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Lebanon's President Blasts Iran, Hezbollah For Using Country As Bargaining Chip

Lebanon's president has angrily lashed out at both Hezbollah and Iran - the latter for using the Lebanese nation and people as a bargaining chip in the war and standoff with the United States and Israel.

President Joseph Aoun told CNN in a rare interview that Tehran is exploiting his war-torn nation and issued a fresh demand that Iran's leadership and military stop interfering in Lebanese affairs.

via Reuters

He stressed to Christiane Amanpour that the Lebanese people are "fed up" with the war - which started years ago on the heels of the Gaza war.

President Aoun at one point addressed Iran directly, saying "You are not trying to help us … the people of Lebanon are paying the price … for the sake of your own interest" - and added, "our interests … do not coincide with your interests."

Then specifically calling out the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), he said: "It’s not your country, it’s our country."

Iran's leadership has been insistent on a Hezbollah/Lebanon-Israel ceasefire being part of any broader peace deal with Washington; however, the Lebanese government has negotiated a separate peace with Israel, and in Washington, which has in reality barely held.

"They are using Lebanon as a bargaining chip in their negotiation with US," Aoun told CNN. "It’s unacceptable."

He continued, "It was a tough negotiation until we had a major breakthrough." He optimistically assessed that this could serve as path forward to a "just and lasting peace."

Hezbollah, for its part, has been rejecting the deal - also after refusing to take part in negotiations. Hezbollah is denouncing that the US-brokered deal does not guarantee an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

On Friday, "The Israeli military's Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee on Friday warned residents of six towns and villages including south Lebanon's Sarafand, a town on the coastal road between Tyre and Sidon, to immediately evacuate," according to CBS.

💢 Hezbollah released footage of an FPV drone strike on an Israeli army gathering and a Namer armored personnel carrier on the southern outskirts of Zawtar al-Sharqiyah in southern Lebanon, carried out June 2. The attack involved multiple FPV drones. pic.twitter.com/OFxuJ9XI25

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) June 5, 2026

"Lebanon's state-run National News Agency reported mass displacement from the three villages named in the warning, and it subsequently reported a strike on one of the villages, Arqoun," the report continues.

And Al Jazeera also reports Friday that "Israel's deadly strikes continue across Lebanon, killing at least six today, despite the announcement of a new US-brokered ceasefire agreed between Lebanese and Israeli officials in Washington, DC."

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/05/2026 - 18:50

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Waste Of The Day: Mismanagement At SF Zoo

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: The taxpayer-funded San Francisco Zoo "does not have a healthy or stable financial condition," according to a city audit released in May. The zoo has no written plans or budgets to guide its construction projects, and spent $12 million on them without city approval. Employees are also allegedly hiring their friends and relatives as contractors.

Key facts: The zoo is required to get approval from San Francisco's Recreation and Park Commission before paying more than $50,000 for a construction project. But employees never did so while spending millions on a new "Madagascar Center" and other huge projects, auditors found.

There is also a "widespread view among staff that [the zoo] has a toxic workplace environment," according to the audit. Employees were allegedly chosen for senior roles based on "discrimination and favoritism," not "professional qualifications."

The zoo spends more than $4 million on contracted services like security and advertising every year, but there is no evidence that any of them went through a competitive bidding process to find the best price. The zoo keeps no records of its contractors and was unable to tell auditors how much they are being paid, the audit found.

The audit also confirmed that former zoo CEO Tanya Peterson's fiancé was hired to perform concerts, and other relatives of zoo staff received more than $800,000 for construction projects. The San Francisco Chronicle first exposed the nepotism allegations in 2024, which eventually contributed to Peterson's resignation.

The City of San Francisco gives the zoo $4 million in funding every year, though that amount has not increased since 1993. Most of the zoo's revenue comes from tickets, but low attendance has caused the zoo to outspend its budget for at least the last eight years. The zoo hid this fact from the city by projecting "unrealistically high" attendance numbers each year and making purchases based on the inflated revenue that never materialized, according to the audit.

Oversight of the zoo has been difficult because employees are ignoring public records requests, according to the audit. They claim that because the zoo is a nonprofit, it is exempt from open records laws, but the zoo signed an agreement years ago to share all records as if it were a city agency.

Search all federal, state and local salaries and vendor spending with the world's largest government spending database at OpenTheBooks.com.

Background: The city plans to bail out the zoo with an $8.5 million loan after a city-commissioned report found that closing the zoo or finding a new operator would be more expensive.

The zoo is also planning to bring in pandas from China to fill a new exhibit that will cost $27 million to build. Activist groups like In Defense of Animals have opposed the proposal, arguing the zoo cannot properly care for new animals until it fixes its financial problems.

Summary: San Francisco's zoo has a responsibility to its animals and to taxpayers to manage its money through a carefully-planned budget, not endless deficits.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/05/2026 - 18:25

Putin Rejects Open Letter By Zelensky Urging Meet: 'Pointless'

Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded dismissively to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's open letter issued the day prior, which urged that the two leaders meet in order to finally forge a peace deal and bring an end to the war, now it its fifth year.

Putin made clear Friday that he sees no point in holding a personal meeting with Zelensky. He was asked directly about the letter while attending the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). In response the Russian leader addressed not the "authors of the epistolary genre," but to Russian soldiers on the frontline: "The whole country is proud of you and is counting on you. Keep up the good work, brothers!" And then, per TASS:

Asked to clarify if this response means that he doesn’t plan to meet with the letter’s author, Putin said, "So far, I see no point in this."

He went on to reject the idea of "meeting just for the sake of meeting" - but did reveal for the first time that only last month he sent an informal envoy to Ukraine at Kiev’s request. Apparently that was the opening of a serious diplomatic overture.

But then, he noted, Ukrainian forces bombed a college dormitory in Lugansk merely soon after the Russian envoy arrived. The brutal attack killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls - and injured many dozens more. The Kremlin was outraged at the 'terrorist act' and the following week heavily bombed various Ukrainian cities, especially the capital. 

State media featured more of Putin's response:

The letter is either "a means to create an environment for a personal meeting, or maybe is this letter meant to make sure that no personal meetings can take place at all,” he remarked, concluding: “I think it's the second.”

Zelensky's lengthy Thursday letter had said Ukraine is also ready for a "full ceasefire." Zelensky wrote: "Ukraine proposes ending this war through direct engagement between us - and you. I am proposing a meeting. Ukraine is ready for a full ceasefire for the duration of the negotiations," he added.

The letter also at one point said, "The choice is yours now. Enough of war" and then spells out that "Ukraine proposes to end this war."

"This must be done honestly, with dignity, and with guarantees that the war will not be reignited," Zelensky added. And then interestingly, "We see that the United States is fully focused on the issue of Iran, and it would be wrong to simply wait until the war in Europe returns to the center of its attention."

Despite the long appeal, President Putin and the Kremlin have demonstrated a willingness to allow a long war to drag on, and are unlikely to be moved. Putin has said there's no need for a truce unless a deal is already close or about to be signed. But the two sides aren't any closer to being at the negotiating table as yet.

Tyler Durden Fri, 06/05/2026 - 18:00

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