustaining power projection platform."

The Pentagon said the base will be off the commercial grid, featuring independent power generation, autonomous systems and advanced air defenses.

"We're talking hundreds of thousands of acres with organic power generation, modern air defenses, and cutting-edge technology, think a fortress," the secretary said. Service members will have "first-class barracks, world-class training facilities, and thriving communities with top-tier housing, school, childcare and healthcare for families."

Hegseth directed Dale R. Marks, who is assistant secretary of Defense for energy, installations and environment, to lead the Pentagon's effort to identify, evaluate, select and prepare an optimal site for the base.

"Rapid advancements in disruptive technologies, growing strategic alignment among peer adversaries, and persistent, sophisticated cyber intrusions against critical defense and homeland infrastructure necessitate a modernized, resilient posture," the Defense secretary said in a Wednesday memo.

'Fortress America' takes bases off civilian grid

Another new initiative revealed Wednesday is "Fortress America," which Hegseth claimed will be "a national insurance policy for the American homeland.

Under Fortress, which stands for "Federal Operations for Resilience, Troop Resources, Energy Supply and Survivability," every major military installation in America would generate its own power independent of the civilian grid, according to Hegseth.

"If an adversary takes down the grid by cyberattack, by sabotage, or by any means, our bases stay lit. Our aircraft keep flying. Our command centers never go dark," he said.

The effort also is meant to bring critical supply chains home, including rare earth minerals, specialty metals, semiconductors and propellants "mined in America, refined in America, built in America by American workers."

In addition, the Pentagon would build up strategic reserves of such critical needs as munitions, fuel, medicine and blood "deep enough that if the world's supply lines break — and in a real war, they're going to break — America keeps fighting anyway," Hegseth said.

To accomplish this, Hegseth said the U.S. military is "hardening every installation on American soil against cyber intrusion, sabotage and drones, and we're securing the high ground and the airwaves, our satellites, our spectrum," claiming that the DOD "will be the insurance policy for the entire nation."

New non-Ivy League partnerships for cadets

The Defense secretary also said the Pentagon will partner with five more colleges to broaden the corps of cadets.

The military training program, called "America's Corps of Cadets," will include Louisiana State University, Liberty University, Tuskegee University, Mississippi State University and Hillsdale College.

"We need more officers from academic institutions like our military academies and senior military colleges, and today we're going to make that happen," Hegseth said.

Each school will be a "distinguished military college" and will be expected to "maintain exceptionally high standards of cadet discipline, tactical instruction and military organization," the Pentagon chief said.

Military academies like West Point, Naval Academy and Air Force Academy commission most of the officers into the U.S. armed forces, followed by senior military colleges like Texas A&M and the Citadel.

Hegseth's office will begin implementation within 30 days, and within four months, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata will transition to become the primary office responsible for the program, according to a Wednesday Pentagon memo.

"From the Ivy Leagues to the most liberal arts colleges, our colleges and universities have become anti-American DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] worshipping woke factories. Qualities like grit and courage replaced with political correctness and social justice," Hegseth said. "God and country traded for Che Guevara and critical theory."

Creates Office of Religious Affairs

In his last proclamation, Hegseth declared he will establish the Office of Religious Affairs at the Pentagon that "will report straight to the top."

"Cutting-edge technology ... new basing and bases ... and a better educational pipeline are still incomplete without the most essential component of our republic: faith," he told the assembled service members.

He said the Defense Department has "a sacred duty" to provide troops with "first-class religious support" wherever they're sent, bashing past administrations for treating the topic as an afterthought.

"Political correctness and secular humanism got a vote. Chaplains did not. Budgets were cut. Resourcing and manpower needs were ignored. Base chapels fell apart," Hegseth claimed. "Decisions about faith and religion were made by secular careerists in cubicles and lawyers running around with red tape."

Starting Wednesday, the Office of Religious Affairs will have "a direct line to the secretary" and will "protect budgets, demand infrastructure, and strengthen religious support," he said.

Hegseth frequently invokes his faith and has declared service members' spiritual health as "equally important" as their physical and mental health.

Earlier this year he revamped the U.S. military's Chaplain Corps, announcing that the officers will no longer wear their rank insignia, instead displaying insignia that reflects their religious affiliation — part of two major changes to the group.

Hegseth defends officer cuts

At the start of his speech, Hegseth defended his plan to cut 20 percent of generals and admirals at the Pentagon, arguing the major shake-up was long overdue at the department.

"Now the media calls that a purge. I call it accountability and long overdue, and frankly, the bare minimum. As usual, what the media levels as an accusation, I wear as an accomplishment," Hegseth said.

"You see, you can't change a culture with the same people who enabled it," he said. "Personnel is policy at every single level."

The move will impact senior leadership positions across the Army, Navy and the Air Force, coming a year after Hegseth oversaw a 10 percent reduction of general officers.

The move comes as he has already fired or pushed out more than two dozen senior military officers across the service branches, personnel changes that have unnerved congressional lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

"You see, last year's speech was not for those generals," Hegseth said during the speech. "It was for you, the backbone of our force, the current and future leaders on the front lines."

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