分类： politics

Controversy has engulfed FBI Director Kash Patel after an undisclosed exclusive snorkeling excursion at the hallowed USS Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was uncovered through government emails obtained by the Associated Press, adding to a growing pattern of scrutiny over his blend of official work and personal leisure during taxpayer-funded travel.

Last August, Patel made a planned stop in Hawaii to tour the FBI’s Honolulu field office and meet with local law enforcement on his way to official engagements in Australia and New Zealand. What the FBI did not disclose in its public statements was that after concluding his business in Oceania, Patel returned to Hawaii for two additional days, during which he took part in the coordinated military VIP snorkeling trip around the sunken USS Arizona, a military cemetery that holds the remains of more than 900 U.S. sailors and Marines killed in the 1941 Japanese attack that drew the United States into World War II.

Snorkeling and recreational diving are almost universally prohibited at the site, which is managed jointly by the U.S. Navy and the National Park Service. Only a small number of authorized groups are permitted access: marine archaeologists and National Park Service crews conducting routine condition surveys, and divers facilitating the interment of USS Arizona survivors who choose to be buried alongside their former shipmates. Since at least the Obama administration, a tiny, select group of high-ranking dignitaries with direct oversight responsibility for the memorial have been quietly granted exceptions, though neither the Navy nor the Park Service has released details on how often these excursions occur or who receives approval.

Interviews with former officials and individuals familiar with the site’s protocols confirm that no FBI director dating back to at least 1990 has ever requested or received permission to snorkel at the memorial. One anonymous former government diver told the AP that granting access to a non-memorial official like Patel is highly unusual, as the activity poses unique physical risks, and creates unnecessary security, safety, and logistical burdens at one of the nation’s most sensitive historic sites.

The revelation of the undisclosed trip has reignited criticism of Patel’s leadership, which has been dogged for more than a year by questions over his inappropriate use of government resources. Most recently, in February, Patel faced backlash after video emerged of him partying in a locker room with the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team following their gold medal win at the Milan Winter Olympics. Patel has defended that appearance, claiming it was tied to a pre-planned cybercrime investigation with Italian law enforcement.

Stacey Young, founder of Justice Connection — a coalition of former federal prosecutors and agents that advocates for the Department of Justice’s institutional independence — condemned the excursion. “It fits a pattern of Director Patel getting tangled up in unseemly distractions — this time at a site commemorating the second deadliest attack in U.S. history — instead of staying laser-focused on keeping Americans safe,” Young said.

The Navy confirmed the outing in a statement to the AP, though it was unable to identify who originally approved or arranged the trip. Navy spokesperson Captain Jodie Cornell noted that all participants were instructed not to make contact with the sunken wreckage and received a full briefing on the site’s status as a sacred cemetery. The service called Patel’s excursion “not an anomaly” but declined to share details on how frequently similar VIP trips are organized. The National Park Service, for its part, said it was not involved in coordinating the trip and declined all further comment.

Reactions to the excursion have been split among veterans and family members of the USS Arizona’s fallen crew. Hack Albertson, a Marine veteran who participates in annual authorized dives to survey the wreck on behalf of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, called the trip inappropriate. “It’s like having a bachelor party at a church. It’s hallowed ground,” Albertson said. “It needs to be treated with the solemnity it deserves.”

By contrast, some leaders of groups representing survivors’ families said they did not object to rare official excursions, though many expressed frustration that family members of fallen crew members are routinely denied the same access. Deidre Kelley, national president of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors, noted that no original survivors of the attack remain alive, writing, “I have not heard of anyone who would object to these visits as they are very rare.”

Former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, for whom Patel served as chief of staff during the final months of the Trump administration, confirmed he had snorkeled at the site during an official visit years ago, describing the trip as a “somber and meaningful historical tour” rather than a recreational activity. Miller added that Patel did not join him on that earlier excursion.

Flight tracking data shows the FBI director’s official Gulfstream G550 jet remained in Hawaii for two nights after Patel’s official business concluded, before flying onward to Las Vegas, where Patel maintains his permanent residence. The FBI has defended the overall Hawaii trip as part of Patel’s official national security engagements, noting that top military commanders at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam routinely host senior U.S. officials on official travel. The bureau has declined to answer specific questions about the snorkeling excursion or what other activities Patel conducted during his two extra days on the island.

This is not the first controversy to arise from Patel’s August trip to Oceania. After opening the FBI’s first standalone office in Wellington, New Zealand, Patel faced criticism when it was revealed he had gifted local police and intelligence leaders 3D-printed replica pistols that are illegal to possess under New Zealand’s gun control laws.

