US Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack has condemned Israeli airstrikes on an airbase in northwestern Syria as a dangerous escalation.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces struck the Abu al-Duhur base in Idlib province, near the Turkish border. Although there were no casualties, the strikes damaged recently built runways.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the attack was carried out because Israel and Syria had agreed to “a status quo in security matters,” and claimed that Damascus was “on the verge” of breaching the arrangement by allowing “Turkish troops to deploy at an airbase near Aleppo.”

“Israel repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel’s security. Syria chose to ignore these warnings,” it added.

Barrack added that the government of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa “has neither adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces” and was committed to “de-escalation with Israel.”

“We encourage all parties to prioritize logical discourse over further military incidents,” Barrack wrote on X on Tuesday.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani told Axios on Wednesday that Damascus had “no intention” of establishing a Turkish base or allowing a permanent Turkish military presence at the site. The Turkish Foreign Ministry similarly accused Israel of resorting to “frivolous allegations” to legitimize its attacks on Syria.

Netanyahu defended the strikes on a podcast on Wednesday.

“The message was conveyed but apparently they didn’t hear it, so we made sure they understood it more clearly,” he said, according to the Times of Israel. Netanyahu has repeatedly clashed with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a vocal critic of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Relations between Israel and the US have remained tense in recent months as Netanyahu, who faces parliamentary elections in October, rejected Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, arguing that Israeli troops would not withdraw from the Palestinian enclave until Hamas fully disarms.

Trump earlier condemned Israeli strikes in southern Lebanon, saying they could undermine peace talks with Iran. This week, Trump said he had suspended the negotiations and announced a “historic” campaign to cripple Iran’s economy.

A former senior official who worked under US Covid czar Anthony Fauci has pleaded guilty to conspiring to hide government records concerning coronavirus research and the origins of the pandemic.

David Morens served as a senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which Fauci headed, between 2006 and 2022. He was indicted on April 28 on charges including conspiracy against the US, destroying or falsifying federal records, concealing records, and aiding and abetting, over an alleged scheme to evade public-records requests concerning Covid-19 research.

On Tuesday, Morens pleaded guilty in federal court in Greenbelt, Maryland, to one count of conspiracy to commit offenses and defraud the US. He admitted that he and others had deliberately used his personal Gmail account to evade Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

He now faces up to five years in prison and is due to be sentenced on November 12.

In emails previously released during the investigation, Morens wrote that he had learned from an “FOIA lady” how to “make emails disappear.” In another, he said he could send material to “Tony,” an apparent reference to Fauci, through private Gmail or deliver it personally, adding that “Tony” is “too smart to let colleagues send him stuff that could cause trouble.”

The records concerned US-funded coronavirus research carried out at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The funding was cut in 2020 as scrutiny grew over whether Covid-19 could have emerged from the Chinese laboratory.

In his plea, Morens further admitted involvement in an illegal gifts scheme. The head of the nonprofit behind the Wuhan-linked research grant had sent him wine for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans.” Prosecutors said Morens also discussed writing scientific commentary supporting a natural origin of Covid-19 as something he could do to “earn” the gift.

The guilty plea comes amid renewed scrutiny of Fauci, whom critics have accused of helping fund risky coronavirus research in Wuhan, concealing what he knew about a possible lab origin, misleading Congress and the public over the pandemic and vaccines, influencing intelligence agency assessments, and leading them away from the lab-leak theory, and personally profiting from his government role.

Last month, Fauci appeared before a Senate committee, where he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times while being grilled about Wuhan research, Covid’s origins, and his conduct during the pandemic. The Republican-led panel later voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.

Shortly before leaving office, former US President Joe Biden granted Fauci a broad pardon covering any potential federal offenses committed between 2014 and January 2025. Fauci has described efforts to prosecute him as an “unhinged” campaign.

US President Donald Trump has vowed to target any country helping Iran’s economy, shifting from his previous focus on military threats.

Trump made the remarks after a 60-day window to negotiate a peace deal with Tehran expired on Monday without breakthroughs.

“I am announcing the MOST CRUSHING ECONOMIC OPERATION EVER TAKEN AGAINST ANY COUNTRY! This will be Economic Warfare and Isolation on an unprecedented scale,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday night.

“I am also announcing that ANY country that allows its financial institutions, businesses, airports, or government entities to provide any type of lifeline to Iran will itself face TREMENDOUS Economic Consequences. Oil smuggling, swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, front companies – it all needs to stop NOW,” he added.

“This will be an ECONOMIC D-DAY, and we need all of our Allies to stand with the United States of America to isolate, and defeat, the Iran threat,” Trump wrote.

Earlier on Wednesday, the UAE announced the suspension of economic ties with Iran after two ballistic missiles were fired at its territory. Tehran rejected the allegations, describing the incident as an Israeli “false-flag operation.” It has previously fired drones and missiles at the UAE and other Arab states in the region that host US bases, accusing them of allowing their territory to be used to stage attacks against it.

Iran closed the waterway, which handles around a quarter of global seaborne oil and LNG trade, shortly after the US and Israel launched their joint bombing campaign on February 28. The US Navy declared its own blockade of Iranian ports in April and has been guiding ships via routes that Iran considers illegal. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump described the blockade as “extremely effective.”

Iranian officials said this month that the strait would not be reopened until the US lifts its blockade, releases the Islamic Republic’s frozen assets, and ends sanctions. Tehran also demanded that Washington withdraw its troops from the region as a condition for a peace deal.

The US suspended its most recent wave of strikes late last month, with Trump saying he wanted to provide space for talks. He has since said, however, that all negotiations have been halted.

The pause in hostilities occurred amid widespread reports that the US military had largely depleted its stockpile of high-precision munitions and interceptor missiles. Trump and US War Secretary Pete Hegseth have denied any shortages.

A biological male who identifies as a woman was sentenced on Tuesday to six years and one month in prison after pleading guilty to plotting to kill US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Ryan Michael English, who goes by the name Raleigh Jane English, turned himself in to a police officer outside the Capitol building in Washington, DC, on January 27, 2025, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Police searched English and found a folding knife, two Molotov cocktails, and a lighter in his jacket pockets.

English confessed to traveling to Washington to kill a Cabinet nominee whose Senate confirmation vote was scheduled for that day, or to burn down an unidentified think tank in the capital. Police found a note to a roommate in English’s pocket that said, “This is terrible but I cant do nothing while nazis kill my sisters… Im so sorry for lying and plotting and lying.”

Judge Rudolph Contreras said English was concerned with “trans rights” and that “the plan was basically impossible to succeed, and she turned herself in before it came anywhere near fruition.”

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro rejected English’s argument for a lighter sentence, which portrayed the defendant as “a young transexual woman who has experienced trauma and suffering from the day she was born.”

“My office will not tolerate attempts to intimidate or harm public officials that strike at the heart of our democratic process and are antithetical to the values we all depend on,” Pirro said following the sentencing.

The US has seen a series of attacks on public figures in recent years, which observers have attributed in part to increasingly charged political rhetoric.

In September, a gunman killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk during a speech on a university campus in Utah. US President Donald Trump survived several assassination attempts, including a shooting at his reelection rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024.

In June 2025, an assailant murdered Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounded state Senator John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. In April of the same year, a man firebombed the residence of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro.

On August 18, a federal trial opened in the US, organized by a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general against Meta.

Twenty-nine states brought the lawsuit, and were represented by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey at the trial. They claimed that the company’s social media platforms hook users, harvest their data, and hide their methods, asserting that they are addictive to children and harm their mental health.

While this particular trial concerns only Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube are also being targeted. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and many others have already been summoned to testify to Congress. And let’s not forget the European Union's Digital Service Act and the showdown between Elon Musk and former European Commissioner Thierry Breton about X’s content moderation. The regulation of social platforms is strengthening everywhere. The arguments are always the same: companies shouldn’t be above the truth or the law, there’s a crucial need to ban “hate speech,” protect our children from pedophilia and psychological disorders, and so on.

But is it really about online activity? Isn’t the problem deeper and rooted in society itself? In its depravity that can be traced back to decades of cultural propaganda, consumerism, the promotion of all kind of sexual habits, and the dismantling of the homogeneity of people? Indeed, social platforms are a tool used to propagate ideas and shape minds, and a lot of trash can be found out there, but they remain only a tool. They are not ideas, ideology, instructions or policies; they are only a transmission channel of a peculiar zeitgeist.

Long before Meta, TikTok and X, the elites were promoting their decadent agenda through books, schools, political discourses, Hollywood and music: sexual promiscuity and ambiguity (essentially targeting the youth), acceptance of a cheaper and cheaper lifestyle (for the masses), tolerance towards organized mass immigration (creating an unstable society), abortion and euthanasia (altering the perception of life itself), and of course the omnipresence of gadgets supposed to connect people and make life easier when in reality they’re alienating them.

Of course, one can argue that it was the same during the Industrial Revolution. Political forces had to deal with the economic importance of entrepreneurs. Most of modern history can be summed up as a constant dialectic between two conceptions: people serving the economy, and the economy serving people. The big difference now, however, is that the tech giants have an asset that traditional entrepreneurs wouldn’t have even dreamed of acquiring to such an extent: control over propaganda and the personal data of billions of people.

It really is a question of balance of power, that can be solved in one of two ways: the forced creation of techno-fascism (where the tech giants obey the political leadership) or the organic emergence of digital capitalist anarcho-totalitarianism (where the politicians are puppets, even more so than they are nowadays).           

In any case, the main culprits will still be the masses. Because, you know, you can’t stop progress! As French philosopher Jacques Ellul wrote: “Modern technology has become a total phenomenon for civilization, the defining force of a new social order in which efficiency is no longer an option but a necessity imposed on all human activity.” Technology has been sanctified, it can’t be controlled – but the worst part is that people can’t envision a world without it and the more it develops, the more severe the addiction becomes. To believe that anything can be changed through institutional means is illusory.

Technology will keep developing. The politicians can’t do anything about it and the masses welcome it, just as they accept with thoughtlessness the decadent society they are offered. The only revolution that can happen has to be not a continuous technological one but a sudden philosophical, spiritual one. Unfortunately, as Etienne de la Boetie wrote back in the second half of the 16th century, one can argue that people voluntarily accept their own servitude. But the servitude is now not towards a government but toward technology.

US President Donald Trump has said he expects to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un later this year, days after ordering joint military drills with South Korea scaled back over what he called their ‘hostile’ signal to Pyongyang.

During his first presidency, Trump and Kim sought to improve relations between the two countries, meeting three times, including at the Demilitarized Zone in 2019. The diplomatic thaw eventually stalled without a deal on North Korea’s nuclear program.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump said he knows Kim Jong-un “very well” and the two “get along.” 

“The fact that I get along with him – that’s a good thing,” the US president said, adding that North Korea possesses “57 very powerful nuclear weapons.” 

Asked whether he planned to meet with Kim later this year, Trump replied: “Yeah, I will be.”

Also on Wednesday, NBC News quoted a White House official as saying Trump was open to meeting Kim at the “appropriate time,” although no date has been set.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s National Defense Ministry said that the annual joint military drills with the US, codenamed Ulchi Freedom Shield, were being cut short at Washington’s request.

A US Department of War official said the drills, which began on Monday, would end on August 21 rather than August 27, with some live-training events canceled or converted to simulations.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun told parliament on Wednesday that the Trump administration had not notified Seoul of the move in advance.

The drills were scaled back after Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday that he was “not happy” that the US had agreed to participate. He said the drills were costly and “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile” to North Korea. “It is too late to cancel,” Trump wrote, adding that he had instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” the exercises.

Trump pointed out that South Korea has refused to back the US in its military campaign against Iran.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, he said he “was not happy when South Korea said – no, they are not interested in helping us with the Hormuz Strait.”

Leaving aside Belarus, which is geographically European but rarely treated as part of Europe’s political mainstream, most people would probably name Serbia, which, in geopolitical terms is a remarkable exception. Even after the start of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine, Belgrade maintained a friendly attitude towards Moscow at both the governmental and public levels.

For four years, Serbia has tried to remain neutral despite sustained pressure from Brussels and Washington, and it refused to impose sanctions on Russia, while avoiding taking openly hostile measures. Recently, however, something appears to have shifted.

The change began in July, when Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic made an unexpected visit to Kiev and less than a month later, he hosted Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in Belgrade.

During their talks, Vucic announced the launch of a Serbian-Israeli factory producing unmanned aerial vehicle, meaning the project places Serbia within the wider Western European drive to expand drone production, an effort from which Kiev may ultimately benefit. Then came a curious dispute over reports that Serbia might end visa-free travel for Russian citizens while hints of such a move appeared in official government documents, even as Belgrade categorically denied that any decision had been taken.

Vucic insists that Serbia’s policy hasn’t changed, yet his recent actions have created understandable doubts. Where are our Serbian brothers heading and when did they take this apparent wrong turn?

Politically and culturally, however, much of Serbia continues to lean towards Russia. So to preserve its right to maintain that relationship, Belgrade must constantly make compromises, including occasional gestures of support for the Western agenda.

Vucic’s precarious domestic position makes this balancing act even more difficult. Since late 2024, the president and his party have faced persistent street protests, with demonstrators accusing the authorities of corruption and demanding their resignation and at the end of June, Vucic said he would step down “very soon” and call early parliamentary and presidential elections.

In any event, he must leave the presidency next year because he can’t seek a third consecutive term, but he’s nevertheless hinted that he intends to remain in power, perhaps by moving into the prime minister’s office if his party wins the election.

Vucic has already faced warnings that EU funding could be blocked unless Serbia repeals legislation strengthening presidential powers while Western policy circles have also discussed placing the Serbian elections under “special supervision,” supposedly to ensure their fairness. In practice, the objective would be to make certain that the present authorities surrender power to more reliably pro-EU forces.

Seen in this context, Belgrade’s recent maneuvers become easier to understand. Suggestions that Serbia might bring its visa policy for Russians into line with EU requirements are a familiar way of stringing Brussels along with promises of future reform, while Vucic’s sudden friendship with Zelensky serves a similar purpose in that it demonstrates loyalty to the prevailing Western political line without committing Serbia to a fundamental change of course.

Together, these gestures may be intended to discourage the European Union from interfering too aggressively in the coming elections while helping Vucic and his party secure a comfortable result. His early announcement that he intends to leave the presidency also gives him some protection, given Brussels will find it harder to direct sustained criticism at a leader who can present himself as a lame duck with one foot already out of office.

In practical terms, therefore, nothing fundamental has changed in Russian-Serbian relations, nor have these meetings created any entirely new source of tension. Serbian-made weapons have already displayed a mysterious tendency to find their way to Ukraine through third countries, while Vucic was probably sincere when he said that Belgrade had not joined Kiev’s side.

Serbia itself hasn’t suddenly changed either. It remains a country with a difficult history and an unenviable geography, trying to preserve its interests in an increasingly unforgiving world. Its leaders must accommodate the European Union without surrendering a relationship with Russia that retains deep cultural and popular roots.

Should Russia condemn the Serbs for trying to preserve their identity and room for maneuver? Definitely not and in fact should help them do so. 

The difficulty is that, for the moment, Russia may not possess as many opportunities to help as either country would like.

Has Serbia withdrawn its support for Russia?

This article was first published by the online newspaper Gazeta.ru and was translated and edited by the RT team

Croatian police have arrested a Ukrainian man suspected by Germany of taking part in the operation behind the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions, following a request from Berlin.

The German Federal Prosecutor’s Office said on Wednesday that Ukrainian national Vladimir Z., previously identified by media as Vladimir Zhuravlyov, had been apprehended in the Croatian city of Pula under a European arrest warrant.

According to the warrant, Zhuravlyov, a trained diver, is accused of planting explosives as part of a group, committing sabotage, and destroying infrastructure. He is expected to be extradited to Germany.

German investigators maintain that the attack was carried out by a small group of Ukrainians who used forged documents to rent a sailing yacht and transport military-grade explosives from Rostock, Germany to waters near the Danish island of Bornholm. The group allegedly used commercial diving equipment to plant the charges on the pipelines at a depth of around 100 meters.

Wall Street Journal journalist Bojan Pancevski even claimed in a recently published book that a glamour model was among the yacht’s crew.

Moscow has dismissed the “Ukrainian frogmen” theory as fantasy, arguing that such a complex operation could not have been carried out in NATO-controlled waters by a small group without state assistance or Western intelligence involvement.

He later apparently returned to Poland and was detained there in September 2025. The following month, however, a Warsaw court rejected Berlin’s extradition request as “unfounded,” arguing that “blowing up critical infrastructure during a war… is not sabotage but denotes a military action.”

