Posted by BW Actual on Sep 4th 2025
BLACKWATER USA | DAILY BRIEF
Guyana
- Initial results suggest Guyana's president, Irfaan Ali, won re-election on Monday.
- Rival parties are contesting preliminary results in some districts, but the poll largely went smoothly, and Ali and his People’s Progressive Party / Civic (PPP/C) won by such a large margin - more than double - that recounts are unlikely to change the outcome.
- The nascent We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party - which was founded just three months ago - surprised many by coming in second and upsetting the main opposition party, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU).
Ukraine
- France's Pres. Macron and the UK's Prime Minister Starmer are co-hosting Ukraine's Pres. Zelensky and members of the "coalition of the willing" backing Ukraine in Paris today. They'll discuss Europe's role in guaranteeing Ukraine's security after the war ends.
- U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff unexpectedly joined the summit, suggesting that the U.S. security guarantees Pres. Trump proposed last month are still on the table. Trump prefers for U.S. guarantees to be a last resort, though, so he will be pleased that Europe - and especially Macron and Starmer - are taking on a leading role by hosting this meeting.
- Separately, a Kremlin spokesman bluntly rejected the idea that European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen floated on Sunday of a potential European military deployment to Ukraine, saying it "is fundamentally unacceptable and undermines any security." Even Germany's defense minister called von der Leyen's comments premature.
Venezuela
- U.S. SecDef Hegseth and SecState Rubio both suggested that Tuesday's "kinetic strike" near Venezuela on a boat allegedly linked to the Tren de Aragua drug cartel was only the start of U.S. military operations against drug traffickers, and warned of more such strikes to come. The Trump administration has offered few details about Tuesday's strike.
Libya
- Several reports suggest Misrata militias loyal to Libya's weak Prime Minister, Abdel Hamid Dbeibah, have recently deployed to Tripoli to challenge the rival militias that wrested control of the capital from Dbeibah's struggling government.
- Analysts think Dbeibah's latest efforts are unlikely to succeed: he has few backers outside of Misrata after alienating former allies as he lost his grip on power.
DRC
- DRC's tough-talking former justice minister, Constant Mutamba, was convicted of siphoning $19.9 million in funds meant for building a prison, and sentenced to three years in prison with hard labor.
- That's lenient compared to the sentence Mutamba himself once proposed for officials convicted of stealing public funds: he suggested they should face the death penalty.