The Associated Press’s investigative team obtained records of the excursion through a public records request, with additional reporting contributed from correspondents in Honolulu and New York.

Seven years ago, Canada triggered a major shakeup in Turkey’s defense manufacturing sector when it imposed a full arms sales ban on the country, a response to Ankara’s cross-border military incursion into northern Syria. Two of Turkey’s most prominent drone developers, industry leaders Baykar and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), bore the brunt of the trade restriction, as both firms relied entirely on specialized electro-optical (EO) and infrared (IR) surveillance cameras built by Canadian defense manufacturer Wescam for their unmanned aerial vehicles.

Cut off from their primary supply source, Turkish defense contractors were forced to rapidly pivot, launching aggressive campaigns to source alternative components from both global and domestic producers. Today, that forced self-sufficiency has paid off: Turkey now boasts a robust cohort of local manufacturers capable of producing the same high-end EO/IR cameras once imported exclusively from Canada.

Now, in a striking reversal of policy, the same Western nation that cut off Turkey’s drone component supply is now in preliminary discussions to purchase Turkish-made military drones, multiple insiders have confirmed to Middle East Eye. An anonymous official familiar with the negotiations noted that Canada is specifically seeking medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) drones to boost its national surveillance capabilities.

While the source emphasized that talks remain in their earliest stages and may never result in a finalized deal, the shift in diplomatic and policy tone under Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is impossible to miss. Middle East Eye has reached out to the Canadian embassy in Ankara for official comment on the negotiations, with no response issued as of publication.

The policy shift was echoed publicly by senior Canadian officials in recent weeks. During a panel discussion held in Istanbul last week, Canadian Secretary of State for Defence Procurement Stephen Fuhr announced that Ottawa was eager to expand bilateral defense collaboration with Turkey in sectors where Ankara has built globally recognized competitive advantages. In a subsequent interview with Defense News, Fuhr specifically named drone technology, counter-drone systems, and ammunition production as priority areas for new partnership.

Fuhr added that Canada is open to structured co-development projects rather than simple off-the-shelf purchases, a model that would allow Canada to accelerate its defense capability growth without investing years of time and billions of dollars in building a domestic drone program from the ground up.

Ankara has a long track record of embracing this collaborative framework: Turkish defense firms have already established similar localized co-production drone partnerships with the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Ukraine in recent years.

One official familiar with Canada’s strategic calculations told Middle East Eye that the shift can be traced back to shifting reliance on U.S. defense cooperation, with the change in posture indirectly tied to former U.S. President Donald Trump’s reshaping of transatlantic security arrangements. The official noted that Carney’s government no longer has full confidence in the long-term security guarantee provided by Washington, pushing Ottawa to diversify its defense supply chains. “Canadians don’t want to rely on American weapons anymore; they would like to diversify,” the source explained.

Fuhr echoed this sentiment during his Istanbul appearance, noting that the United States, Canada’s southern neighbor, has moved away from the long-standing defense trade norms that Ottawa relied on for decades. That shift has forced Canada to speed up efforts to strengthen its own independent defense capabilities, he added. Currently, Ottawa is already rolling out billions in new defense spending to meet NATO’s requirement that member states allocate 2% of annual GDP to defense. It also recently announced plans to launch a national drone innovation hub at the country’s National Research Council, backed by a $105 million investment over three years.

Diplomatic momentum for deeper bilateral defense ties is building quickly. Carney is already scheduled to travel to Turkey for the NATO summit set to take place in Ankara this July, but multiple officials confirmed that the prime minister is also planning a standalone formal bilateral visit to the country in October. During that October visit, multiple defense cooperation initiatives are expected to be officially launched, including the drone development and procurement projects currently under discussion.

“You will see our prime minister coming here a couple of times in the near future to demonstrate how interested we are and how committed we are to working more bilaterally with Turkey moving forward,” Fuhr told the Istanbul panel.

Fuhr also outlined the core urgency driving Canada’s push for rapid collaboration: the growing mismatch between shrinking defense technology cycles and the slow pace of traditional domestic procurement. “One of the military’s biggest frustrations with the defence industry was how long it takes to develop new capabilities, especially as technology cycles continue to shrink while procurement cycles grow longer,” he said. “You end up with something that is slow and irrelevant. So we are very motivated to move quickly, and I see signs that our partners are working quickly as well, and I’m seeing tangible results from that.”

In a provocative move that escalates tensions over territorial and religious claims in the occupied West Bank, hundreds of Israeli settlers, led by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, forced their way into the Joseph’s Tomb compound in the heart of Nablus early Wednesday, protected by heavy Israeli military deployment.