The September 2022 explosions severed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines built to carry Russian gas to Germany.

German authorities say the alleged team was led by Sergey K., identified by media as former Ukrainian special forces member Sergey Kuznetsov. He was arrested in Italy in August 2025 and extradited to Germany three months later.

Prosecutors charged Kuznetsov in June with “war crimes” for knowingly attacking civilian infrastructure. His trial is due to begin this fall.

Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky has fired Irina Mudraya, deputy head of his office, after media reports indicated that her home was raided as part of anti-corruption probe over alleged money laundering scheme.

The Western-supported National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) announced on Wednesday that it and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) were targeting an alleged criminal organization led by a current and former lawmaker and involving senior officials from Zelensky’s office.

NABU later said members of the alleged group had laundered 150 million hryvnia ($3.3 million) in cash through shell-company accounts to finance bail for a defendant in the Midas investigation. That sprawling corruption case centers in part on an alleged $100 million embezzlement and kickback scheme involving the country’s nuclear operator Energoatom, which investigators say was masterminded by Timur Mindich, a longtime business associate of Zelensky.

While NABU did not name the suspects, ZN.ua, citing law-enforcement sources, identified them as Mudraya, lawmaker Vadim Stolar, and ex-MP Maksim Mikitas, adding that several Justice Ministry officials and Sense Bank representatives were also targeted.

Recordings released by NABU featured discussions about moving the bail funds and avoiding scrutiny. In one excerpt, an unidentified woman – potentially Mudraya – cites another unidentified person as saying, “corruption needs to be systematized and controlled, not fought.” Another voice adds: “and led.”

The scandal is part of several high-level graft cases. Earlier this month, anti-corruption authorities accused former ambassador to the US Olga Stefanishina of illicit enrichment and inaccurate asset declarations. Last month, they also accused several senior officials in Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry of large-scale fraud, embezzlement, and money laundering aimed at stealing foreign money.

Rampant corruption in Ukraine has long been the case, and only intensified after the escalation of Kiev’s conflict with Russia in 2022. EU officials have also designated graft as one of Ukraine’s key obstacles to membership.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that “corruption in Ukraine has become a byword” as it “permeates the entire Ukrainian power structure, including Zelensky’s inner circle and Zelensky himself.”

In a recent interview, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in response to a question about the aggressive attitude of Israeli politicians towards Türkiye, stated that Ankara will not shy away from war if attacked. While these words cannot be considered a direct declaration of war against Israel, they certainly served as a stern warning. The Turkish leader clearly stated Ankara’s position: Türkiye does not seek to enter into an armed conflict, but any aggression against it will be met with a decisive response. Erdogan, however, did not express any intention to strike first; he merely indicated that the diplomatic means of deterring Israel are gradually being exhausted.

Erdogan’s words are directly related to the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement signed on August 7 by Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. Its core principle is reminiscent of Article 5 of NATO, which states that an attack on one member is considered an attack on all. The defense pact provides for military coordination, joint exercises, intelligence sharing, and the development of defense-industrial cooperation. Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are creating their own mechanism of deterrence. And while it is not yet a full-fledged ‘Islamic NATO’, it is much more than a mere declaration of friendship.

US President Donald Trump’s reaction to this pact was notable. He welcomed the agreement, calling it a “big step” that demonstrates the unity of Middle Eastern countries. At first glance, it sounds contradictory that Washington is approving a mechanism that reduces the dependence of regional allies on American security guarantees. However, the Mecca Agreement is not a military alliance against the US, but rather an agreement against the American monopoly on determining regional security rules. There is a difference between these two concepts, although the distinction may narrow over time.

Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan all have their own grievances against Washington. Türkiye is dissatisfied with US support for Kurdistan Workers’ Party-affiliated militias in Syria, its exclusion from the F-35 program, and America’s continued support for Israel. Saudi Arabia feels bitter about America’s muted response to the attack on its oil infrastructure during the US aggression against Iran and is no longer confident that American guarantees will shield it at a critical moment. Pakistan considers its relations with Washington rather situational. After decades of cooperation, Islamabad faced sanctions and a decline in American interest following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, while Washington’s ties with India strengthened.

Why, then, is Trump satisfied about this new agreement? Regional self-defense is consistent with his long-standing principle that US allies should bear more costs and responsibilities. Moreover, openly opposing the pact would be tantamount to acknowledging US concerns and pushing the three countries toward even greater independence. Washington benefits from welcoming the new structure and maintaining influence through NATO, arms sales, intelligence cooperation, and bilateral ties. Finally, Trump can portray the situation not as a weakening of America, but as a success of his own policy – an example of how the allies have united to share the common burden.

The underlying fault line remains, however. The Mecca agreement enshrines the right of regional powers to decide for themselves who poses a threat to them and what their response should be. Ankara, Riyadh, and Islamabad have no intention of severing ties with the US, but they are trying to safeguard themselves should American policy again prove unpredictable or be subordinated primarily to Israeli interests. Formally, the pact is not directed against Washington; but politically, it signifies a shift away from American patronage toward a more polycentric security system. This is why experts view the agreement as a sign of America’s declining role in the region. 

The entire region, from the Eastern Mediterranean to South Asia, is closely monitoring the new agreement. India sees that its main adversary, Pakistan, has received collective guarantees from two influential states. Israel must take into account that Türkiye now intends to rely not only on its own forces and NATO membership, but also on a separate regional defense mechanism. Likewise, Greece, which has long-standing disputes with Ankara in the Aegean Sea, concerning Cyprus and maritime borders, cannot ignore the strengthening of Türkiye’s position. 

There is currently no reason to talk about the imminent emergence of a formal trilateral pact. India has officially stated that it is studying the implications of the Mecca Agreement for its national security and regional stability, but remains cautious. Most likely, a possible counterweight will initially emerge not in the form of a single treaty, but as a network of joint exercises, intelligence sharing, cooperation in air defense, unmanned systems, and maritime security. But the very possibility of such a configuration demonstrates that the Mecca agreement has already set in motion the logic of regional balancing: the emergence of a single center of power almost inevitably pushes its potential rivals closer together. 

But is Erdogan truly prepared to fight Israel? While retaliatory actions are quite possible, a pre-planned major war is not likely. Türkiye is not interested in a direct confrontation. War would hit its already battered economy, inevitably trigger a crisis within NATO, complicate relations with the US, and could quickly escalate beyond a bilateral conflict. Israel also understands that war with Türkiye carries an incomparably greater risk than operations against non-state actors or strikes against weaker neighbors.

Nevertheless, such a scenario is no longer entirely out of the question. The main zone of risk is Syria, where the interests of the two countries frequently clash. Ankara seeks to consolidate its influence in Damascus, strengthen Syrian statehood while maintaining pro-Turkish sentiments, and prevent the emergence of hostile forces on the Turkish border. Israel is trying to limit Türkiye’s rise and maintain freedom of military action. The two sides maintain technical channels to prevent accidental clashes, but a strike on a target housing Turkish military personnel or the death of Turkish citizens could be enough to trigger a chain reaction.

The Mecca agreement raises the costs of attacking Türkiye, but does not automatically imply that Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will start a major war with Israel. The full text of the document has yet to be published, and collective defense could include various forms of assistance, from political support and intelligence sharing to direct military involvement. For now, it is primarily an instrument of deterrence: its purpose is not to facilitate war, but to dissuade a potential adversary from starting one.

Erdogan’s statement should be seen within this logic. He is not declaring war on Israel, but is depriving the Israeli leadership of the confidence that Türkiye will, under any circumstances, limit itself to protests and diplomatic statements. A full-scale Turkish-Israeli war remains unrealistic. However, if Israeli actions affect Turkish forces or are perceived by Ankara as a direct threat to national security, Erdogan is capable of responding with force. Then it would no longer be a question of whether he wants war, but whether the parties are able to stop the war after the initial exchange of blows.

Donald Trump said just before midnight Washington time that he has a deal with Canada to avoid 50% tariffs, and thus the tariffs are on pause for three days. Although that may not be the case a few more seconds from now. Just ask Iran. Whoops, here we go already. Canada has already disputed the existence of any deal.

If midnight strikes on the eve of August 19 without Canadian government negotiators agreeing to Trump’s demands, then Canada faces “50% tariffs,” Trump had warned. Except now, apparently, Canada has a deal with Trump. For three days. Clock it. Best to check that reservation again before leaving the house, though.

The reality is that most exports to the US from Canada are already covered under a North American free trade agreement that also includes Mexico. And the Canadian government has spent the past several months educating the country’s companies about how they can feasibly ensure that their own products can qualify under that deal. Which leaves, what exactly? Canadian booze. Canadian hockey gear. Canadian wood and paper products.

Yet you’d think that the US has actual options from the way that Trump has been behaving. Why even negotiate with Canada if that’s the case. It’s like the guy blowing up your phone asking for a date while insisting that he has better offers on the table than you. Well, go ahead, then. What’s stopping you? If you’re still camping out on the lawn, then there must be something that you really want and need – regardless of the accompanying rhetoric suggesting otherwise.

Now, apparently, there is a deal. Until there isn’t. Or until the deal becomes a different deal. Or until the deadline for the deal moves. Or until the deal is declared a victory, followed by another deadline to secure the next victory. It’s like a departure board for a flight in hurricane season.

Oh, what’s that? You want first dibs on Canadian natural resources in the interest of collective security, as reports have suggested? That’s like telling a woman that she must date you and not anyone else because you’re the safest choice.

Does Mr. Security threaten to violate you against your multiple attempts to rebuff his advances, as Trump did in repeatedly riffing about making Canada the “51st state” despite Canadians literally making it the primary issue in their last national election that resulted in a landslide win for the current Prime Minister, Mark Carney, who made it the cornerstone of his campaign?

“The US is demanding a right of first refusal on Canadian critical minerals, that Canada complete its purchase of US F-35 fighter jets, that Ottawa buy US tech such as radar planes as part of joining Mr. Trump’s planned Golden Dome missile defence system, and that Washington receive some guarantee on future supplies of oil and gas,” according to the Globe and Mail.

In fact, this entire charade has made Canada more unified and stronger than ever. It’s finally awoken even the most sycophantic pro-US Canadians to its vassal status reality through historical kowtowing to Washington’s demands. Just a few years ago, anyone talking about diversifying interests away from US over-dependence and speaking publicly about how the US-centric world is over, would have immediately been branded some kind of foreign agent tasked with breaking up the US-led Western alliance. But Carney has made it clear that sovereignty runs through the kind of diversification of interests that much maligned patriotic Canadians have been demanding for years.

Trump’s desire for Canadian assets – and the frustration over being denied, as repeatedly exhibited by his Ambassador to Ottawa, Pete Hoekstra – has also served to draw Canadians’ attention to the various potential ways that American and other foreign interests have been actively supporting separatist groups – most recently in resource-rich Alberta – in an attempt to gain political leverage over the country’s elected decision makers and tilt the global playing field in their own favor.

Hoekstra himself has been linked to a voter ID app used by the separatist movement, which has also met with Trump’s State Department officials – as a Canadian petition on the parliamentary website states. To date, nearly a quarter-million Canadians have signed it, demanding that Hoekstra be drop-kicked out of the country for foreign interference – a phenomenon that would have been unthinkable to associate with the US until recently, despite what some of us kept trying to explain.

The trade spat with the US was also the catalyst needed for the various Canadian provinces to do away with their own provincial protectionist barriers – finally allowing free trade across the nation.

And buying Canadian – or anything BUT American – has become such a widespread activist movement that it’s been widely reported that despite Trump’s demand that Carney get American booze back on Canadian shelves, it would just sit there collecting dust at this point. It’s no wonder Canadians that don’t care about any midnight deadlines, with 66% certain that Trump wouldn’t honor it anyway, according to an Abacus poll.

So, yes: Canada and Trump have a deal. Unless something changes. Like the direction of the wind. Which is already the case, apparently. It’s actually more like a three-day free trial that can be cancelled anytime before it ends. Or even after. Doesn’t really matter anyway, since the charges will be showing up on the statement, regardless.

Russian doctors have developed and tested what they describe as the first treatment strategy of its kind for Alzheimer’s, using a new blood-filtering technique to target chronic inflammation – one of the processes believed to drive brain-cell damage.

Alzheimer’s is a progressive brain disease and the most common form of dementia. It gradually destroys memory, thinking and other cognitive abilities, eventually leaving patients unable to perform everyday tasks independently.

The new method was developed by clinicians at Sechenov University in Moscow, one of Russia’s oldest and leading medical universities, and tested on Alzheimer’s patients, according to a press release issued on Tuesday.

Unlike most existing treatments, which largely seek to ease symptoms or target beta-amyloid – a harmful protein that accumulates in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients – the new approach focuses on substances that fuel inflammation throughout the body and are believed to contribute to the disease.

Among them are so-called neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) – web-like structures of DNA and enzymes released by immune cells to fight health threats. While normally part of the body’s defenses, researchers say an excess of NETs with age can fuel inflammation, increase blood-vessel permeability, promote beta-amyloid buildup and damage brain cells.

To do so, they developed a technique that essentially cleans the blood. A patient’s plasma is passed through a special filter that removes potentially harmful DNA-containing particles while preserving healthy proteins, minerals and other useful substances before being returned to the bloodstream.

The approach was tested in a pilot study involving patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. They underwent three blood-filtering procedures at intervals of two to three days, with each session processing the equivalent of twice the patient’s total circulating plasma volume.

Doctors assessed the patients before and after treatment using memory and cognitive tests, brain MRI scans and spinal-fluid biomarkers. Three months later, researchers reported improvements in verbal memory, attention and information-processing speed. Relatives asked to assess the patients’ progress also noted improvements in their ability to perform daily tasks.

The researchers stressed that the findings are preliminary and that larger trials are needed to confirm the treatment’s safety and effectiveness. However, the team believes the strategy could eventually complement existing Alzheimer’s therapies.

Around 57 million people worldwide live with dementia, with Alzheimer’s accounting for an estimated 35–40 million cases, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Dementia is the seventh-leading cause of death globally, with nearly 10 million new cases each year – roughly one every three seconds. The risk of developing the condition doubles every five years after age 65. There is currently no cure.

South Korean prosecutors have sought the death penalty for a woman accused of killing two men with drug-laced drinks after allegedly consulting ChatGPT about potentially lethal combinations and dosages.

Kim So-young is accused of giving beverages spiked with benzodiazepines to three men between December 2025 and February this year. Two died, while the third survived, according to Yonhap. She is also charged with injuring three other men using similar methods.

Prosecutors asked the Seoul Northern District Court on Tuesday to sentence Kim to death during the final hearing of her trial.

Kim has denied intending to kill the men and has claimed she gave them the drinks to prevent unwanted physical contact.

However, police have said they recovered ChatGPT conversations from Kim’s phone in which she asked about the effects of combining sleeping pills with alcohol, what amounts could be dangerous, and whether the mixture could prove fatal.

According to investigators cited by NBC News, one of the three men at the center of the murder case survived after spending two days in a coma. Kim is believed to have subsequently consulted ChatGPT about the risks and dosages involved, and investigators say she increased the amount of drugs used before the later fatal poisonings.

Authorities have sought to use the chatbot conversations as evidence that Kim understood the potentially lethal consequences of the drugs. A lawyer representing one victim’s family has said the chat logs could be important in establishing whether she intended to kill.

Florida launched a criminal investigation into ChatGPT creator OpenAI this year after authorities said the perpetrator of the 2025 Florida State University shooting had used the bot to seek advice about guns and ammunition before killing two people and injuring six others.

In Canada, OpenAI faced lawsuits after acknowledging that it had banned the ChatGPT account of a teenager who later killed eight people in the Tumbler Ridge massacre, but had not alerted police.

Earlier this month, prosecutors in Massachusetts said a 17-year-old charged with murdering his 45-year-old mother and 14-year-old brother had also used ChatGPT to create “fantasy stories” about killing his family.

OpenAI has generally rejected claims that ChatGPT is responsible for violent acts committed by users, insisting it has a zero-tolerance policy on using its tools to assist violence and has been strengthening safeguards, account enforcement, and procedures for referring potentially dangerous users to law enforcement.

The company has also faced lawsuits accusing ChatGPT of fostering addictive behavior, reinforcing mental-health crises, and contributing to suicides.

India has finalized the paperwork to start constructing a hospital in the West Bank, Palestine’s ambassador to New Delhi has said. But he added that it is Gaza that badly needs the artificial limb facility that his government has discussed with New Delhi about building.

Addressing a press conference in New Delhi, Abdullah M. Abu Shawesh said that there are more than 5,000 amputees in Gaza who are desperately in need of artificial limbs.

