Quinn te Samil – Friday Reflection.*
June 27, 2025
Title: A War Elsewhere, A Reckoning Here
🌍 A Dual Assault: Gaza’s Collapse and Tehran Under Fire
As the world watched Tel Aviv, its soldiers looked east.
In the past fortnight, Israel has conducted deep strikes into Iran, targeting nuclear and military infrastructure in and around Tehran. Over 900 Iranian civilians were killed and 3,900 wounded, according to official Iranian sources, as Israel's Operation Rising Lion struck radar systems, anti-aircraft batteries, and suspected nuclear sites (Wikipedia – Iran–Israel war casualties).
Meanwhile, Iran’s counterstrikes hit as far south as Beersheba, damaging the Soroka Medical Center and leaving at least 242 Israeli civilians injured, including 39 in critical condition (AP News).
Yet while missiles flew eastward, Gaza continued to bleed. In the past 24 hours alone, over 70 Palestinians were killed, including aid seekers. Al Jazeera now reports 549 Palestinians killed while attempting to access food aid in the past month (Al Jazeera – Gaza liveblog).
A ceasefire was declared. But nothing has stopped.
The bombs simply chose new coordinates.
🇧🇷 A Reckoning in Brazil: Herzog and the Ghost of Silence
This week, Brazil’s government formally accepted blame for the 1975 torture and murder of journalist Vladimir Herzog under its military dictatorship. His family was awarded 3 million reais (US$545,000) in compensation plus a lifelong pension (AP News).
The case resonated anew after the release of the film Still Here, which traced fictionalized accounts of Brazil’s disappeared—artists, activists, and academics silenced by the regime. Critics hailed it as a haunting act of memory-making.
Art led. Law followed.
But Herzog’s name, long a symbol of democratic resistance, now also marks the latency of state accountability.
Justice came. But only for the record.
✊ Protest and Punishment: A Global Crackdown
Across continents, dissent is being boxed in.
In Venezuela, a teenage girl was sentenced to prison this week for publishing political criticism online—one of the youngest prosecuted under the country’s cybercrime laws (Times Union).
In Togo, protesters took to the streets against constitutional overreach by President Faure Gnassingbé; police used tear gas to disperse crowds (Al Jazeera – Togo protests).
In Hungary, PM Viktor Orbán threatened legal action against organizers of the Budapest Pride march, despite the event’s official ban (US News).
Everywhere, familiar tactics: suppress, jail, erase.
🏢 Corporate Upheaval: Intelligence and Obedience
Intel announced mass layoffs and the closure of its Munich-based automotive chip division, slashing 15–20% of its workforce, including over 100 U.S. staff (India Times).
Meta, under Zuckerberg’s "Zuck Bucks" AI directive, is spending $14.3 billion on Scale AI, poaching top minds like Ilya Sutskever and Daniel Gross to accelerate its Artificial Superintelligence race—despite internal friction and industry skepticism (Reuters).
These tectonic shifts align neatly with the Trump-era playbook: tariffs, immigration curbs, and defense-linked tech incentives have redrawn global boardroom priorities. With U.S. foreign policy increasingly weaponized, even corporate agility begins to look like obedience.
🌫 Final Note
Wars no longer end. They rotate.
Justice arrives, but often too late to save the living.
Truth speaks, but now it needs encryption.
And power—whether in parliament, prison, or Silicon Valley—prefers to move unseen.
We are not yet in the aftermath.
We are still here.
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