Israeli troops launched pre-emptive raids on residential areas of the Palestinian city and closed all major entry checkpoints to clear the path for the visit, which included organized morning prayers for the settler group. Official Israeli estimates place the total number of Israelis who entered the compound overnight at approximately 5,000.

During the visit, Smotrich — who also holds a senior role in Israel’s defense ministry overseeing the civil administration of the occupied West Bank — doubled down on his longstanding goal of cementing permanent Israeli control over the religious site, which falls under the administrative jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. Smotrich framed the incursion as a symbolic and political milestone, stating, “Our presence here at Joseph’s Tomb, in broad daylight, is a clear statement: the people of Israel are returning home to all parts of their land. Joseph’s Tomb is living testimony to the inseparable connection between the people of Israel and their land.”

The far-right minister went on to pledge to formally transfer full administrative control of the compound to the Israeli government, calling the incursion “another step in a historic correction and in strengthening our hold on Samaria” — the Israeli term for the northern West Bank. “We are acting, and will continue to act, so that the Jewish presence here becomes permanent,” he said, before issuing a formal call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz to expand Israeli sovereignty over the site, adding that the move “is the most fitting Zionist response to our enemies – deepening our roots in our land.”

Wednesday’s incursion is the latest in a years-long pattern of accelerating de facto annexation of the West Bank led by Smotrich, who took office as part of Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition government in December 2022. Under his leadership, Israel has overseen one of the largest waves of land seizure in the occupied territory in decades, alongside a sharp rise in incursions into contested religious and heritage sites across the region. These include the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron and the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, both flashpoints for religious and political conflict.

A recent investigation published by Israeli daily Haaretz this week revealed that Smotrich has prioritized settlement expansion in the West Bank over his core duties as finance minister over the past two years. Between 2024 and 2025, the report found, Smotrich held more than 65 private meetings with Yehuda Eliyahu, his close political ally who until recently led the Settlement Administration within the defense ministry. Eliyahu was appointed last week to head the Israel Land Authority, the state body responsible for managing and allocating public land in both Israel and the occupied West Bank, a move that analysts say will further enable Smotrich’s annexation agenda. By comparison, Haaretz recorded that Smotrich met with senior Finance Ministry officials only around 30 times in the same two-year period.

The Joseph’s Tomb site itself has been a source of repeated conflict for decades. While many Jewish worshippers revere the site as the burial place of the biblical Prophet Joseph, Palestinians identify it as the tomb of Sheikh Yusuf Dweikat, a local 19th-century Islamic cleric, and it sits within a densely populated Palestinian city. Israeli military-backed settler visits to the site began in the early 1980s after Israel occupied the West Bank in 1967, and these incursions have consistently sparked widespread Palestinian resistance. Israel withdrew its permanent military garrison from the compound in 2000, but has continued to organize monthly escorted visits for settlers. Since the October 2023 Hamas attack, these incursions have grown dramatically in size and frequency, with far-right politicians and activists repeatedly calling for a full reoccupation of the site and the re-establishment of permanent Jewish presence.

Multiple senior far-right Israeli figures joined Smotrich on Wednesday’s visit, doubling down on calls for annexation. Tzvi Sukkot, a member of parliament from Smotrich’s own Religious Zionist Party and chair of the Knesset’s Education, Culture and Sports Committee, entered the compound alongside the group. Sukkot has long pushed for full Israeli control of the site, and introduced parliamentary legislation in July 2025 to formally annex Joseph’s Tomb to Israel, a proposal that has not yet moved forward. “From here, we send one demand: restore the Jewish presence,” Sukkot said Wednesday.

Wednesday’s authorized prayer visit followed a December 2024 order from Defense Minister Israel Katz that formally permitted Jewish worshippers to hold prayer services at the site during the early morning hours. A similar large-scale settler prayer visit was organized at the compound in January 2025, which participants described as “historic.”

Yossi Dagan, head of the Shomron Regional Council that governs Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank, called Wednesday’s incursion “a historic morning marking another step toward the full return of the State of Israel to this sacred compound.” Dagan argued that the status quo of limited, military-escorted monthly visits could not continue, stating that the end goal is “the full and permanent return of the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva to its natural place, and for the Israeli flag to fly over Joseph’s Tomb.” The religious yeshiva was first established at the site in the 1980s, but was evacuated alongside the Israeli military post in the early 2000s. Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the current head of the yeshiva, echoed Dagan’s call Wednesday, saying he hoped to “return and establish a permanent presence at Joseph’s Tomb” and urging supporters not to “forsake the city of the covenant.”