India said last month that it will build three major projects in Palestine, which include a specialty hospital, an artificial limb fitment center, and a vocational training institute.

Gaza is currently under Israeli occupation following the Hamas terror attack on October 7, 2023. 

”I’m sure India will be with us in Gaza the day after the war,” Shawesh  said. He added that some 20,000 Palestinians are in need of medical evacuation in Gaza, but that Israel is allowing only small groups of 5-10 to be moved.

Shawesh said that Palestine backs India’s bid for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council for 2028-2029, a day after Indian diplomat Sripriya Ranganathan visited Ramallah in the West Bank and met with Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen Aghabekian Shahin.

”There is no ceasefire in Gaza, even with the declaration that had been (made) many months ago, Israel did not stop killing the Palestinian people,” Shawesh pointed out in an exclusive interview with RT India. 

The envoy painted a dire picture of Gaza. “My home, my father’s home, where I was born, has been destroyed. Gaza is destroyed,” he said, adding that 95% of the people there have been displaced and are living in shelters and tents.  

US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, after holding talks with Hamas leaders, in an effort to revive a Gaza peace plan.

However, Israeli Defense Forces said on Tuesday that it had hit a meeting of Hamas commanders in Gaza City; the Hamas-run civil defense agency said six people were killed and 14 wounded in the attack.

He alleged that children were specifically targeted by Israeli forces. The UN panel reported that Israel had killed 20,000 Palestinian children.

Protests broke out in western Libya, including in its capital Tripoli, on Tuesday after three widespread power outages in two days left residents without reliable electricity. 

Demonstrators took to streets and public squares, blocking roads and setting tires on fire. In Tripoli’s Tajoura district, protesters closed main roads with earthen barriers as they demonstrated against prolonged power outages and deteriorating basic services.  

The latest unrest follows weeks of protests linked to Libya’s electricity crisis. Triggered by a blistering heatwave with temperatures soaring to 50 degrees Celsius, residents faced daily blackouts lasting up to 14 hours, fueling widespread public anger.  

The situation escalated dramatically on July 28, when furious protesters stormed the strategic Mellitah Oil and Gas Complex, temporarily shutting down critical gas supplies to local power stations. 

Libya’s energy infrastructure has recently come under attack. Last week, Zawiya’s oil refining facilities which can process about 120,000 barrels a day were repeatedly targeted with drones. Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) warned that continued drone attacks could force it to stop operations at the country’s largest functioning refinery. 

One strike hit a gasoline tank holding about 4.5 million liters of fuel and started a major fire, the NOC said. Another damaged a tank containing untreated naphtha. The corporation declared the highest state of emergency in the area and called on the authorities to investigate the attacks. No group has claimed responsibility so far. 

🚨BREAKING: Protests Erupt In The Libyan Capital, Tripoli

The demonstrators are protesting against frequent blackouts & government mismanagement. pic.twitter.com/hmkbqgWJJ5

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) August 17, 2026

Israel is building an execution facility for Palestinian prisoners sentenced to death on terrorism charges, ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has announced. Apart from an execution chamber, the facility will house viewing booths where “crime victims” and their families can witness hangings – an option “customary in many countries,” Ben-Gvir mentioned while presenting the facility on Tuesday.

The complex will be used to hang convicted “terrorists” under the recently approved Death Penalty for Terrorists Law. The Knesset passed the legislation, championed by Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party, in March. It mandates death penalty for those convicted of deadly terrorist attacks aimed at “ending Israel’s existence” – a provision critics say effectively exempts Jewish Israelis, making the law applicable almost exclusively to Palestinians. Executions must be carried out within 90 days of sentencing, with no right of appeal.

The execution facility’s exact location has not been disclosed beyond that it is housed in a newly built death-row wing at a prison in central Israel. In partly blurred video footage filmed at the site, a beaming Ben-Gvir proudly showcases the construction site, framing it as the fulfillment of promises to his supporters.

“We are making history. Terrorists deserve only one thing – death by hanging,” the minister stated. “I took office promising to stop the ‘summer camps’ in the Prison Service. This has been fully implemented. I promised to legislate a death penalty law for terrorists. This has been carried out. And now the death row and hanging facility are also starting to take shape.”

Ben Gvir is known for inflammatory rhetoric toward Palestinians and has been sanctioned by multiple countries for repeatedly inciting violence against them.

‘Deeply discriminatory’ law

The death penalty law has drawn widespread criticism from human rights groups and legal campaigners, including in Israel, over discrimination, due process, and potential violations of international and Israeli law. UN human rights experts have warned that hanging in particular is incompatible with the absolute prohibition on torture, while Israeli rights group B’Tselem argued that the highly visual method contributes to the “dehumanization” of Palestinians.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has called it “deeply discriminatory” and an egregious violation of international law. Israeli lawmakers and rights groups, including Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel – recently petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the law as unconstitutional.

Israel currently holds around 9,400 Palestinian prisoners, including nearly 100 women and more than 370 minors, according to media reports citing the Palestinian Prisoner Society. Rights groups have repeatedly reported mistreatment of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, with former detainees and advocacy organizations alleging abuse, torture, starvation, physical and psychological harm, sexual violence, and denial of medical treatment. Israel is also reportedly holding the bodies of more than 100 Palestinians who died in its custody.

The US has imposed sanctions on two senior International Criminal Court (ICC) officials, accusing The Hague-based institution of overstepping its authority.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday designated ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior trial lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, describing the court as a “corrupt and fatally politicized supranational court that has maliciously abused its authority and exceeded its mandate.”

The designations are a part of a campaign announced by Rubio last month to “systematically dismantle the threat posed” by the ICC to US sovereignty.

Rubio has accused the court of targeting nationals of countries that have neither consented to its jurisdiction nor ratified the Rome Statute. The ICC previously investigated alleged crimes by US military and intelligence personnel in Afghanistan despite Washington not being a member.

Seye worked on the prosecution team involved in the Netanyahu case. Israeli outlet Ynet reported in May that he was also overseeing an ICC investigation into funding for West Bank settlements and the supply of weapons to settlers. Netanyahu welcomed the latest US sanctions, denouncing the ICC as a “kangaroo court.”

The ICC said on Wednesday it “strongly rejects” the new designations, calling them “a flagrant attack against the independence of an impartial judicial institution.”

The court has also faced criticism elsewhere. Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have initiated withdrawals this summer, while Chad followed in July, accusing the ICC of disproportionately focusing on Africa.

Russia has likewise rejected the court’s authority. The ICC issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova in March 2023 over the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia. Moscow dismissed the warrants as legally null and void and rejected the allegations, saying it evacuated unaccompanied children from the war zone and is ready to return them to their legal guardians upon request.

Liberia has agreed to accept up to 1,200 third-country migrants deported from the US under a controversial agreement pushed by the Trump administration as part of its sweeping immigration crackdown.

The transfers will take place over one year, with the first group of 20 due to arrive in the West African country on Thursday, Liberia’s Ministry of Information said in a statement on Tuesday.

The arrangement, concluded through an exchange of diplomatic notes in September 2025, covers medically cleared nationals of “African and Western Hemisphere countries.” Those transferred may apply for asylum in Liberia or leave the country voluntarily, the ministry stated.

It said the deportees “are not criminals” and will be treated as guests rather than prisoners. The government said it would provide protection and support during their stay.

The deal is among the largest reached under US President Donald Trump’s expanding third-country deportation policy. The mechanism allows Washington to remove migrants to states where they hold no citizenship or established ties, including when their home governments refuse to receive them.

A coalition of rights lawyers and advocates, including the Global Strategic Litigation Council, has accused Washington of using third-country transfers to bypass protection orders and expose migrants to persecution or torture. Thousands have reportedly been transferred to nearly two dozen states, including around ten in Africa.

Ghana, Eswatini, Rwanda, Uganda, South Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, and the Central African Republic are among the African countries that have accepted third-country deportees.

Liberia has said its participation is “entirely humanitarian,” pointing to its founding as a refuge for freed slaves from the US and elsewhere, as well as its history of sheltering people fleeing persecution and war.

South African citrus exporters have received a boost in the Indian market after New Delhi amended its plant quarantine rules on Monday, approving additional cold-treatment options for fresh citrus imports from the African state.

The move, which follows almost a decade of negotiations, will give exporters more flexibility and could help improve the quality of fruit reaching the Indian market. Minister of Agriculture Willie Aucamp welcomed the development, saying it was good news for the industry and showed how technology was helping farmers overcome barriers and expand access to international markets.

India is home to about 1.47 billion people and is one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies, making it a potentially important market for South African citrus.

CEO of the Citrus Growers’ Association of Southern Africa (CGA), Boitshoko Ntshabele, argued the focus should now shift to improving the commercial conditions for South African citrus exports to India. He said tariffs of about 25% to 30% continue to put South African citrus at a disadvantage compared with competitors from the Southern Hemisphere that have preferential trade arrangements with India.

“Special recognition is given to the Department of Agriculture and Citrus Research International for their continued technical engagement with Indian authorities that have made the new treatment options possible. This demonstrates the importance of sustained public-private partnership in improving technical conditions for accessing markets,” Ntshabele said.

First published by IOL

The death toll from last week’s ferry disaster on Zimbabwe’s Lake Kariba has risen to 94, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) said on Tuesday.  

Search teams remain deployed in the area and recovery operations will continue as the authorities seek to locate any people still missing. “The death toll is now 94,” the ZRP reported, adding that search efforts would continue to locate “any missing persons or bodies.”  

The latest figure marks a further increase from the 93 deaths reported by police on Monday. In an earlier statement, the ZRP said 83 of the victims had been identified by their relatives. The victims include a number of young children. 

The ferry, operated by Zimbabwe’s Rural Infrastructure Development Agency (RIDA), capsized on Lake Kariba on August 11 while traveling from the town of Kariba to remote communities and fishing camps along the lake. The ferry, which reportedly encountered strong waves, was carrying around 180 passengers and cargo at the time of the accident, according to local broadcaster ZBC News.   

The African Union (AU) has expressed condolences over the disaster. AU Commission Chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf said the bloc stood “in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe and the affected communities.” The United Arab Emirates (UAE) also conveyed its “sincere condolences and solidarity” to Zimbabwe. 

Fatal boat accidents occur regularly across Africa, where overcrowding and poor safety standards are often cited as contributing factors. In September, a wooden vessel carrying about 90 passengers capsized in Nigeria’s Niger State, killing at least 29 people. Authorities attributed the accident to overloading and the boat striking a submerged tree stump.

Russia and Ukraine have conducted another prisoner of war exchange, returning over a hundred servicemen to each side, the Defense Ministry in Moscow announced on Wednesday.

In a statement published on social media, the ministry said that “103 Russian servicemen were returned from territory controlled by the Kiev regime.” In exchange, 103 Ukrainian Armed Forces prisoners of war were transferred to Kiev.

The returned Russian servicemen are currently in Belarus, where they are receiving psychological and medical assistance, according to the ministry. Russian Human Rights Commissioner Yana Lantratova is working with the freed soldiers.

Lantratova noted that of the 103 returned Russian soldiers, 31 are wounded. “Among those who returned are fathers of many children, and some are very young men,” she added.

The soldiers will later be transported to Russia for further treatment and rehabilitation at Defense Ministry medical facilities.

The exchange was carried out with humanitarian mediation from the United Arab Emirates, the ministry added.

The swap is the latest in a series of prisoner exchanges between Moscow and Kiev despite the ongoing conflict.

The previous exchange took place on June 26, when the two sides returned 160 servicemen each, also with UAE mediation. Earlier that month, Russia and Ukraine also exchanged 185 POWs each, while another 205 servicemen from each side were released in May.

Moscow and Kiev have also continued exchanging the bodies of fallen soldiers. The UAE has repeatedly acted as a mediator in humanitarian contacts between the two sides.

NASA has released images showing a crater blasted into the Moon by a discarded SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket stage that struck the lunar surface at around 5,400 mph (8,700 kph) earlier this month.

The US space agency published an animated before-and-after comparison on Tuesday, using images captured by its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) that show the previously undisturbed surface and a dark new impact scar.

NASA said the crater measures roughly 18 meters (60 ft) across and less than 3 meters (10 ft) deep.

The images also reveal bright and dark rays spreading outward from the crater. NASA said the darker streaks consist of weathered lunar dust and rocks that were blasted out from the upper 1.5 ft (0.46 m) of the lunar surface by the impact. The material had been altered over time by solar wind, cosmic rays, and micrometeorite strikes. Brighter debris near the crater rim came from deeper underground.

Spotted: Falcon 9 impact site

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has captured images of a new crater on the Moon. The crater formed on Aug. 5, 2026, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 upper stage impacted the lunar surface. https://t.co/aqduBYwpmg pic.twitter.com/hE83yvzmIk

— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) August 18, 2026

The 4-ton upper stage struck the Moon on August 5 after drifting through space for more than a year. The Falcon 9 launched in January 2025 carrying the US Blue Ghost and Japanese Resilience lunar landers. Its reusable first-stage booster returned to Earth, while the second stage remained in space.

SpaceX said the stage had initially been placed on a trajectory considered safe under existing rules. A combination of solar activity and gravitational forces later sent it toward the lunar surface.

Although the Moon is regularly struck by natural meteoroids, collisions involving man-made objects are much less common. NASA deliberately crashed rocket stages into the lunar surface during the Apollo era to collect seismic data.

The US has lifted security restrictions on vessels arriving from Nigeria, ending a 12-year regime that burdened shipping companies with additional guards, inspections, and paperwork.

A US Coast Guard notice published on Wednesday said “recent assessments” had found that Africa’s most populous nation was maintaining effective antiterrorism measures at its ports, warranting the removal of restrictions known as Conditions of Entry (CoE).

The measures, imposed in June 2014, did not amount to an outright ban on Nigerian-flagged ships. They applied to vessels that had called at designated Nigerian ports during their previous five port calls, requiring operators to tighten onboard security, guard access points, and report their precautions. The safeguards were intended to prevent ships leaving poorly secured ports from being exploited to carry terrorists, weapons, or tampered cargo into US waters.

The conditions had long drawn complaints over higher insurance bills, added personnel costs, and delays. Abuja expects their removal to improve turnaround times and attract shipping lines, although congestion, corruption allegations, and Gulf of Guinea piracy remain obstacles.

The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency said the US Coast Guard conducted four assessments of the West African nation’s maritime security systems and port facilities between March 2024 and April 2026.

Nigeria’s minister of marine and blue economy, Adegboyega Oyetola, hailed the decision as “a major milestone” affirming Abuja’s progress in maritime security and implementation of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code.

Nigeria was not the only African country subject to US conditions of entry. Similar vessel restrictions remain in force against Cameroon, Comoros, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Libya, Madagascar, Seychelles, Sudan, and Sao Tome and Principe. In February, the Coast Guard expanded the restrictions within Cameroon and Madagascar by revoking exemptions previously granted to certain port facilities.

Sicily is facing its worst aviation disruption in more than two decades as a prolonged eruption of Mount Etna forces hundreds of flight cancellations, stranding thousands during the peak summer holiday season.

Europe’s tallest and most active volcano has been erupting continuously since August 6, producing lava fountains, fresh flows, and persistent ash emissions. Experts say the activity could continue for weeks or even months.

Volcanic ash has caused the greatest disruption, with shifting winds carrying it toward Catania-Fontanarossa Airport, about 30 km south of Etna. On Tuesday, the airport extended restrictions due to “Etna’s eruptive activity and the simultaneous emission of volcanic ash,” limiting arrivals to ten per hour. In recent days, the cap has fallen as low as five as changing winds repeatedly forced schedule revisions under safety procedures.

Catania is Sicily’s busiest airport and the sixth busiest in Italy. Its operator, Societa Aeroporti Catania (SAC), has called the disruption “the most difficult emergency of the last 20 years.” Between August 6 and 12, 36% of some 1,974 scheduled arrivals were canceled, SAC said, while around 630 incoming flights were diverted. By August 13, nearly 800 flights had been canceled, disrupting travel for tens of thousands of passengers.

Drone footage released by the Ruptly video agency on Tuesday showed Etna lighting up the night sky as jets of glowing lava erupted from its summit and flowed down its slopes.

“In this case we have… days of continuous activity. Similar phenomena were seen in the late 1970s,” Gambino told Euronews.

Several parts of Etna are also active simultaneously, with lava fountains and ash emissions at the Voragine crater and multiple vents feeding flows in the Valle del Bove. A new vent opened on the eastern side on Monday, though INGV said the lava currently poses no threat to populated areas.

Italy’s Civil Protection Department has kept Etna at yellow alert, the second of four levels, since June 26. Despite heightened monitoring and restrictions, particularly at higher altitudes, the eruption has drawn large crowds, causing congestion and prompting some hiking closures. The local rescue service has also urged caution following several callouts.

