Good Morning. We hope everyone had a restful Juneteenth. Now in its third year, this federal holiday commemorates the arrival of Union Troops in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865 with news of emancipation for more than 250,000 enslaved African Americans in the state. Freedom and liberty for all is hard won, but always worth fighting for.

— 🐈‍⬛ Acoustic Kitty

THE BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT

Israel ready for ‘all-out war’ in Lebanon

Israeli officials said the country is ready for an “all-out war” in Lebanon and has plans approved for an offensive targeting Hezbollah.

The claims from Israel’s foreign minister and military followed Hezbollah’s release of threatening drone footage. The nine-minute drone footage of the Israeli port city of Haifa filmed in daytime, showed civilian and military areas, including malls and residential quarters, in addition to a weapons manufacturing complex and missile defense batteries.

INTERNATIONAL SECURITY & DIPLOMACY

Counterterrorism

• Canada is listing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization and could investigate former senior Iranian officials living in the country according to a senior Cabinet member.

• Indian police made their first arrest in the Reasi terror attack case which claimed the lives of 9 people and injured 33 others after a bus carrying pilgrims fell into a gorge after it came under terrorist attack earlier this month.

• UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk condemned the Myanmar regime for “brutal atrocity crimes” including beheadings, late night drone attacks, burning people in their homes, and other “brutal atrocity crimes.”

Military & Defense

• The United States is ramping up its efforts to create an air security coalition for Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets, an initiative aimed at bolstering Ukraine's air capabilities as the war wears on. The air coalition motion comes on the heels of other renewed albeit delayed U.S. aid efforts.

• Swedish lawmakers adopted a controversial defense deal with the United States, which gives the US access to 17 military bases and training areas in Sweden, and allows the storage of weapons, military equipment and ammunition.

• The US State Department has approved the sale of loitering munitions to Taiwan for a total of $360M. The sale includes 291 ALTIUS 600M-V aerial systems and related equipment for $300M and Switchblade 300 anti-personnel and anti-armor loitering missile systems and related equipment for an estimated cost of $60M

Cybersecurity

• Chinese-speaking users are the target of a never-before-seen threat activity cluster codenamed Void Arachne that employs malicious Windows Installer files for virtual private networks to deliver a command-and-control framework

• Criminals are targeting thousands of organizations around the world in social-engineering attacks that use phony error messages for Google Chrome, Microsoft Word, and OneDrive to trick users into running malicious PowerShell scripts.

• Advanced Micro Devices, the second-largest maker of personal computer processors, is looking into claims that sensitive company information was stolen in a hack that included product details, customer databases, and financial records.

Counterintelligence & Espionage

• Swiss Attorney General Stefan Blättler said defense against espionage should be given greater importance in Switzerland in the future following recent investigations related to a suspected Russian agent.

• German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser warned of growing espionage and cyber threats from foreign adversaries including Russia, China and Iran.

• Silicon Valley companies are escalating their security vetting of staff and potential recruits as US officials voice greater concern about the threat of Chinese espionage. Technology giants such as Google and high-profile start-ups like OpenAI have stepped up their screening of personnel amid fears that foreign governments are seeking to use compromised workers to access intellectual property and company data.

Transnational Organized Crime

• Senegalese officials said the country intercepted three shipments of cocaine worth $50M on its way from Latin America to Europe in the past five days.

• Prosecutors in the United States have charged two dozen people over an alleged money laundering scheme involving Chinese shadow bankers and Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel that laundered more than $50M in drug trafficking proceeds.

• After a 5 year investigation, a drugs gang that produced millions of counterfeit Xanax pills in garden sheds and garages, selling them to customers across the UK and US on the dark web to the tune of £4M, was brought to justice.

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

The Air Force ran a test launch of a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) reentry vehicle made by Lockheed Martin.

The unarmed Mk21A RV launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base, CA aboard a Minotaur I rocket. The Mk21A is in the engineering and manufacturing development phase to carry the W87-1 nuclear warhead. It will be used on the LGM-35A Sentinel missiles that are set to replace the Cold War-era Minuteman III system.

In other news…

A team of researchers have developed a platform to probe, interact with and control potentially powerful quantum systems based on defects in silicon. The device uses a simple electric diode, one of the most common components in semiconductor chips, to manipulate qubits inside a commercial silicon wafer.

Anduril Industries’ Ghost drone has been officially added to the Blue UAS Cleared List. This certification, approved by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), marks a crucial step for Anduril, enabling its advanced unmanned aerial system (UAS) to be widely deployed across military operations.

DEALS & FUNDING

Lockheed Martin was awarded a contract valued at an estimated $2.27B to develop and build the next generation of U.S. geostationary weather satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The contract, awarded by NASA on behalf of NOAA, covers three Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) satellites and options for four additional spacecraft. Lockheed Martin also built the current Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite R series. The fourth and final satellite in the series, GOES-U, is scheduled to launch June 25, 2024 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

In other news…

CesiumAstro, a startup specializing in phased array communications payloads, raised $65M in a Series B+ investment round. Launch provider RocketLab has also CesiumAstro to provide antennas as part of a $515M contract with the Space Development Agency for 18 military satellites slated to launch in mid-2027.

Exploration Laboratories, a startup focused on space resources, was awarded $1.9M Tactical Funding Increase from SpaceWERX to accelerate work on technology to autonomously capture space objects called ACQR.

AI-enabled sensing company MatrixSpace won a $1.25M contract from AFWERX to develop a prototype low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) multifunction, multiband antenna payload based on the company’s radar hardware platform.