The incursion comes amid growing international concern over Israel’s accelerating settlement expansion and de facto annexation of the West Bank, which violates multiple UN Security Council resolutions and international law rulings that deem all Israeli settlements in the 1967 occupied territories illegal.

As the global offshore wind industry hits new milestones of rapid growth, a sudden policy shift from the Donald Trump administration has put the emerging U.S. offshore wind sector on uncertain footing. Just as the American industry was positioned for explosive expansion after years of incremental progress, Trump has moved aggressively to curtail development, prioritizing expanded fossil fuel production over clean energy transition goals that most major economies have embraced.

Offshore wind holds enormous untapped potential for the United States, with abundant consistent wind resources along the country’s long coastlines capable of delivering massive volumes of carbon-free electricity to population centers. Currently, six projects are at varying stages of operation: three are already fully online, while three more have begun delivering partial power as they wrap up construction and final pre-operational testing. More than 40 federal offshore wind leases have already been awarded to developers, but the Trump administration has moved to buy back a number of these leases, offering financial payouts to energy companies that agree to abandon their offshore wind projects. Beyond lease buybacks, the administration has put in place a series of additional regulatory and administrative roadblocks to slow the industry’s growth, as it doubles down on supporting fossil fuel production.

This policy direction stands in stark contrast to global trends, where dozens of nations are rapidly scaling up offshore wind to meet rising electricity demand while cutting greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change. Notably, China — the host of the international summit Trump is attending this week — is the undisputed global leader in offshore wind development, accounting for more than half of all new capacity forecast to come online globally over the next five years.

Unlike coal, oil, and natural gas, which release heat-trapping greenhouse gases when burned, wind turbines generate electricity without contributing to global warming. Data from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) outlines the stark gap between the U.S. policy shift and global progress: as of 2025, 19 national markets across the world have operational offshore wind capacity, led by China, followed by the United Kingdom and Germany in cumulative installed capacity and project count. Beyond the top three, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Denmark, Belgium, France, Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, the U.S., Norway, Finland, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain are all either operating or actively developing projects.

Last year alone, China added 6.6 gigawatts of new offshore wind capacity, pushing its total installed capacity to 48.4 gigawatts by the end of 2025. Globally, 2025 saw 9.3 gigawatts of new offshore wind connected to grids — a 16% increase from 2024, enough to power 10.2 million homes. Cumulative global offshore wind capacity now stands at a level capable of powering the equivalent of 102 million homes worldwide. Looking ahead to 2026–2030, GWEC forecasts that China will account for 56% of all new global offshore wind capacity additions, while the European Union will contribute 29% and the United States is projected to add just 5% — a share that could shrink further following Trump’s recent restrictions.

For the U.S., the current operational fleet includes three completed projects: the nation’s first offshore wind farm, Block Island Wind Farm off the coast of Rhode Island; Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind pilot project, the first located in federal waters; and South Fork Wind, the first large-scale U.S. offshore wind farm delivering power to New York. Three additional projects are in late-stage development: Massachusetts’ Vineyard Wind, Rhode Island’s Revolution Wind, and the full-scale Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project adjacent to the existing pilot off Virginia Beach. Of these three, Vineyard Wind is the furthest along and is expected to reach full commercial operations in the coming months, and has already become the first project completed during the Trump administration.

In December, the Trump administration issued a stop-work order for all five under-construction East Coast offshore wind projects, pausing work on the three late-stage projects plus New York’s Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind, citing unproven national security concerns. Developers and affected states immediately filed legal challenges, and federal courts ultimately ruled in favor of the projects, allowing all five to resume construction after finding the administration had failed to demonstrate an imminent national security risk that justified halting work.

Beyond clean climate benefits, the U.S. offshore wind industry already delivers tangible economic and consumer benefits that are at risk under the new restrictions. According to the American Clean Power Association, the sector currently supports 18,000 domestic jobs across the country. The full-scale Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, the largest operational wind farm in the U.S. to date, already started delivering power to the grid in March and will eventually provide enough electricity for 660,000 homes across the state, which hosts critical U.S. military infrastructure and a major global data center hub. For Massachusetts, the Vineyard Wind project is projected to save electricity customers a total of $1.4 billion over 20 years, and already undercut competing energy sources on wholesale markets to lower rates for consumers during last winter. The 800-megawatt project can power 400,000 Massachusetts homes with clean energy.

Industry data shows that offshore wind development has already spurred $25.5 billion in domestic investment across U.S. ports, steel production, transmission infrastructure upgrades, shipbuilding, workforce training, and research and development, according to the Oceantic Network, a non-profit advancing offshore energy development. The domestic supply chain for the sector already includes more than 1,000 American companies across at least 40 states. Oceantic’s analysis finds that canceling just one 1-gigawatt offshore wind project in the Northeast would result in nearly $10 billion in lost economic activity from foregone jobs and investments, while also eliminating long-term energy savings for local ratepayers.