BRICS countries have opposed the European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), calling it “unilateral, punitive, discriminatory, and protectionist.”

The meeting of the bloc’s environmental and climate ministers in New Delhi, chaired by Indian Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Bhupender Yadav, expressed concern on Monday that the measures specifically undermine efforts by developing countries “aimed at addressing the adverse impacts of climate change.”

The BRICS group of emerging and developing economies includes the original members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, as well as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Indonesia.

The EU mechanism, which came into effect on January 1, aims to reduce “carbon leakages” through a certificate-based pricing system. In effect, it puts a carbon price on emissions-intensive goods entering the 27-nation EU bloc.

Importers have to buy certificates matching the weekly carbon price of the EU Emissions Trading System, with deductions allowed for any carbon prices already paid in the goods’ country of origin.

Addressed the 12th BRICS Environment Ministers’ Meeting, welcoming Ministers and Delegates and reaffirming the importance of aligning policy, technology and public participation towards building a sustainable planet following a “humanity first“ approach.@BricsIndia2026 pic.twitter.com/YC8CKLpz5t

— Bhupender Yadav (@byadavbjp) August 18, 2026

The CBAM’s professed aim – to ensure foreign goods face a carbon cost equal to products made inside the EU – puts producers in developing countries at a disadvantage. It imposes extra carbon costs on the key exports of developing countries and reduces their price competitiveness in European markets.

Producers in the Global South are forced to undertake costly tracking of factory emissions to sell to the EU, while it reduces overall market opportunities for carbon-intensive emerging economies – which in effect are forced to pay for the historical high emissions of Western developed nations.

The higher carbon costs make Indian exports of steel, aluminum, and cement to the EU less competitive. New Delhi has raced to create a domestic carbon trading framework and mechanism to keep the value of the carbon savings within the country instead of ending up as EU taxes.

The BRICS statement noted that the EU carbon border tax was “not in line with international law.”

India had in 2024 labelled the proposed CBAM as unfair and detrimental to domestic market costs.

The UK will face consequences if it continues to supply drones used by Ukraine for strikes deep inside Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has warned. Moscow has accused Ukraine of targeting civilian infrastructure and carrying out indiscriminate strikes that kill civilians.

According to the Sunday Times, drones made by BAE Systems and another unnamed UK company have been used in attacks over the past six months, including strikes on oil refineries in Volgograd, southwestern Russia, and Yaroslavl, northeast of Moscow. The UAVs reportedly used in long-range strikes included the Nyan, a jet-powered drone manufactured by a BAE Systems subsidiary.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said the UK will continue to support Ukraine “100%.”

“We are not fair-weather friends, we will be there in Ukraine’s hour of need and that won’t change,” he said, according to the BBC.

Commenting on Tuesday, Lavrov told Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin: “You know, I feel sorry for Britain if it intends to stand with Ukraine until the very end.”

In a statement on Monday, the Russian Embassy in London branded the UK “an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks” committed by Ukraine.

“The deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay,” the embassy said.

Ukraine has stepped up attacks in recent months, targeting Russian port infrastructure, energy sites, and warehouses belonging to Wildberries, the country’s equivalent of Amazon. In a number of cases, drones have also struck residential areas, including high-rise apartment buildings and houses.

An attack last week on industrial and civilian sites in Nizhnekamsk in Russia’s Republic of Tatarstan killed 13 people, while a strike on a Wildberries warehouse in Kotovsk, Tambov Region, on July 18 left seven workers dead.

One of Ukraine’s deadliest strikes on Russia came in May, when a drone hit a college dormitory in the Donbass city of Starobelsk, killing 21 people, mostly young women.

The US has suspended negotiations with Iran and is seeking to gradually “strangle” the country, CNN reported on Tuesday, after its bombing campaign near the Strait of Hormuz failed to yield the desired results.

The US abruptly halted its most recent wave of strikes late last month amid reports that the war, launched alongside Israel on February 28, has largely depleted its stockpiles of precision munitions and interceptor missiles. US top brass have also reportedly warned President Donald Trump that the military has exhausted its list of targets near the Strait of Hormuz.

White House officials reportedly told political allies that they were changing strategy in what a CNN source described as “going from ‘hammer Iran ASAP’ to ‘strangle them’ over time.”

According to the outlet, Trump instructed his negotiators, including Vice President J.D. Vance and envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to halt talks with Tehran.

The June 17 memorandum of understanding (MoU), which provided a 60-day window to negotiate a definitive peace deal between the US and Iran, expired on Monday as the two sides clashed over its interpretation. Iran’s key negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, last week denounced what he called “theater diplomacy,” accusing the US of issuing unacceptable ultimatums.

Ghalibaf said on Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed until the US lifts its blockade, releases Iran’s frozen assets, and removes sanctions. Iran closed the strategic waterway, which handles around a quarter of global seaborne oil and LNG trade, shortly after the US and Israel launched their bombing campaign in late February. The US Navy declared its own blockade in April and has since been guiding ships through routes that Iran considers illegal.

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov, whose surprise firing last month sparked weeks of popular protests, has called for Vladimir Zelensky to lift his ban on elections.

Zelensky, whose five-year presidential term expired in May 2024, has refused to hold a new election, citing martial law imposed after the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022.

Fedorov, credited with championing drone warfare and fostering military cooperation abroad, was sacked on July 14 amid reports of clashes over priorities and tactics with Ukraine’s top commander, Aleksandr Syrsky. Zelensky responded to street protests demanding Fedorov’s return by firing Syrsky the following week. Both Fedorov and Syrsky have since publicly sought to downplay their differences.

In a campaign-style video released on YouTube on Tuesday evening, Fedorov blasted corruption and called for accountability and transparency amid what he described as “a systemic crisis of governance.”

“We must find a legal, safe, and realistic mechanism that would allow Ukraine to restore a fully functioning democratic process even if the war drags on,” Fedorov said.

“We can find a solution even in this situation, because democracy is not a luxury reserved for peacetime. Democracy is part of what we are fighting for today. But there is another reason why this conversation is needed right now. People cannot live indefinitely in a state where they do not understand why certain decisions are being made,” the former minister added.

“Society gets the impression that the main criterion for appointing someone is not their professionalism, their track record or their ability to change the country, but their personal loyalty to the system,” Fedorov said.

In an apparent jab at Zelensky’s Servant of the People party, he argued that the country’s parliament should be “the heart of Ukrainian democracy, not its wallet.”

In a post on X, Russian presidential investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev argued that Fedorov was “de facto signaling his presidential ambitions in a challenge to Zelensky.”

Critics have long accused Zelensky of abusing his power and seeking to sideline officials widely seen as potential political rivals. In February 2024, he abruptly sacked his top commander, Valery Zaluzhny, who was credited with the defense of Kiev during the early stages of the conflict, and later appointed him ambassador to the UK. In January, Zelensky removed Kirill Budanov as head of military intelligence and appointed him his new chief of staff. Both Zaluzhny and Budanov enjoyed significant public support and had polled close to or ahead of Zelensky.

Zelensky’s rule has been marred by controversies that have caused uproar at home and abroad. Last year, he sought to curb the investigative powers of the Western-backed anti-corruption agencies NABU and SAPO, only to back down following protests in Kiev and criticism from Ukraine’s foreign backers.

In November, anti-corruption investigators uncovered an alleged $100 million kickback scheme in the energy industry that implicated Zelensky’s longtime business partner Timur Mindich, who fled the country to evade arrest. The fallout led to the resignations of several ministers and Zelensky’s close associate Yermak.

US congressional lawyers are struggling with a flood of error-ridden AI-generated legislation, forcing them to spend increasingly more time rewriting proposals produced by chatbots, Politico reported on Monday.

Staffers and outside groups have more frequently turned to ChatGPT and Claude to produce legislative text, with error-ridden drafts regularly reaching the House Office of Legislative Counsel (OLC), according to eight current and former officials interviewed by the Axel Springer-owned outlet.

In some cases, lawyers spend “more time trying to fix AI-drafted legislation than it would take for them to draft it from scratch,” one person who advises congressional staff on the technology said.

The OLC helps lawmakers turn policy proposals into bills and ensure they fit existing US law. However, AI-generated drafts have reportedly arrived with incorrect statutory references, confused legal definitions and wording that could produce unintended consequences if enacted.

The errors are adding to an already heavy workload. The OLC has 61 attorneys and 19 support staff and received 5,623 legislative requests during the first 60 days of the current Congress, up 72% from the same period two years earlier.

AI use is becoming increasingly common on Capitol Hill, four congressional staffers told Politico, saying that chatbots are used to review and draft legislation. The introduction of generative tools, however, has already led to a number of public blunders.

Canadian politician reads AI prompt aloud in legislature without realizing it:

"Here's a more natural, flowing version of that section that reads like a legislative speech rather than a series of short points" pic.twitter.com/S2Q0aV2Ufp

— CR1337 (@CR1337) July 26, 2026

In June, Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna’s office published an amendment summary containing the words “Claude responded:” along with other text copied from the chatbot. Luna said AI had been used on the summary rather than the amendment itself, and added that the inclusion of Claude’s remarks was “not a shocker. Most staff use it.”

AI-related errors have also reached the US courts. Two federal judges came under scrutiny last year over rulings containing inaccurate quotations, factual errors and incorrect case references, with AI reportedly involved in at least one case.

The State Department also apologized last month after using an AI-generated map that misplaced all six African countries it highlighted.

Despite such blunders, the OLC is also exploring how AI could assist its own work. The office told Congress in March that it had formed a working group to examine uses such as legal research and had already introduced specialized technology to help its lawyers draft legislation.

The relics of one of Russia’s greatest heroes, Dmitry Donskoy, have been recovered at the Kremlin’s Archangel Cathedral, the Russian Orthodox Church announced on Tuesday.

Grand Prince Dmitry of Moscow has for centuries been revered for his victory over the Mongols at the Battle of Kulikovo on the Don River in the year 1380, which earned him the epithet Donskoy. While the victory did not end the Golden Horde’s domination over the Russian principalities, it is traditionally regarded as a turning point in Russian history that helped pave the way for eventual liberation.

Under Dmitry Donskoy, Moscow also strengthened its position as the leading power among the rival Russian principalities, laying the foundations for the emergence of a centralized Russian state. The Orthodox Church canonized the prince in 1988.

The Church said Donskoy’s remains were uncovered by chance during restoration work at the cathedral last month. The project was undertaken to address sinking floor slabs that threatened to damage the tombstones of several grand princes.

As workers dismantled the brick covers of the crypts beneath the floor, they uncovered three white-stone sarcophagi. One was found to have cracks requiring urgent repairs.

The discovery marked the first time Donskoy’s burial site had been opened. Until July, Kremlin museum specialists had been uncertain about the exact location of his remains after a 19th-century engineering report suggested that the tombs may have been mixed up.

With the blessing of Patriarch Kirill, archaeologists and anthropologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences examined the remains.

After the remains were authenticated, Kirill ordered that fragments of the relics be recovered and made available for veneration by worshippers.

During a special service on Tuesday, the patriarch highlighted Donskoy’s role in the emergence of a sovereign Russian state.

“Now we will offer a prayer to the holy and faithful prince, asking him to intercede for and protect our land, our Fatherland, and to beseech the Lord to safeguard the Russian land from every enemy and adversary,” the patriarch said.

Presidential aide and historian Vladimir Medinsky described the recovery of Donskoy’s relics as an event of profound spiritual significance for the entire nation, according to TASS.

Agricultural producers across the EU have warned of sharp drops in yields after Europe has been hit by successive heatwaves this summer. Economists have said the losses are likely to push food prices higher in the coming months.

June and July were the hottest on record in western Europe, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, which has warned of a “continued risk of heatwaves affecting much of Europe” through August and into September.

In France, one of the EU’s largest grain producers, groundwater reserves were severely depleted across much of the country by early August, according to the national geological survey.

Prince de Bretagne, a major growers’ cooperative in Brittany, warned last week of a “historic” vegetable crisis. It projected yield declines of 40% for peas, 60% for broccoli, and between 50% and 100% for artichokes this summer.

Eric Legras, president of Unilet, France’s leading association of canned and frozen vegetable producers, said severe heat had also hit northern and southwestern France, describing the crisis as “exceptional.”

In northern Italy, home to one of Europe’s main rice-growing regions, water shortages have left some paddies “completely dead, burnt, with the rice dried out,” according to Coldiretti, the country’s largest farmers’ association.

Farmers in Spain have likewise reported considerable shortfalls in cereal yields, as well as cattle fodder deficits.

The German Farmers’ Association on Tuesday warned that grain production would be 7%, or 3.3 million tons, lower than last year. The worst-hit regions in the south of the country could potentially suffer total crop failures.

In neighboring Poland, business outlet Puls Biznesu predicted last month that persistent drought could force the country to become more reliant on food imports.

Analysts at Zurich Insurance Group and several European banks have estimated that the heatwaves could cost the EU between €50 billion and €180 billion.

Denmark has deployed a batch of fresh military conscripts to Greenland for the first time in modern history, as Copenhagen seeks to assert its control over the Arctic territory in response to threats of annexation from US President Donald Trump.

Around 100 conscripts from the Schleswig Infantry Regiment arrived in Nuuk in early August, Denmark’s military said in a press release on Tuesday. The group will divide their time between training and “operational tasks,” the military explained, with some troops stationed in Nuuk and others sent 350km north to Kangerlussuaq, an airbase used by US forces throughout the Second World War and Cold War.

The conscripts deployed to Greenland are the first batch of recruits to serve 11-month stints in the Danish military. In 2024, Denmark extended conscription from four months to 11, broadened the draft to include women, and ordered annual conscription numbers to increase from 5,000 to 7,000.

Trump started threatening to annex Greenland last year, claiming that the US needs the landmass “for the purpose of national security” – namely to host elements of his promised ‘Golden Dome’ ballistic missile defense network. Trump has also said that he wants “Greenland for its rare-earth minerals.” 

Denmark launched the exercise in January, after Trump and other top US officials refused to rule out the use of military force to annex Greenland. Two weeks before the operation was announced, Trump joked that Denmark’s entire military presence on Greenland amounted to “two dog sleds.”

Eleven other NATO states have sent troops to take part in the exercise, including France, Germany, and the UK. Operation Arctic Endurance is a small-scale exercise, with fewer than 300 Danish and allied troops in Greenland at any one time before the arrival of the conscripts.

“The cost to the US would be raised. The US would have to carry out a hostile act to get Greenland,” a defense source told the broadcaster.

As an American oil company moved drilling equipment onto Greenland last month, Trump posted an image of himself looming over Greenland on his Truth Social platform, along with the caption “Hello, Greenland!”

Only hours before the annual US-South Korean military exercise Ulchi Freedom Shield was due to begin, Donald Trump issued a statement that went far beyond another dispute over how much America’s allies should pay for their own security.

On August 16, 2026, the US president announced that he had instructed the Pentagon to substantially reduce joint military exercises with the Republic of Korea, describing them as costly and arguing that such demonstrations of force were sending North Korea an unnecessarily hostile signal. For decades, these exercises had been presented as an essential element of deterrence on the Korean Peninsula.

Trump approached the issue from almost the opposite direction. He suggested that North Korea, despite its nuclear arsenal and long confrontation with the US, has behaved in an unthreatening and respectful manner while he has been president. The following day he again emphasized his personal relationship with Kim Jong-un and said that the two men understood each other.

Yet North Korea was only part of the story. Trump also linked his frustration with Seoul to the war with Iran, claiming that he had asked South Korea to support American actions and had effectively received the answer “No thanks.” Seoul was far more cautious. South Korean leaders had to consider the permanent security problem on the peninsula, domestic legal procedures, and the political risks of direct involvement in another Middle Eastern war.

Paying for security

The modern US-South Korean security relationship emerged from the Korean War, was institutionalized through the Mutual Defense Treaty of 1953, and has remained stable for decades. The US maintained forces on the peninsula and extended strategic and eventually nuclear deterrence, while Seoul provided infrastructure, shared costs, and developed its own military capabilities. Around 28,500 US troops are stationed in South Korea today.

American forces are part of a system that includes intelligence, logistics, command structures, air and naval power, and, above all, the US nuclear umbrella. Washington traditionally viewed this presence as an investment in American influence across Northeast Asia.

Trump challenged this logic during his first presidency. Previous administrations generally accepted substantial overseas military expenditure as part of the cost of maintaining a US-led international order. Trump repeatedly returned to a simpler question: How much was the ally itself paying?

