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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: marcher who wrote (218201)	12/6/2025 9:04:22 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 219539

re <<story>> bloomberg.com Chinese Hospital Ship Visits Jamaica as US Gunboats Ply Caribbean The Chinese Navy’s Silk Road Ark hospital ship, shown during a search and rescue drill near Fiji on Oct. 8, docked in Jamaica this week to assist in hurricane recovery efforts.Photographer: Wang Junchuan/Xinhua/Getty Images By Jim Wyss December 6, 2025 at 1:40 AM GMT+8 Takeaways by Bloomberg AI A Chinese hospital ship, the Silk Road Ark, has docked in Jamaica to provide medical aid after Hurricane Melissa. The ship's arrival is seen as a symbol of Beijing's outreach to the Caribbean region, where the US is conducting an anti-narcotics mission. Jamaica's Minister of Health and Wellness has welcomed the ship, saying it shows the "spirit of friendship and partnership" and will help the island recover from the hurricane. A Chinese hospital ship quietly docked in hurricane-hit Jamaica this week, projecting soft power into the heart of the Caribbean where a US armada is conducting a controversial anti-narcotics mission targeted at Venezuela. The Silk Road Ark, a massive Chinese Navy vessel with 300 hospital beds and some 100 doctors and support staff, is a potent symbol of Beijing’s outreach to the Caribbean region, one of the last bastions of diplomatic support for its rival Taiwan. The floating hospital arrived in the northern Jamaican port of Montego Bay on Thursday, as the island struggles to recover from Hurricane Melissa. The storm tore across Jamaica in late October, killing more than 45 people, destroying hospitals and causing at least $9 billion in damage. Jamaica very much needs the vessel “because of the challenges we face,” Minister of Health and Wellness Christopher Tufton told local media after touring the ship. “This is another big development that shows the spirit of friendship and partnership.” The US has also played a prominent role in Jamaica’s recovery efforts, according to Wayne Chen, chairman of the southern regional health authority, which is part of of the health ministry. President Donald Trump’s administration pledged more than $22 million in aid. But the US Navy’s two largest medical ships, the USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort, are currently docked at stateside ports. In the hours and days after the hurricane, US Chinook helicopters — with their double rotors and ample cargo capacity — criss-crossed the sky dropping food and water for communities cut off by the storm, Chen said in an interview. “The vast majority of Jamaicans have been very happy and gratified to see the outpouring of international assistance both from our traditional friends, governments, foundations and private groups,” Chen said. El Salvador sent more than 300 troops to help with the clean up, while the UK and Venezuela provided tangible aid, he said. “So the Chinese ship is also very welcome,” he added. Beijing’s timing was fortuitous. The Silk Road Ark left mainland China in early September and had already planned to visit Jamaica, along with Barbados, Brazil, Peru, Chile and other countries in the region. But it adjusted its schedule as the hurricane toll became clear. The USNS Comfort, by contrast, finished its tour of the Caribbean — but not Jamaica — in August. China’s hospital ship will perform cataract and hernia surgeries, CT scans and ultrasounds, and bloodwork diagnostics, according to Jamaican health authorities. Tensions have been running high across the region for months. The US has deployed almost a dozen warships — including the Navy’s largest aircraft carrier — and more than 15,000 troops into the Caribbean. What was originally billed as a counter-narcotics operation has morphed into a broader pressure campaign to oust Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who the US accuses of heading a drug-trafficking cartel. As Washington carries out lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, most countries in the region have urged restraint to maintain a “zone of peace.” Trinidad and Tobago and the Dominican Republic stand out for opening their waters, airspace and bases to the US military. For Beijing, the region is a diplomatic battleground. Of the 12 states (including the Vatican) that maintain diplomatic relations with China’s rival Taiwan, seven are in Latin America and the Caribbean. Beijing might have gotten a new opening last month when St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves — a staunch Taiwan supporter — was voted out of office.

To: marcher who wrote (218201)	12/6/2025 9:10:42 PM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 219539

re <<story>> ... another approach, and but wondering how one tells if a boat is a drug boat as opposed to a fishing boat bloomberg.com Hegseth Defends Decision to Kill Survivors in Caribbean Strike United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth spoke at the Reagan National Defense Forum saying President Trump can take “decisive military action as he sees fit.”Source: Bloomberg By Roxana Tiron and Magdalena Del Valle December 7, 2025 at 6:16 AM GMT+8 Takeaways by Bloomberg AI Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he fully supports the strike on alleged drug-running boats off the Venezuelan coast and would have made the same call as Admiral Frank Bradley. Hegseth's remarks have prompted accusations of possible war crimes, with bipartisan scrutiny of the nearly two dozen strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Hegseth praised the policy of sinking boats and killing alleged drug-runners, saying "the days in which these narco-terrorists operate freely in our hemisphere are over". Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on deadly US airstrikes against alleged drug-running boats off the Venezuelan coast, saying he would have made the same call as the admiral who ordered survivors to be killed. The nearly two dozen strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific have come under bipartisan scrutiny, but recent reports that a September strike included a second one to kill two survivors clinging to wreckage at sea have prompted accusations of possible war crimes. “From what I understood then and what I understand now, I fully support that strike,” Hegseth said Saturday. “I would have made the same call myself.” His remarks during and after a speech at the Reagan Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California, went a step further than his comments at the White House earlier in the week, when he appeared to lay responsibility on Admiral Frank Bradley, who ordered the second strike on the same boat. Hegseth praised the policy of sinking boats and killing alleged drug-runners whom the Trump administration considers enemy combatants and not criminals. That policy has led to serious debate in Congress and among legal experts about whether they are legal, and whether the boats are actually headed for the US. “The days in which these narco-terrorists, designated terror organizations, operate freely in our hemisphere are over,” Hegseth said. “These narco-terrorists are the al-Qaeda of our hemisphere.” Democratic lawmakers who saw video of the attack called it disturbing and demanded the full footage. President Donald Trumphas said he would allow the video to be released publicly after it was shown to members of Congress. On Saturday, Hegseth said the Pentagon is reviewing the video but declined to say whether the Pentagon will release the full video. Hegseth has said he wasn’t watching when Bradley ordered a second strike on the boat and had sought to distance himself from it. White House and Pentagon officials have insisted it was a lawful use of force. Bradley, a Navy SEAL, told US lawmakers on Thursday that there was no “kill all” order from Hegseth regarding a second strike on a drug-running boat meant to kill two survivors clinging onto the wreckage, as The Washington Post reported. Hegseth has said he was not in the room for the follow-on strike but that he fully supports Bradley’s decision. On Saturday, he added that he would have ordered a second strike himself. Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican whose vote was key to Hegseth’s narrow confirmation in January and is retiring from Congress, called the second strike “a violation of ethical, moral and legal code.” Hegseth vigorously touted the administration’s military moves and vision in the year since Trump returned to office, including airstrikes in Yemen, an attack on Iran’s nuclear program and the strikes that have killed more than 80 people in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean. “Past administrations perpetuated the belief that the Monroe Doctrine had expired,” Hegseth said. “They were wrong. The Monroe Doctrine is in effect, and it is stronger than ever under the Trump corollary, a common-sense restoration of our power and prerogatives in this hemisphere, consistent with US interests.” Hegseth also came under criticism this week after the Pentagon’s internal watchdog found that he had endangered US troops when he sent detailed attack plans to an unsecured Signal group chat earlier this year. While Hegseth called the report a total exoneration, the internal Pentagon watchdog said he had violated Pentagon regulations by using his personal cell phone to relay the plans. But on Saturday Hegseth said he doesn’t “live with any regrets” about the Signal incident.