Internationally, the sector continues to break records: the world’s largest currently operational offshore wind farm, the UK’s Hornsea 2 located in the North Sea 55 miles off Yorkshire’s coast, features 165 turbines and can power more than 1.4 million U.K. homes across its 178-square-mile footprint. An even larger UK project is currently under construction that will surpass Hornsea 2’s capacity.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental reporting receives financial support from multiple private foundations, with the AP retaining full editorial control over all content. More information on the AP’s philanthropic partnership standards, supporter list, and funded coverage areas is available at AP.org.

In a high-stakes diplomatic summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and former U.S. President Donald Trump, Beijing has delivered its starkest warning to Washington in recent years over the long-running Taiwan dispute, emphasizing that mishandling the issue could trigger direct confrontation between the two global powers.

According to an official readout released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Xi framed the Taiwan question as the single most sensitive and consequential issue shaping the future of bilateral relations between Beijing and Washington. Striking an uncompromising tone, Xi stated that Taiwan independence and cross-Strait peace are fundamentally incompatible, incompatible as fire and water. He added that a constructive approach to the issue would pave the way for overall stability in U.S.-China ties, while mismanagement would lead to open clashes and even full conflict that would put the entire bilateral relationship in catastrophic jeopardy.

The historically separate governance of China and Taiwan dates back to the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, when defeated Nationalist Party forces retreated to the island after the Communist Party claimed victory on the mainland. Over the following decades, Taiwan transitioned from decades of martial law to a fully functional multi-party democracy, a status that Beijing has never recognized. China continues to claim the self-governing island of 23 million people as an integral part of its territory, reserving the right to retake it by force if necessary. Cross-Strait relations have deteriorated sharply since 2016, when Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive Party was elected president of Taiwan. Beijing responded by cutting off all official bilateral dialogue with Taipei, and in recent years has ramped up military pressure, deploying warships and fighter jets to air and sea spaces close to the island on an almost daily basis. Beyond military coercion, Beijing has also successfully poached a number of Taiwan’s remaining formal diplomatic allies, steadily isolating the island on the global stage.

The U.S. maintains no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan but is the island’s largest and most critical unofficial ally, bound by domestic law to ensure Taiwan has the capability to defend itself against potential aggression. For decades, Washington has maintained a policy of “strategic ambiguity”, refusing to explicitly confirm whether it would intervene militarily if China launched an attack on the island. Following Xi’s comments, then-U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed that long-standing U.S. policy on Taiwan remained unchanged, while warning that a military seizure of Taiwan by force would be a catastrophic mistake for Beijing.

Beyond its geopolitical significance, Taiwan holds a critical position in the global tech supply chain: it is the world’s leading manufacturer of advanced semiconductors, AI servers, and high-precision instruments, and the global AI boom of recent years has pushed the island’s top technology firms to record-breaking revenue and profit levels.

Regional analysts note that Xi’s unusually stern rhetoric reflects growing anxiety in Beijing over shifting U.S. policy and deepening ties between Washington and Taipei. In December preceding the summit, the Trump administration announced an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan — the largest ever offered to the island — and Trump has repeatedly pressured Taipei to increase its own defense spending.

William Yang, senior Northeast Asia analyst at the International Crisis Group, explained that Beijing’s forceful readout of the summit carries a clear signal. “If China had secured any meaningful concession on Taiwan from Trump, it would have been reflected in Beijing’s official statement. The absence of any such mention and the relatively stern tone suggest Trump may not have budged on Taiwan in principle,” Yang said.

Ma Chun-wei, a scholar of cross-Strait relations at Taiwan’s Tamkang University, added that Beijing is also concerned that the Trump administration has begun to deviate from long-standing standardized diplomatic language on the Taiwan issue. While the U.S. has for decades acknowledged Beijing’s position on Taiwan while maintaining unofficial ties with the island, the Trump administration’s December national security strategy only reaffirmed a commitment to opposing any unilateral change to the status quo, a framing that experts say leaves room for interpretation that worries Beijing.

For Xi, Ma noted, taking a hard line on the Taiwan issue is also a matter of domestic political credibility: “For Xi Jinping, he must show that the Taiwan issue is in China’s hands. He must demonstrate this image, or else he would be criticized,” Ma explained.

The report was filed from Bangkok by AP correspondents, with additional contributions from Simina Mistreanu in Bangkok and Michelle L. Price in Washington.