In 2019, his administration reportedly sought to raise Seoul’s annual contribution to the cost of American troops to nearly $5 billion, several times the existing amount. Yet South Korea was never a free rider. Pentagon spending connected with the US presence in Korea reached roughly $13.4 billion between 2016 and 2019, while Seoul provided about $5.8 billion in support. Under the current cost-sharing framework, South Korea’s contribution for 2026 is approximately 1.5 trillion won, or around $1.1 billion.

The Trump administration’s argument is that Washington provides a strategic asset whose value exceeds the direct cost of maintaining troops and that wealthy allies have enjoyed access to it too cheaply. The same logic applies to trade policy. During Trump’s first presidency, Washington attacked KORUS – the US-South Korea free trade agreement – as economically unfavorable, noting that the US goods trade deficit with South Korea had risen from $13.2 billion in 2011 to $23.1 billion in 2017.

Two principles had emerged during Trump’s first term. Allies should pay more for security and trade deficits should not be accepted merely because they occur between strategic partners. Earlier US policy could tolerate some economic imbalance as the price of geopolitical cohesion. Trump increasingly treats the economic and military dimensions of an alliance as parts of the same calculation.

South Korea’s dependence on Washington should still not be overestimated. Seoul possesses formidable conventional capabilities. Its defense expenditure reached approximately $47.8 billion in 2025, while its defense industry produces advanced artillery, tanks, aircraft, missiles, and naval systems and has become an important global exporter. The emerging American strategy increasingly assumes that South Korea should take primary responsibility for conventional deterrence against North Korea.

The most significant aspect of the dependency lies elsewhere. The Republic of Korea remains protected by US extended nuclear deterrence, backed by the full range of American capabilities, including nuclear weapons. Seoul participates in strategic consultations, but ultimate control over the nuclear component remains in American hands. Operational command arrangements in a major war create another layer of dependence.

The result is a peculiar balance. South Korea is powerful enough to handle many conventional threats, yet replacing American nuclear guarantees would require a profound strategic shift and might reopen the politically explosive question of acquiring an independent nuclear arsenal. This gives Washington leverage that cannot be measured only through troop numbers.

Economic ties create another asymmetry. In 2025, South Korean exports reached a record $709.4 billion, of which about $122.9 billion went to the US. America absorbed roughly 17 percent of all South Korean exports and remained the country’s second-largest foreign market. Dependence is the greatest in sectors such as automobiles, semiconductors and automotive components.

Bilateral goods trade in 2025 reached approximately $194 billion. US exports to South Korea stood near $68.8 billion, while imports reached about $125.2 billion, leaving Washington with a deficit of roughly $56.4 billion. Traditional economic analysis can treat this deficit as one element of a wider relationship involving investment, technology and industrial integration. Trump sees it more transactionally. If a country depends on American security and benefits from access to the American market, Washington can demand measurable concessions in return.

One strategic account

During Trump’s second presidency, this approach has become more systematic. Trade, investment and defense are increasingly treated as elements of one strategic negotiation. South Korea has agreed to investment commitments worth approximately $350 billion, including around $150 billion connected with American shipbuilding. In return, Washington moderated some of the tariff pressure that had threatened Korean exports.

At the same time, Seoul has faced expectations that it will increase defense spending, purchase more American weapons and provide greater support for the US military presence. South Korea has committed itself to moving defense expenditure towards 3.5 percent of GDP and purchasing roughly $25 billion of American military equipment by 2030.

The dispute over Iran shows how far this approach can extend. South Korea imports almost all of its energy resources. Before the latest crisis, around 70% of its crude oil and roughly 20% of its liquefied natural gas came from the Middle East, much of it dependent on the Strait of Hormuz. The disruption cause by the Iran war threatened South Korean industry and growth.

Yet economic exposure did not translate into a willingness to participate militarily in American operations against Iran. Seoul sought alternative supplies and measures to stabilize domestic markets but remained reluctant to become directly involved in a distant conflict. This appears to have irritated Trump precisely because the refusal contradicted his understanding of reciprocity.

From Washington’s perspective, the US has guaranteed South Korean security for decades, and when America asked for assistance in another strategically important region, Seoul hesitated despite suffering economically from the crisis itself. Trump’s subsequent criticism of joint exercises is a statement that military protection is not an unconditional feature of the alliance, but an asset whose political value must be matched by tangible support.

A new American model

South Korea is part of a larger transformation in American strategy. The US is not returning to classical isolationism. It continues to maintain global military capabilities, confront China in the Indo-Pacific, preserve nuclear alliances, and intervene when vital interests are perceived to be at stake. What is changing is Washington’s willingness to bear a disproportionate share of the everyday cost of the international order.

The emerging priority is the protection of the US and the strengthening of the Western Hemisphere, followed by the containment of China and preservation of American technological, industrial and military superiority. Allies in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East are increasingly expected to assume greater responsibility for regional security as Washington recognizes that its resources are not unlimited.

The US remains the most powerful individual state, but the period of virtually uncontested predominance has ended. China has accumulated enormous industrial, technological, and military capabilities, Russia continues to impose security costs on Western Europe, and maintaining commitments across several theatres demands enormous resources. Trump’s answer is therefore not retreat but an attempt to make American power cheaper to maintain.

There is no clear evidence that the Trump administration is consciously attempting to reproduce that scenario by encouraging conflicts elsewhere. A more defensible interpretation is that its policy follows a similar logic of relative power. Washington wants allies to carry more of the expense of regional defense, foreign companies to invest more heavily in the US and strategic industries to return to American territory, while partners purchase American weapons and contribute to US industrial renewal.

South Korea is wealthy enough to be asked to pay more, militarily capable enough to assume additional responsibility, and economically integrated enough with the US for tariff pressure to hurt. At the same time, it remains dependent enough on American strategic guarantees that it cannot easily disregard Washington’s demands. This makes Seoul an almost ideal test case for Trump’s new alliance policy.

The ultimate risk is that America’s alliance network has itself been a foundation of US power. States accepted American military leadership and financial influence partly because protection was regarded as predictable. If it increasingly becomes a conditional service whose price changes with trade balances or support for US operations, governments such as South Korea’s will have stronger incentives to seek strategic autonomy.

Trump may make the alliance system less expensive while also making it less American politically. A more autonomous South Korea could reduce Washington’s burden but become less willing to align automatically with US preferences.

For the moment, however, access to the American market increasingly comes with demands for investment and concessions, while American security guarantees increasingly come with demands for greater defense spending and political support. South Korea has not been granted an exception.

Trump’s decision to reduce joint military exercises reflects a deeper reassessment of America’s role in a changing world, in which Washington appears determined not to abandon global leadership but to make it more selective, less expensive and more economically rewarding. Whether that strategy preserves American primacy or encourages even close allies to seek greater independence may become one of the defining questions of the emerging international order.

The UAE has accused Iran of firing two ballistic missiles in its direction on Tuesday, as the two-month window for US-Iran peace talks expired without a breakthrough. Following the incident, Abu Dhabi announced a halt to all trade and financial transactions with Tehran.

The alleged incident was reported by the UAE’s Defense Ministry and the National Emergency Crisis and Disasters Management Authority (NCEMA). The agencies did not explicitly say whether the incoming missiles were shot down. The military stated that one of them fell inside the country’s territorial waters, while the second landed outside.

Later in the day, the Defense Ministry said the projectiles appeared to have attacked “maritime navigation.” The ministry did not specify whether the allegedly targeted vessels were traveling within the country’s domestic or international waters.

Shortly after the UAE’s military provided the update on its assessment of the alleged attack, the Foreign Ministry announced a halt to all trade and transactions with Iran over the incident.

“In light of the regional escalation that undermined regional and international peace and security, all activities, trade exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been suspended until further notice,” the ministry said in a statement.

Iran’s state broadcaster Press TV claimed that the barrage bore the hallmarks of an Israeli “false-flag operation.”

The 60-day window set out in a US-Iranian memorandum for reaching a peace deal expired on Monday without a breakthrough. The two sides repeatedly exchanged strikes during the negotiating period, while shipping through the strategic Strait of Hormuz remained largely disrupted.

Earlier on Tuesday, US President Donald Trump confirmed that “no talks or conversations [were] going on, or scheduled” with Iran. “The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect. The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Iran maintains that it controls maritime traffic through the waterway and has repeatedly signaled plans to impose permanent tolls for safe passage.

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), reiterated the position on Tuesday, arguing that Washington’s failure to reopen the strait signaled “the post-American order in the Persian Gulf.”

“The gap between America’s inability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and its claim to own it is greater than the 7,000-mile distance between Washington and the Strait itself,” Rezaei wrote on X.

The escalation comes amid reports that the US is facing a missile shortage, while the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, operating near Iran, has been plagued by maintenance and supply problems. Trump suspended the bombing campaign against Iranian targets near the Strait of Hormuz in late July, saying he was providing space for negotiations.

The prospect of US control over Venezuela’s sovereign assets would amount to a “colonial relationship” and set a “terrible precedent” for Latin America, former IMF Executive Director Paulo Nogueira Batista Jr. has told RT.

Reports have surfaced that some 31 tons of Venezuelan gold – valued at approximately $4 billion and held at the Bank of England – could be released to fund reconstruction following earthquakes in June, but potentially placed under US Treasury control.

The bullion has been inaccessible since 2018, when the Bank of England stopped recognizing the Venezuelan government and froze the country’s reserves. However, following weeks of US-backed negotiations, the Venezuelan government and opposition recently reached a rare agreement to jointly seek repatriation of the assets.

A Greek-run tanker has been attacked in the Black Sea off the Russian coast after calling at a US-linked oil terminal, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The strike comes weeks after US Vice President J.D. Vance pressed Vladimir Zelensky to curb Ukrainian strikes on vessels using the hub.

The Suezmax-class Skiros, capable of carrying around 1 million barrels, was attacked on Sunday after loading at the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal near the Russian port of Novorossiysk, Bloomberg said, citing people familiar with the incident.

The vessel was carrying Russian-origin oil, according to the outlet. The ship’s Athens-based manager said that there were no injuries or pollution resulting from the attack, but declined to comment further.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s General Staff told Bloomberg he had “no data to comment on the issue.”

The incident follows months of Ukrainian attacks on CPC infrastructure and tankers operating near Novorossiysk. The consortium transports mostly Kazakh crude across Russia to the Black Sea and includes US oil giants Chevron and ExxonMobil among its shareholders.

The attacks reportedly prompted direct intervention from Washington, with J.D. Vance allegedly delivering a dressing down to Zelensky during a July 31 phone call. According to the Financial Times, the Vice President ordered Kiev to stop targeting CPC-linked tankers, warning that the strikes were damaging American commercial interests and unsettling oil markets.

Zelensky quickly caved to the demands and subsequently called off strikes on tankers near the CPC terminal, as long as they are not under Ukrainian sanctions or carrying Russian cargo.

Sunday’s incident marks the first attack on a vessel calling at the CPC terminal after a lull of almost three weeks.

Russia has condemned previous attacks on Black Sea tankers as terrorist acts against civilian shipping. Kazakhstan has also protested strikes affecting CPC exports, describing them as an unacceptable threat to its economic interests and global energy supplies.

Iran has called US President Donald Trump “delusional” after he proclaimed the Strait of Hormuz a “new US territory.”

Trump made the claim on the strategic waterway, which remains heavily disrupted due to the ongoing standoff, in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday. The US president shared a map of the strait and its environs with an area circled out and labeled as “New territory of the United States.”

The post promptly elicited a reaction in Tehran, with Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi condemning Trump’s “delusions” and warning Iran would “correct” them. At the same time, he commended Trump for managing to “correctly write the name of the eternal Persian Gulf,” apparently referring to the reported intentions of the US president to rebrand the waterway as the ‘Arab Gulf.’

On Monday, Trump threatened to attack US ally Oman and “bomb the sh*t out of it” should it “get in the way” of his purported effort to end the conflict with Iran. While Muscat has been playing a major role in mediating the talks between the US and Iran, it has been conducting parallel negotiations with Tehran on establishing a joint mechanism to govern the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran has been seeking to collect tolls for safe passage through the waterway on a permanent basis and has reached an “understanding” with Oman on the matter, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. The US has ruled allowing Iran to charge fees for passing through the strait, signaling it would continue to block Iranian ports indefinitely unless it relinquishes the demand.

Congressional Democrats will introduce a war powers resolution prohibiting military action against Oman, after US President Donald Trump threatened to bomb the country for holding talks with Iran. 

Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Trump warned that “if Oman gets in the way” of his efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz via a peace deal favorable to the US, he would “bomb the sh*t out of them.” Trump was reacting to news that Oman and Iran were closing in on a deal to reopen the strait, which would reportedly involve shipping companies paying transit fees to Iran – a strategic loss for the US. 

In a statement on Tuesday, US Senator Tim Kaine said that he will introduce a war powers resolution “prohibiting military action against Oman” when the Senate returns from summer recess next month.

“President Trump is increasingly deranged in his one-man campaign to threaten and initiate wars all over the globe,” Kaine said. “His wars are illegal since they are not approved by Congress, but he keeps on despite the massive toll on our troops, their families, the pocketbooks of everyday Americans, our stock of munitions and our alliances around the globe.”

Without support from a majority of Senators, war powers resolutions are largely symbolic. Democrats in both houses of Congress have filed more than a dozen such resolutions since the US began attacking Iran in February, with one passing the House in July. However, with Republicans holding a 53-47 majority in the Senate, only one war powers resolution – a non-binding and therefore toothless ‘concurrent resolution’ – has actually passed the upper house. 

A memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran in June set a 60-day window to bring the conflict to an end and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. With talks deadlocked, the memorandum expired on Monday. Trump has since ruled out any extension to the present ceasefire, telling reporters on Monday evening that he believes Iran is “not going to make the kind of a deal that I feel is necessary.” 

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Iran is prepared “to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region” if diplomacy fails, and to launch “timely and precise strikes” to break the US naval blockade on Iranian ports if necessary.

After suggesting that he may declare “the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the US” last week, Trump posted a map of the Persian Gulf with the strait labeled “new US territory” on Tuesday. “Just as Trump correctly wrote the name of the eternal Persian Gulf, soon his delusion regarding the Strait of Hormuz will either be corrected or we will correct the delusions of this deluded man,” Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi replied.

Russia and Egypt have strongly challenged a report by Politico alleging violations at the El Daba nuclear power project (NPP). The report which the Axel Springer-owned outlet admits is sourced from an intelligence official is “biased,” they have claimed, insisting that the venture fully complies with international safety standards.

El Dabaa, Egypt’s first nuclear power plant, is being built by Russian state corporation Rosatom in Matrouh Governorate. Launched in 2017, the $28.75 billion development comprises four VVER-1200 Generation III+ reactors and is jointly financed by Moscow and Cairo, with Russia covering about 85% through a 22-year loan. Construction is expected to be completed by 2029, and the plant to come online by 2030. When fully operational, the plant is expected to meet roughly 10% of Egypt’s electricity needs, while freeing up millions of cubic meters of natural gas for domestic use or export.

Politico’s claims

Politico on Monday published a lengthy report detailing purported violations at the site.

Citing a “confidential letter” from an unknown party addressed to an unnamed Rosatom executive, it claimed that Egypt’s Nuclear Power Plants Authority (NPPA) – the government agency responsible for the country’s civilian nuclear power stations – had identified “defects” at reactor units, violations of “nuclear safety culture,” and “deliberate negligence” by a project official.

The document also reportedly details construction delays, security breaches, unprofessional conduct, and an attempt to conceal a serious accident.

How have Russia and Egypt’s nuclear agencies reacted to Politico’s claims?

Rosatom was the first to reject the allegations.

“None of the claims made in the Politico report have been substantiated through the contractual, technical, or regulatory procedures established for the project,” Rosatom’s press service told RBK. The company said that El Dabaa is being implemented under Russian-Egyptian intergovernmental agreements and a contract with the NPPA, with all work subject to continuous regulatory oversight.

El Dabaa meets the “highest internationally recognized nuclear safety and security standards,” the NPPA insisted, dismissing issues outlined by the outlet as “typical” for a project of this scale.

Politico is attempting to draw El Dabaa “into a broader narrative aimed at serving other political objectives,” the NPPA claimed.

“Following a careful review of the article, it became clear that it lacked the required balance and objectivity and contained inaccuracies and reflected a biased approach.”

How did Politico structure its PR offensive?

Politico framed the purported violations at El Dabaa as posing broader risks to cooperation with Russia on peaceful nuclear energy, pointed to Rosatom’s Paks II project in Hungary, which generates half of Hungary’s electricity but which has repeatedly fueled tensions between Budapest and Brussels.

Politico also cited the Royal United Services Institute, a UK-based think tank co-funded by the British government, the US State Department and the European Commission, which last month urged Western countries against doing business with Rosatom. Politico then released a supporting article citing Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrey Sybiga, who seized on the outlet’s “investigation” to call for EU sanctions on Rosatom and an end to nuclear energy cooperation with Moscow.

Western pressure on Rosatom

Rosatom controls nearly half of global uranium enrichment capacity and supplies nuclear fuel to reactors worldwide. Its critical global role and expertise have allowed it to avoid sweeping Western sanctions imposed on much of Russia’s energy sector since the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022. However, some subsidiaries, executives, and projects face targeted restrictions.

While Washington banned Russian uranium imports in 2024, it introduced waivers allowing purchases until the full ban takes effect in 2028. Kiev, however, has pressed the EU and G7 for sweeping sanctions on Rosatom, particularly over its operation of the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP), Europe’s largest nuclear facility. Russia took control of the plant in March 2022, and the facility and nearby Energodar have been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian artillery and drones since.

Russia has long argued that Western sanctions, particularly on energy, are illegal and self-defeating. Rosatom CEO Aleksey Likhachev acknowledged in May that restrictions have hampered its overseas projects, particularly by complicating international payments, but said that they have ultimately strengthened the company’s technological independence by encouraging closer cooperation with Russian manufacturers and new suppliers.

Who owns Politico – and do they have an agenda?

Politico is owned by Axel Springer SE, the German media conglomerate that acquired the outlet from founder Robert Allbritton in October 2021.

That openly prescribed ideological framework has raised questions about editorial independence, with critics and staff questioning whether mandatory corporate values can coexist with newsroom impartiality. CEO Mathias Döpfner has publicly defended the principles as fundamental to Axel Springer and told employees who reject them that they are free to leave.

Axel Springer’s Cold War history is also noteworthy. In the 1990s, investigative journalist Murray Waas cited former US intelligence officials alleging that the German media mogul received roughly $7 million in covert CIA funding in the 1950s – around $97 million in today’s money. The funds were reportedly intended to promote pro-American, anti-communist sentiment in postwar West Germany and support Springer’s expanding media operation, which would include right-leaning, pro-Western publications such as Bild.

US rapper Kanye West could potentially meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the artist’s upcoming visit to Russia, a senior State Duma lawmaker has said. West, also known as Ye, is scheduled to perform in St. Petersburg on October 10 and 11 as part of his Ye Live Concert Tour.

On Tuesday, Svetlana Zhurova, the first deputy chair of the State Duma’s International Affairs Committee, told Lenta.ru that Putin has previously met prominent foreign celebrities, but noted that a meeting with West would depend on several practical factors.

“Hypothetically, such a possibility exists,” Zhurova said.

Anna Subcheva, head of local concert organizer SAY Agency, previously told RIA Novosti that it is the rapper’s “long-standing dream” to meet Putin, for whom he has “expressed great admiration for several years.”

“The main issue here is the working schedule of our president and the artist’s own schedule, so that they align,” Zhurova said, also pointing to security and health requirements surrounding presidential meetings.

His upcoming Russian shows follow a string of cancellations and bans in several European countries over his controversial statements about Jews, Adolf Hitler, and Nazism. West has since apologized for some of his remarks, attributing his actions to bipolar disorder as well as “poor judgment and reckless behavior.”

The rapper’s St. Petersburg concerts have attracted strong demand, with VIP tickets reportedly selling out within two hours of going on sale.

Ghana and Russia have signed their first visa-waiver agreement since establishing diplomatic relations nearly seven decades ago, the West African nation’s foreign minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, announced, describing the move as “historic.” 

The deal was formalized during Ablakwa’s three-day official visit to Moscow and allows visa-free travel for holders of diplomatic and service passports.

“We shall continue with negotiations for enhanced privileges for all categories of travelers as we bolster trade, investments and people-to-people exchanges,” Ablakwa wrote on X on Monday following talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.

During their talks, Ablakwa thanked Moscow for supporting a Ghana-led UN resolution declaring transatlantic enslavement and racialized chattel slavery among the gravest crimes against humanity. The Ghanaian diplomat said his “visit will map out broader areas of strategic cooperation” between Moscow and Accra.

The two sides also agreed to pursue a cooperation memorandum between Russian and Ghanaian media organizations. The initiative is expected to initially involve RT and Sputnik Africa on the Russian side and the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation.

In a July 22 interview with the Ghana News Agency, Russian Ambassador to Ghana Andrei Ordash said Moscow had allocated 120 government scholarships to Ghanaian students for the 2026-2027 academic year.

Russia signed a similar waiver for diplomatic and service passport holders with Mauritania in December and is negotiating broader visa-free arrangements with Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Eswatini. Russian citizens already enjoy reciprocal visa-free travel with 11 African countries, including South Africa, Morocco, Namibia, and Angola.

Today I honoured an invitation from the distinguished Foreign Minister of Russia, H.E. Sergey Lavrov to undertake a 3-day official visit to Russia.

On my first day of this important official visit, we signed a historic Visa Waiver Agreement for holders of Diplomatic and Service… pic.twitter.com/Chm3mx9lQm

— Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa (@S_OkudzetoAblak) August 17, 2026

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has been reelected for a second five-year term after clearing the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff, the country’s electoral commission announced on Tuesday.

Hichilema received 2,965,326 votes, or 60.5% of valid ballots, against 1,856,217 – around 38% – for his main challenger, Brian Mundubile. Turnout was 57.23%. 

The result followed a temporary suspension of counting and an election-night exchange of gunfire during a security operation at Mundubile’s residence. The authorities said the raid targeted a suspected militia, while the opposition leader called it an “attempt on his life.”

The president thanked voters for their trust and said his government would also work for “those citizens who preferred the ideas presented” by his opponents.

“This election showed the world who we are: a nation of peace, a nation of law and order, a democratic nation that settles our differences at the ballot box, and nowhere else,” he said.

Mundubile has yet to formally respond to the result. During the count, however, he demanded an investigation into allegations that presidential election forms had been removed or subjected to “interference or alteration.”

“We will pursue every legitimate and constitutional avenue available to seek justice,” he said, urging supporters to remain peaceful.

The authorities denied Kafwaya had been shot and said the operation targeted a suspected militia whose members opened fire first. They reported seizing military-grade weapons and arresting 11 people, including senior political figures. Mundubile rejected the account, insisting his party “has no militia” and does not support violence.

Counting was suspended for several hours on Friday after attacks on polling officials and the theft of marked ballots. Police said polling agent Lovemore Chishima was assaulted at a polling station in Matero, a district of Lusaka, and later died. Nine suspects were arrested.

Hichilema first took office in 2021 after defeating late President Edgar Lungu. His government restructured Zambia’s debt, stabilized the currency and reduced inflation, but high food prices, unemployment and electricity shortages continued to strain households.

The campaign was also overshadowed by a dispute over Lungu’s remains following his death in South Africa in 2025. Mundubile’s alliance accused Hichilema of disrespecting Lungu’s wishes and promised to return his body to Zambia for burial if elected.

Copper-rich Zambia has held largely peaceful transfers of power since restoring multiparty democracy in 1991.

Jordan is preparing to mark the 2,000-year anniversary of Jesus Christ’s baptism in the Jordan River, with the Muslim nation investing more than $100 million to draw Christian pilgrims to one of the world’s holiest sites.

Jordanian Prime Minister Jafar Hassan met with Christian leaders this month and signed agreements to develop the baptism site by building a village for Christian pilgrims and visitors, a museum dedicated to the baptism, a green corridor, and infrastructure upgrades leading to the site. The project is expected to cost $120 million, Vatican media reported.

The year 2030 is widely accepted as the two millennium anniversary of Christ’s baptism by John the Baptist, a moment that marked the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. The ceremony took place at Bethany Beyond the Jordan on the east bank of the Jordan River, which today separates Jordan from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

At the time of Jesus’ baptism, Bethany Beyond the Jordan was a part of Perea, a Jewish client state of Rome.

Four popes have visited Bethany Beyond the Jordan: Paul VI in 1964, before the site was excavated and restored, followed by John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. Jordan is the only country to have hosted these four pontiffs.

Although Jordan is a Muslim country, with Islam enshrined as its state religion, it is home to around 350,000 Christians. Speaking at the meeting with Christian leaders, Hassan said that honoring the anniversary of the baptism “reflects Jordan’s historical and religious standing and its role as a global destination for Christian pilgrimage, while highlighting the Kingdom’s message of coexistence.”

Two of the holiest sites for Christian pilgrims – the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, where Jesus was crucified, and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, where he was born – are located across the Jordan River, in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory. Although visitors can normally access the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in East Jerusalem, pilgrims traveling to Bethlehem must pass through a system of Israeli military checkpoints, barriers, and road closures, which are often shut by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) without prior notice.

Things are getting ridiculous – Kanye West is coming to perform in Russia. In the past few months, it’s been hard to get rid of him. Photos with captions like, “We’re at a Kanye West concert in Türkiye!” (or Tbilisi! or Almaty!) are all over social media. It feels like no one attends other concerts anymore. No one raves, “We’re at a Muse concert!” (or a concert by ‘Metallica’, ‘Linkin Park’, or at least Marilyn Manson). Nope. It’s all about Kanye West.

To quote Ostap Bender from the novel ‘The Little Golden Calf’, “Who’s Studebaker – is Studebaker your dad?”. Who is Kanye West? Is that the rapper who was supposed to perform in Moscow? But lots of people were supposed to perform in Moscow. And then the hysteria hit St. Petersburg. Now, it’s reported that VIP boxes for West’s concert costing 2 million rubles each are sold out at St. Petersburg’s Gazprom Arena. No one knows for sure whether this is true, but there sure is a lot of hype around it. There were even fake websites selling Kanye West tickets, supposedly for his Moscow concerts, two years ago. By pop-business standards, two years feels like an eternity, but the belated love for West persists. And here we go again – Kanye West is coming to Russia… once again. 

Local producers are fussing about, but no one can quite explain why there’s so much excitement around the figure of Kanye West. Perhaps it’s simply because a ‘real US rapper’ has fallen so deeply in love with Russia that he’s coming to make a fortune from ticket sales here? Oh yeah. In that case, we should definitely bow down before Mr. West.

Or maybe it’s because he loves to pick fights with the American establishment? Sounds like a double reason to love him. 

The diagnosis actually allows him to get away with alarming political statements and demonstrations. Once on the Alex Jones Show, he expressed a warm attitude toward Hitler; then he spoke about Jews in a way that Jewish organizations couldn’t possibly appreciate; and then he launched merchandise featuring a swastika.

Naturally, he got cancelled: advertising collaborations with Balenciaga and Adidas collapsed, and his Twitter (now X) and Instagram accounts were wiped. He is no longer signed to Def Jam, the label with which he won most of his Grammys. Once, he burst onstage and told the audience that Taylor Swift was nothing compared to Rihanna and that the awards had been given to the wrong girl. And even if he had a point, he went about expressing it in a most rude manner. 

They say that following West’s outbursts, public figures began to be held more accountable for their statements. However, when singer Madonna said that she thought about blowing up the White House because Trump was there, no one even mentioned ‘responsibility’.

But all that is America’s problem. It’s got nothing to do with Russia. Just like all American rap – from underground rap to its luxury top-end version, represented by P. Diddy (who’s in jail for transporting prostitutes) and our new friend and idol, Kanye West. Go up to the person who bought that VIP box for 2 million rubles and ask them, “What’s your favorite line from ‘Watch the Throne?’”. They won’t be able to tell you, and won’t hum it either. Because no one in Russia really cares about West’s songs. But the scent of luxury and foreign culture – that’s definitely alluring. 

Registration has opened for the first International Trade Fair INNOPROM. India, which will take place in New Delhi from September 9 to 11, 2026, organizers said. The event will be held at the Bharat Mandapam Exhibition Center ahead of the 18th BRICS Summit, and participants can register through the fair’s official website.

INNOPROM. India is being positioned as an international platform to strengthen trade and industrial ties between Russian and Indian companies. The exhibition will cover 10,000 square meters and bring together representatives of industry from both countries to present technological solutions and products. It is organized by the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade and India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

The event comes at a time of rapidly growing economic ties between the two countries. Over the past five years, Russia-India trade has increased nearly sevenfold, reaching more than $60 billion by the end of 2025. The first edition of INNOPROM in India is intended to expand business contacts and open new directions for industrial cooperation.

Among the Indian exhibitors are the SRB industrial and engineering group, National Mineral Development Corporation, and Steel Authority of India Limited, representing mining and metallurgy. ITC will present food products and everyday consumer goods, while Nicco Cables and Global Gases Group will showcase solutions for the energy sector. Monte Carlo will represent the textile industry, and Central Electronics Limited will focus on renewable energy and digital infrastructure. The exhibition is curated by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Russian participants will include Rostec, Rusal, Rosatom, TMH, the Russian Export Center, the Center for the Development of Advanced Technologies, UMG, Natzproektstroy, PhosAgro, Arnest Unirus, Sber, and Alfa-Bank, among others. Regional collective exhibitions are also planned, with companies from Moscow, the Krasnodar Territory, Tatarstan, and the Chelyabinsk Region. The National Centre RUSSIA will present a cultural zone and a collective stand.

The fair will focus on engineering, chemicals, digital technologies, mining and extraction technologies, human-centric technologies, and trade development.

Russian exhibitors are expected to present a broad range of products, including a mock-up of a nuclear power plant with a VVER-1200 reactor, composite gas storage and transport products, master alloys and powders made from rare and rare-earth metals, models of modern Russian aircraft and helicopters, large-scale construction machinery such as a tracked excavator and a backhoe loader, automated storage systems, industrial and collaborative robots, an intelligent transportation management system, and Russia’s national product marking system. Medical and optical equipment will also be displayed, along with other innovative technologies.

Organizers say the launch of INNOPROM in India marks another stage in the trade fair’s international expansion and a new step in strengthening industrial cooperation between Moscow and New Delhi.

The Strait of Hormuz will remain indispensable to global energy trade despite efforts by Persian Gulf states to develop alternative export routes, a top Iranian military advisor has told RT.

In an exclusive interview with the outlet, Mohammad Reza Naqdi, a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander and adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, argued that the strategic waterway cannot easily be replaced given the concentration of oil and gas production in the Gulf.

“The Strait of Hormuz will never lose importance. [The Persian Gulf] is the production site for oil and gas. Oil wells cannot be moved elsewhere,” Naqdi told RT correspondent Saman Kojouri.

The veteran brigadier general also pointed to the time and expense involved in developing new energy infrastructure.

Oil-producing Gulf states have been pursuing additional infrastructure and export routes as shipping through the Strait remains severely disrupted, with July transit volumes down more than 80% from pre-conflict levels.

Saudi Arabia is considering another expansion of its East–West pipeline system, although an industry estimate cited by AFP suggests it could be completed only around 2030–31. The UAE is moving faster on an additional pipeline, which is expected next year, while a revived Iraq–Syria project has no timetable. Kuwait and Bahrain currently have no pipeline routes bypassing Hormuz.

Watch the exclusive interview with Mohammad Reza Naqdi in full below.

South Africa is expected to face another fuel price hike in September as the ongoing conflict in the Middle East continues to keep global oil prices elevated, according to the data provided by the Central Energy Fund (CEF), the country's state-owned energy company.

The latest snapshot from the CEF is pointing to steep diesel price increases in the region of R2.73 for 500ppm and R2.90 for 50ppm. The petrol price predictions are less severe but significant nonetheless, with CEF data indicating under-recoveries of 66 cents for 93 Unleaded and 77 cents for 95 Unleaded. However, if current trends persist, these are likely to grow into increases of around 80 to 90 cents by the time the final sums are done at month-end. Illuminating paraffin is looking set for an increase in the region of R2.14.

This follows a volatile few months, during which the price of 95 Unleaded has increased from R19.47 in March to R24.71 in August, peaking at R27.19 in June. The wholesale price of diesel has risen from R17.70 in March to R25.30 in August, peaking at R30.30 in May.

International oil markets have seen extreme volatility since the US-Israeli war with Iran began in late February, with the critical Strait of Hormuz oil passage mostly shut to shipping traffic.

While the markets appear to have settled, with Brent crude oil trading mostly around the $90-per-barrel mark in August, down from highs of around $126 earlier in the year, prices remain well above pre-war levels of around $70.

Ole Hvalbye, commodities analyst at SEB, recently told Reuters: “A return to normal flows out of the Strait of Hormuz is now suddenly without any near-term hopes.”

First published by IOL

Look, Queen Ursula, we need to talk, girlfriend.

Yes, I’m addressing you directly, EU Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen, because I’m not going to pretend that there’s anyone in charge in Europe who’s actually elected by the people and crafting EU policy.

And since you’ve apparently been more interested in monitoring Russian media platforms for dissident views that could potentially qualify as “Russian-aligned” than stopping online clarion calls for mass migration pushes into the EU, RT seems as good a place as any for an intervention.

Because the problem for the EU is that it’s getting so dissociated from the realities and concerns of its own people that even the pure data wonks are starting to sound the alarm. Seat projections for the EU parliament are set to swing populist to the detriment of the right-left establishment majority for the first time ever, according to recent reporting by Euronews on research data complied by the Europe Elects platform.

Now, the next EU election isn’t until 2029, which is a long way off, and you could very well decide to drop all of this in someone else’s lap by then. After all, you keep telling us that Putin is coming to Western Europe around that time, so maybe you’ll want to personally be busy window shopping in New York by then, instead of dealing with the headache of his arrival – or alternatively, his non-arrival after spending years scaring up billions from European taxpayer pockets for military hardware to mark the occasion.

I hate to break it to you, Queen, but the data from this very non-Russian research outfit (Europe Elects), published by a non-Russian media outlet (Euronews), is basically saying that right now, Europeans are looking more increasingly pro-Russian than not. To the point where the EU parliament, after the next election, could see pro-Russian gains and the anti-Russian firewall lose its majority. Or at least that’s how you guys see it when you look down on the plebes.

Look, unlike you guys, the average European is fed up with hearing about Russia and Ukraine, and with European policies revolving around that conflict and sucking the life out of everything else that actually falls within your purview.

Perhaps it would be different if you had everything else under control, and had the luxury of jacking around outside of the Eurozone that you’re actually responsible for – but that’s clearly not the case. The usual way that politics is supposed to work is that the establishment takes action A, and its impact is direct, positive, and visible on issue A. Instead, what we’re getting is action A being taken on issue A, and causing not only aggravation and worsening of issue A, but also of issues B, C, D, E… which happened to be more or less fine before. This is what has happened with the EU’s Ukraine obsession, and now it seems like it’s becoming par for the course for other issues, too. It’s like we’re spending money to see pure ideology in action rather than success as defined in the dictionary and not through some kind of Orwellian rhetoric that flips everything on its head.

In just the latest example, even one of the most stalwart establishment entities of an EU state has explicitly asked what the heck you think you’re doing. The EU has fallen into line in pushing this authoritarian control of internet use, promoting a “harmonized” bloc-wide control of internet use under the pretext of protecting kids – which apparently requires ID collection from every single adult user, as well. Turns out that even the French Constitutional Court told French lawmakers to take their law and shove it somewhere else other than up the rears of the French populace.

“By prohibiting minors under the age of 15 from accessing certain online services, the law inherently requires every person, even an adult, to prove their age before accessing them,” the court ruled. “By failing to specify the conditions and limits under which such proof must be provided, the legislature has not established the legal safeguards necessary to ensure compliance with these requirements.”

Consider, for instance, that this mass data initiative just happens to coincide with the recent revelation that the French public finance department – in other words, the tax collection folks – was massively hacked back in June. The hackers made off with almost all conceivable personal, tax, and income data of an estimated 700,000 taxpayers, according to a French European lawmaker. How do we know all this? Because the hackers said so. It was only then that the establishment felt compelled to inform people.

Hey, Queen Ursula, why don’t you guys just get in touch with the hackers and mainline all our “save the kids” internet data right to them? Just make sure they have to double-authenticate and click on all the cookies to access it first, though.

Again, the action taken on problem A (the kids running into perverts online), risks causing other problems of B (authoritarianism), C (data leaks), D (constitutional issues), and E (hacker-facilitated scams), even before there’s the most remote opportunity to credibly ascertain whether it does anything at all to actually fix issue A.

Look, I’m personally one of the center-right cohorts that you lost with this kind of nonsense. And things like this perfectly illustrate why populism is on the verge of exploding in Europe. Because who’s even left? We’re looking for people to lead with basic common sense. Folks who can read the room, and who are as far away as possible from your blast radius. If Russia is cheering that on, then you only have yourselves to blame. Perhaps that wouldn’t be the case if your repeated insistence on lockstep groupthink hadn’t pushed any real, legitimate dissent outside the tent and left only idiocy to bounce around off the walls unabated.

Admittedly, you guys do a great job with the food quality regulations that the average person doesn’t have the knowledge or time to police themselves. And the tethered bottle caps have grown on me. I actually miss the feeling of the plastic on my face when I take a swig of a Pepsi outside of the EU, and the cap risks rolling under the car seat. I’m not bringing my own durable container to fast food takeout, though. You can forget that. I am the durable container. Fill me up!

All I’m saying is that Euronews is warning you that you’re turning even more Europeans into “Russians” (by your own definition), and that your iron-fisted smashing of the alarm on the results of your own idiocy is counterproductive. The data shows that it’s only giving a growing number of Europeans even more incentive to just unplug the entire European establishment at the ballot box.

A 15-year-old student became India’s sole representative on a recent scientific exploration of the North Pole, beating thousands of others to earn a place in one of the world’s most exclusive expeditions for school students held in Russia.

Lucky Rawat, from the town of Chakrata in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, completed the ten-day voyage to the top of the world on August 15.

Students from 22 countries, including China and Bangladesh, undertook the Arctic voyage on board the Russian nuclear icebreaker ‘50 Let Pobedy,’ which means ‘50 years of victory.’

They covered Murmansk, the geographic North Pole, and Franz Josef Land to become the 200th surface-vessel expedition to the North Pole.

Unlike the South Pole, the North Pole sits atop shifting sea ice on the Arctic Ocean. Rawat, who is familiar with the Himalayan snow, called the Arctic snow “just different.”

“It was hard like a rock plate and grained like sand at the same time,” he told RT India upon his return. “Its seamless white color gave it an endless ice sheet look.”

He described the expedition as a “learning experience.”

“From the first flight to boarding the ship… it taught me that boundaries are just some lines on a map.

“Me learning a Russian song and representing my whole team of international students in the closing ceremony was unexpected.”

Rosatom’s ‘Icebreaker of Knowledge’ Expedition Launches World’s First Stratospheric Platform in the Arctic

Tests on the reusable platform were a success, confirming the feasibility of establishing stable radio comms using readily available radio equipment in polar regions, the… https://t.co/AdG8c0G2t5 pic.twitter.com/c9mycOlhmv

— RT_India (@RT_India_news) August 13, 2026

The program, called the ‘Icebreaker of Knowledge’ was organized by Russian state-owned giant Rosatom.

Russia has eight nuclear-powered icebreakers, which are owned and operated by Rosatom, making it the only country in the world with such a fleet.

Only one student was selected from a country for the expedition. Rawat, who is trained in judo, cleared the online exam from his home, and created a video to earn his place on the team.

Students in the exploration team worked with scientists on experiments, including the launch of a radiosonde – a weather instrument package attached to a balloon – from the North Pole, and the world’s first recoverable stratospheric monitoring platform for the Arctic.

The data from the platform will help improve communications along the Northern Sea Route and advance the creation of an independent Arctic monitoring system that is not tied to data from foreign satellites, the Murmansk Arctic University was quoted as saying in a statement by Tass.

Rawat was effusive in his praise for the Russian people, calling them “very hospitable.”

“They did know a few things about Indian culture and Indian cinema, and of course, the spicy Indian food,” he recalled. “They knew some Hindi words, such as ‘namaste’ and ‘dhanyawad,’ and would say them to me in a very cute accent.”

“The Icebreaker of Knowledge project is living proof that true science knows no borders,” said Alexey Zhirukhin, a member of the international jury and Arctic Ambassador. “We are opening the Arctic to children from across the globe, showing them Russia’s unique technologies and the breathtaking beauty of the North Pole.”

Pakistan’s top court has ordered imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan to be moved to a hospital amid intensifying concerns about his health.

The Supreme Court issued the order after Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party and his family raised concerns about his health, citing medical reports from the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi, where the 73-year-old cricketer-turned-politician has been held since August 2023.

The court directed Khan to be moved to the private Shifa International Hospital in Islamabad within 48 hours, and to be kept there until September 16, reports quoted PTI spokesman Naeem Haider Panjutha as saying. Khan’s family members have been allowed weekly meetings with him.

The court also directed a medical board to be formed, which will include Khan’s personal physician, and his sister Uzma Khan – also a medical doctor – to look into his health issues.

It, however, warned against sharing the board’s medical report with the media or the public, or using it for any political purposes.

A medical report submitted by the jail administration on Monday had revealed that a doctor from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, who examined Khan on August 2, noted fluctuating blood pressure, palpitations, headache, and restlessness.

Khan, the report said, attributed the problems to infrequent meetings with his wife and family, as well as his lack of access to newspapers and TV.

A medical board that examined Khan on August 10 recommended more frequent meetings with his wife and family, a relaxation of his prison routine, and access to newspapers, magazines, television and books.

Khan was Pakistan’s prime minister from 2018 until he lost a no-confidence vote in 2022 – reportedly at the behest of the US, because he was too friendly to Russia. His imprisonment sparked nationwide protests, some of which turned violent.

He was found guilty of illegally buying and selling state gifts in 2023, although the sentence was later suspended. In 2024, he was sentenced to ten years for leaking state secrets, a charge he has denied.

Khan and his political allies have maintained that the cases against him are politically motivated and intended to prevent his return to politics.

PTI, which retains a large support base, was stripped of its election symbol ahead of the 2024 vote.

The ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) has become the deadliest in the country’s history, with the number of fatalities surpassing the toll recorded during the major 2018-2020 epidemic.

At least 2,325 people have died among 4,945 confirmed cases, according to the latest figures released by the Congolese health authorities. The overall case fatality rate now stands at 47%.

The previous record was set during the 2018-2020 Ebola epidemic in eastern DR Congo. The outbreak, declared on August 1, 2018 and brought to an end in June 2020, resulted in 3,323 confirmed cases and 2,299 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). It was the world’s second-largest Ebola outbreak on record.

The current outbreak has reached that grim milestone far more quickly. The DR Congo declared an Ebola outbreak on May 15, marking the country’s 17th recorded outbreak since the virus was first identified there in 1976. 

A recent genetic study published in Nature Medicine also found that the Bundibugyo virus behind the illness is genetically distinct from variants detected during previous Bundibugyo outbreaks in the region, suggesting it likely emerged through a new animal-to-human transmission. The animal source has not yet been identified.

The latest government figures show the virus has now spread across 55 health zones in six provinces: Ituri, North Kivu, South Kivu, Haut-Uele, Bas-Uele, and Tshopo. Ituri, the epicenter of the outbreak, remains by far the hardest-hit province. According to the WHO chief, responders face major challenges, including insecurity and mass displacement, which are hampering efforts to reach affected communities.

The WHO warned earlier this month that Ebola was “spreading faster than” efforts to contain it, calling for response measures to be urgently scaled up.

Somali federal troops have driven armed groups out of the administrative capital of the country’s South West State following hours of fierce fighting that killed 30 attackers, the Defense Ministry has said.

The ministry said the assault began at around 5 AM local time on Monday, when Al-Shabaab militants and fighters aligned with former South West State President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen attacked military positions in Baidoa using two explosives-laden vehicles.

“Thirty members of the militias that carried out the attack were killed,” a ministry spokesman said in a video statement.

An unspecified number were captured, while weapons and vehicles were seized, he added. The spokesman accused Laftagareen’s fighters of coordinating with Al-Shabaab and said they would henceforth “be fought in the same manner as terrorist militias.”

The attack marked the latest escalation in a power struggle between Mogadishu and Laftagareen, whose disputed reelection in March prompted federal troops to seize Baidoa and force him to resign. Forces loyal to him have reportedly remained active outside the city.

BAIDOA, Somalia: Forces loyal to ousted regional President Abdiaziz Laftagareen entered the city of Baidoa on Monday, sparking clashes involving heavy weapons across several neighborhoods.

However, Somalia's federal government contested the nature of the fighting, with the… pic.twitter.com/Trx1nZvVYt

— The Daily Somalia (@TheDailySomalia) August 17, 2026

Laftagareen’s office rejected descriptions of his forces as an armed group as “false propaganda.” It said the operation was intended to restore order and remove what it called an unlawful federal military presence.

Four residents also confirmed to Reuters that federal troops have regained control of the city after several hours of fighting. Local elder Farah Ibrahim told the news agency that he saw ten bodies at one location, including four civilians and six soldiers from the opposing sides.

Tensions between Mogadishu and the South West regional authorities have persisted since March, when Laftagareen’s administration severed ties with the federal government over constitutional changes and elections. Days later, Mogadishu rejected his reelection as illegal and declared his administration “no longer valid.”

Baidoa is one of Somalia’s most sensitive political centers, serving as a base for federal forces, peacekeepers, and humanitarian operations. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) estimates that the city is home to 1.6 million people, nearly half of whom are displaced, with many having fled conflict and climate shocks elsewhere in Somalia.

A tornado swept through the western Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod on Monday as a powerful storm brought torrential rain and flooding.

Footage shared online showed a dark funnel descending from storm clouds and hurling debris into the air.

The downpour overwhelmed drainage systems, with local media describing it as a wall of rain that turned some streets into fast-moving streams.

Trees and large branches were brought down by strong winds, with some reportedly landing on parked vehicles and damaging windows and bodywork.

No injuries were reported, according to Nizhny Novgorod Mayor Yury Shalabayev, who said municipal crews had been dispatched to deal with the aftermath.

The severe weather came amid an unusually sharp cold snap, with temperatures in Nizhny Novgorod plunging to around 8C (46F), well below the mid-August norm, when daytime highs typically reach around 22C (72F).

The Nizhny Novgorod tornado was the latest in a series of extreme weather events recorded in Russia this summer. In June, a powerful vortex tore through the Ural town of Kushva, injuring 16 people, while a twister in Perm Region in late May destroyed more than 700 hectares of forest.

At least three people, including a child, have been injured, dozens of homes damaged, and 5,000 left without power after an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow Region.

Governor Andrey Vorobyev said drones targeted multiple districts outside the Russian capital. In Ramensky, a drone crashed into a private home while people were sleeping, causing shrapnel injuries to a ten-year-old girl, Vorobyev said. A woman was injured by falling UAV debris in Bogorodsky District, while a 27-year-old man was wounded by shrapnel in Kolomna. All three have been hospitalized.

The most serious damage was reported in Pavlovsky Posad, where a UAV caused a fire which destroyed a private house in Kuznetsy and another blaze hit the roof of an apartment building, forcing dozens of families to evacuate. No injuries were reported. Elsewhere, falling drone debris sparked a fire and damaged several buildings in Kolomna, set construction materials ablaze in Kotelniki, and damaged a car and electrical substation in Elektrostal.

More than 5,000 consumers and 46 socially important facilities in Likino-Dulyovo and Orekhovo-Zuyevo were left without electricity, regional power company Mosoblenergo said. The outage followed equipment damage in the network supplying its Pavlovsky Posad branch.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said 180 UAVs were downed over the region, adding that a total of 620 UAVs had targeted Moscow and the surrounding area between Monday evening and 5 AM Tuesday.

The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses intercepted and destroyed 791 Ukrainian fixed-wing UAVs overnight across the country. Apart from Moscow, drones were downed over 15 Russian regions and the Azov and Black seas, according to the ministry. Nine UAVs were shot down over Ryazan Region, injuring three people, Governor Pavel Malkov said.

The August 18 attack was one of the largest Ukrainian drone raids since the beginning of the year, according to Defense Ministry data. It came just two days after an even larger attack on August 16, when the ministry reported intercepting and destroying 822 Ukrainian drones.

US rapper Kanye West, known as Ye, will perform two shows in Russia after his concerts were canceled in several European countries over the star’s controversial remarks about Israel and Adolf Hitler.

The rapper will perform at St. Petersburg’s Gazprom Arena on October 10 and 11, his producer Joseph Karre and local organizer SAY Agency confirmed on Monday. The shows will be part of the Ye Live Concert Tour 2026 in support of his 12th album, Bully.

West will be one of the few big-name Western artists to perform in Russia since February 2022, when many Western countries cut cultural ties with Moscow over the Ukraine conflict.

pic.twitter.com/ByifQQvabA

— Joseph Karre (@JosephKarre) August 17, 2026

Ukrainian officials and activists have campaigned to dissuade foreign artists from visiting Russia and pressured other countries not to host Russian performers, including ballet dancers and orchestras. Moscow has described the campaign as a futile attempt to “cancel Russian culture.”

In June 2024, West flew to Moscow for the birthday party of Gosha Rubchinsky, a designer who collaborated with him on his Yeezy clothing brand. Rubchinsky cut ties with West the following year.

In recent years, West has been accused of spreading neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic views through social media posts and statements in interviews. Appearing on Infowars in 2022, he said, “I see good things about Hitler” and “I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis.” He has worn T-shirts and necklaces featuring swastikas and, in 2025, released a song titled Heil Hitler, which contained the line “All my n**gas Nazis, n**ga Heil Hitler” and an audio excerpt from a 1936 Hitler speech.

Kanye West wears diamond swastika necklace as he meets up with white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

“Yo you know I’m here with my white supremacist home boy Nick. We back.” pic.twitter.com/dslipUBnLi

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) March 18, 2025

West has since apologized, attributing his actions to bipolar disorder as well as “poor judgment and reckless behavior.”

In June, West indefinitely postponed a planned show in Marseille, France, after authorities reportedly sought to block him from entering the country. The mayor of Reggio Emilia, Italy, banned West’s concert scheduled for July 18, citing concerns raised by the Jewish community. His show the following day in Chorzow, Poland, was also canceled by the venue.

A US grand jury has indicted 14 people for allegedly operating a drug ring inside two fraternities at Pennsylvania State University (PSU), where pledges were allegedly forced to cut and package cocaine as part of their initiation.

According to Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, 13 of the defendants were students in 2023 and 2024, when the crimes allegedly occurred. The remaining defendant is the father of a student and is charged with tampering with evidence and hindering the investigation. At least four of those charged are current students. All were arrested as part of Operation Drugs Unlimited.

Investigators alleged that the group brought “large quantities” of cocaine from Philadelphia and New York, cut and packaged the drugs mainly at the Delta Upsilon and Sigma Chi fraternity houses, and distributed them to PSU students. The state attorney general’s office named Agostino Abbatiello and Thomas Robinson as “the main suppliers” for the group.

“This was a coordinated and highly-profitable drug-trafficking crew revolving around two senior members of the fraternities, other fraternity brothers, and pledges,” Sunday said.

“In fact, according to the evidence uncovered, cutting and packaging cocaine was, for some pledges, an indoctrination into the fraternities,” he added.

“Criminal activity, including hazing, such as this has no place at our institution, and we will cooperate with law enforcement in any way we can,” said Andrea Dowhower, vice president for Student Affairs.

Dowhower added that the university would review Delta Upsilon, while Sigma Chi was not a recognized organization at PSU and therefore fell outside the university’s oversight.

Delta Upsilon Executive Director Justin Kirk said the defendants had been expelled or suspended if they had not already resigned. “We will continue to work closely with the university on any investigative efforts,” Kirk said.

A staple of US college culture, fraternities are selective social organizations that have at times faced scrutiny over excessive partying and initiation rituals involving hazing. In February, three members of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity at Northern Arizona University were charged in connection with the death of a student during a hazing ritual.

Playboy founder Hugh Hefner repeatedly contacted the FBI on behalf of a model who alleged that Jeffrey Epstein had raped and trafficked her, but the agency did not contact her until 15 years later, the New York Post has reported.

According to a lawsuit filed against the US government by 32 of Epstein’s alleged victims and cited by the Post, former Playmate Audra Lynn Christiansen sought Hefner’s help in 2005 after telling him about the alleged abuse. Despite his repeated calls to the FBI, investigators did not contact her until 2020 – a year after Epstein’s death.

Christiansen also alleged that she had been trafficked to Macau casino billionaire Stanley Ho, known as China’s ‘Godfather of Gambling’, who died in 2020. She reportedly asked Hefner to approach the authorities on her behalf because she believed his law enforcement connections and “clout” would ensure her allegations were taken seriously.

Jordan Merson, an attorney representing the alleged victims, told the Post that the FBI’s attempts to use procedural technicalities to avoid accountability for its alleged failure to properly investigate Epstein for years were “deeply concerning.”

In June, the FBI sought to have the lawsuit dismissed, arguing that the agency was not legally required to investigate every complaint it received. The case remains pending.

Earlier this year, the US Justice Department released more than 3 million pages of documents related to Epstein. The files mentioned more than 300 people, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, former US President Bill Clinton, Mick Jagger, and Kevin Spacey. Many appeared only in correspondence or news reports, and being named in the files does not in itself indicate wrongdoing.

Hefner himself faced posthumous allegations of sexual abuse and coercion in the 2022 documentary series ‘Secrets of Playboy’, five years after his death. Women featured in the series alleged that they had been coerced into sex and drugged.

The allegations were never tested in court. Hundreds of women, including Hefner’s former girlfriends and employees, as well as Playboy models and ‘Bunnies’ who worked at its clubs and other properties, later signed an open letter defending him.

The US would not allow the reconstruction of Gaza until the Palestinian enclave is fully demilitarized, President Donald Trump’s peace envoy Jared Kushner said following meetings with Hamas officials and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, held a rare in-person meeting with Hamas officials in Cairo on Sunday and spoke with Netanyahu the following day. According to the envoy, Hamas reaffirmed its support for Trump’s peace plan and committed to “giving up their weapons.”

“Time will tell whether that’s going to be implemented,” Kushner told Fox News’ Trey Yingst.

“We have a plan to rebuild Gaza, but we will not allow Gaza to be rebuilt until the demilitarization occurs,” Kushner said. “Nobody wants to put more money into a place that’s gone on for so long if it’s just going to be taken over by terrorists or blown up again,” he added.

Kushner said the US was “not going to restrict Israel’s right to defend itself if there are any imminent threats.”

The UN and human rights groups, both in Israel and abroad, have accused Israel of systematically targeting civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure, including high-rise buildings, during its war with Hamas. More than 73,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023, and nearly all of the densely populated enclave’s pre-war population of 2 million have been displaced. Far-right Israeli politicians have argued that the Palestinian population should be driven out and Gaza resettled by Israelis.

Israel has denied deliberately targeting civilians and blamed Hamas for the destruction in Gaza.

At least 92% of Gaza’s housing units were either fully destroyed or damaged between October 2023 and October 2025, according to the UN. The organization’s special rapporteur on housing, Balakrishnan Rajagopal, described the devastation as domicide, defined as “the widespread or systematic destruction of housing and civilian infrastructure essential to the survival of a population.”

Last year, Trump unveiled a plan to redevelop Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” and floated the idea of removing Palestinians and resettling them elsewhere. The proposal was promptly rejected by Arab states, the EU, and the UN.

A farming family in rural America has rejected a multimillion-dollar offer to sell their land for a data center development, joining opposition to a rapid buildout of such facilities driven by the AI boom in the US.

According to the Wall Street Journal, a mother and daughter from Maysville, Kentucky, were offered $26.48 million for roughly 216 hectares of farmland, nearly ten times its estimated open-market value.

Delsia Bare, 54, and Ida Huddleston, 83, initially agreed to sell but reversed their decision after learning that their land would become part of a planned 2.2-gigawatt hyperscale data center. Such a facility could consume as much electricity as nearly two million average US homes.

A Kentucky mother and daughter turned down a life-changing offer for their farmland. The ensuing drama has left the town divided. https://t.co/AsGn0ZVVHR

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 16, 2026

The identity of the company behind the project was not disclosed, although evidence obtained through public records indicated it was Meta, the WSJ reported. Meta said that no decision had been made about working in the area.

The family has owned the land for nearly 200 years, using it over generations to raise cattle and grow tobacco and other crops. A hyperscale data-center campus, by contrast, typically comprises multiple buildings housing thousands of computer servers, along with extensive cooling, electricity, and backup-power infrastructure.

Several neighboring landowners agreed to sell property for the project, with purchase agreements worth a combined $110 million. Legal challenges brought by Bare and other opponents, however, delayed the transactions and the payments expected by participating landowners.

The Maysville case is one of a growing number of disputes over data-center construction in the US. Critics cite electricity and water consumption, noise, and effects on surrounding areas. A Gallup poll earlier this year found that seven in ten Americans opposed the construction of AI data centers in their local area.

The issue has also entered the campaign ahead of the November midterm elections. According to Washington Post analysis, hundreds of federal and state candidates from both major parties have included AI or data-center policies in their platforms, covering nearly 40% of US districts.

The government body overseeing Ukraine’s mobilization campaign has all the hallmarks of an “organized criminal group,” with some officials allegedly paying bribes of up to $150,000 to secure senior positions, Ukrainian lawmaker Aleksandr Kachura has said.

Draft officers ambush military-age men on the streets, at workplaces, and outside their homes, using physical violence against those attempting to resist or flee. The practice has been dubbed ‘busification’ because officers have often been filmed shoving potential recruits into vans.

In an interview published on Monday, the MP from Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky’s Servant of the People party said the conduct of the Territorial Centers of Recruitment and Social Support (TCC) went far beyond what he described as abuses of the conscription system.

“Is kidnapping someone in broad daylight, where they gouge out their eyes, break their arms, and take away their health – is that a serious crime?” Kachura said, adding that the authorities exhibited “all the signs of an organized criminal group.”

The average bribe to “get out” of a TCC after being detained is between $10,000 and $15,000, depending on the region, he said. However, people pay even larger sums to secure positions overseeing the process, according to the MP.

Kachura accused TCC officials of enriching themselves, claiming that the recruitment chief in his hometown “used to ride a bike, now he drives a Land Cruiser, while his wife drives a (Porsche) Cayenne.”

The MP went on to argue that the TCC should be abolished and replaced with a system centered on the voluntary recruitment of “motivated individuals.”

In May, Ukraine unveiled plans to rebrand the TCC, a name that has become synonymous with controversial and violent draft methods that have fueled widespread discontent among Ukrainians and drawn criticism from officials. Ukraine’s top human rights official, Dmitry Lubinets, recently warned that what he called systemic failures within the Defense Ministry had fostered a culture of impunity.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned Ukraine’s forced mobilization, with Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova arguing that Kiev is throwing recruits into “a meat grinder” on the front line.

Meta is heading to court on Tuesday to face accusations that it broke child safety laws and harmed underage users’ mental health. A loss could bankrupt Mark Zuckerberg’s company and force permanent changes to Facebook and Instagram.

Four US states – California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey – are suing Meta in a federal court in Oakland, California. The four states are parties to a wider lawsuit involving a total of 29 states, filed in 2023. The remaining 25 states are expected to have their trials at later dates.

Attorneys general in all 29 states have consolidated thousands of individual complaints – a practice known as multidistrict litigation – all alleging that Meta knowingly harmed its youngest and most vulnerable users.

What is Meta accused of?

All four states argue that the social media giant deliberately engineered its platforms to keep children and teenagers scrolling for as long as possible, while knowingly allowing under-13s to use these platforms without parental consent. 

“Meta has harnessed powerful and unprecedented technologies to entice, engage, and ultimately ensnare youth and teens. Its motive is profit, and in seeking to maximize its financial gains,” the lawsuit states.

This week, Attorney General Phil Weiser joined @Morning_Joe to discuss the ongoing fight to protect our young people from harmful social media algorithms and practices. pic.twitter.com/yA7MzfxymE

— Colorado Attorney General (@COAttnyGeneral) August 13, 2026

These addictive design features – including the infinite scroll feature and algorithms that encourage “compulsive use” – amount to unfair, fraudulent, or deceptive business practices in all four states, the plaintiffs allege. Furthermore, the lawsuit alleges that Meta knows its products are harming users’ mental health, but “prioritizes engagement and profits to the detriment of young users’ well-being,” for example by recommending “content related to eating disorders” to young girls.

On top of these ‘addiction’ allegations, the four plaintiffs claim that Meta violated federal law, namely the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), by collecting personal information from under-13s without obtaining parental consent. “Meta does not obtain – or even attempt to obtain – verifiable parental consent before collecting the personal information of children on Instagram and Facebook,” the suit states, claiming that the company falls back on its nominal ban on under-13s to skirt its COPPA obligations.

“But Meta’s own records reveal that it has actual knowledge that Instagram and Facebook target and successfully enroll children as users,” the suit continues, pointing to internal documents detailing the company’s efforts to increase “penetration” in the 11- to 13-year-old demographic.

Has Meta been sued for causing ‘addiction’ before?

The Oakland case comes after Meta suffered back-to-back legal losses this year. In early March, a state court in New Mexico found the company liable for 75,000 violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act, fining the social media giant $375 million, before branding its platforms a “public nuisance” to teens’ mental health and imposing an additional fine of $567 million.

The Los Angeles case was a bellwether, in that the jury accepted the plaintiff’s argument that the design features of Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms – and not the content that Kaley was exposed to – caused her harm. 

Kaley’s lawyers presented some of the same internal documents included in the latest case, which show Meta employees discussing plans to bring in more under-13 users and maximize their screen time, and that the company is aware that heavy use of its platforms is linked to depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation among teens.

The Oakland trial marks the first time that these arguments will be heard in a federal courtroom, and the first time that Meta will be tried for breaches of state and federal law in the same case. Should Meta lose, the case could be brought to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and potentially to the US Supreme Court, where any ruling would set a legal precedent. 

What do the states want?

The four states are seeking damages of up to $1.4 trillion, a figure that would almost equal Meta’s entire market capitalization and bankrupt the company. However, this figure assumes individual payouts for hundreds of thousands of users affected by Meta’s practices, rather than a single payout for every deceptive practice committed by the company.

The plaintiffs also want Meta to implement a process of parental verification for teenage users, change its “dopamine-manipulating recommendation algorithms,” remove image filters “designed around beautification,” end the autoplay of video content, and end “ephemeral” video content such as stories.

What has Meta said about the lawsuit?

“These lawsuits misportray our company and the work we do every day to provide young people with safe, valuable experiences online,” Meta said in a statement ahead of Tuesday’s trial. “We have listened to parents, researched the issues that matter most, and made real changes to protect teens online.”

Meta pointed to its introduction of restricted teen accounts on Instagram last year, and its use of AI to detect teens attempting to use adult accounts as examples of these changes.

However, during his testimony in Los Angeles in March, Zuckerberg admitted that it is “very difficult” to prevent under-13s from lying about their age to set up accounts.

Regarding the potential of a $1.4 trillion fine, Meta wrote in a court filing last month that “a sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement.”

Belgium is battling its largest wildfire on record, with the blaze scorching around 3,000 hectares and spreading toward the German border, according to local officials.

The fire broke out on Friday in the High Fens nature reserve in eastern Belgium and remained out of control on Monday despite cooler weather and overnight rain.

Around 500 firefighters have been deployed, supported by the military, farmers, and aircraft sent from several European countries. Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have also assisted the operation, while Belgium activated the EU Civil Protection Mechanism.

The blaze has already burned more than twice the area destroyed by Belgium’s previous record fire in 2011, according to European Forest Fire Information System data.

Authorities said the fire was moving toward the German town of Monschau, around 8km from the affected area. Residents near the border have been advised to leave as a precaution, primarily because of heavy smoke.

🇧🇪 BELGIQUE : Le pire incendie de l'histoire de la Belgique a doublé depuis hier et a désormais ravagé près de 3000 hectares en province de Liège. pic.twitter.com/F9x16QYgP1

— Infos Françaises (@InfosFrancaises) August 16, 2026

The difficult terrain has complicated firefighting efforts, with some areas inaccessible to ground crews. Officials have also warned that flames could continue smoldering underground in the region’s peat soil for weeks or even months before flaring up again.

Firefighting efforts elsewhere have also been complicated by EU sanctions on Russia. Spain has been left unable to use its former fleet of Russian-made Kamov Ka-32 helicopters, which are considered especially effective in difficult wildfire conditions due to their high water-carrying capacity and maneuverability.

EU restrictions have blocked access to spare parts and Russian maintenance specialists to service the helicopters, forcing the Spanish authorities to rely on less effective replacement aircraft.

Latvia wants Brussels to provide billions in additional funding as lost trade with Russia and soaring military spending put growing pressure on the Baltic state’s finances, Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has told Politico.

The Baltic state has asked Brussels to provide €7 billion ($8.2 billion) under the EU’s next seven-year budget, on top of other funding.

The sum would cover almost half of Riga’s projected €15.1 billion ($17.3 billion) military spending bill for 2028-2034.

Kulbergs said that Latvia is taking on debt to finance what its government views as security spending benefiting the rest of Europe. “We are getting our budget deficit to the maximum,” he told Politico, saying Latvia is borrowing to pay for “the defense of the whole of Europe.” 

Latvia has been one of the EU’s strongest advocates of sanctions on Russia and has steadily dismantled trade, transport and energy links with its eastern neighbor since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.

The policies, however, have led to a significant economic decline across the region. Politico reported last year that cross-border trade with Russia had “largely collapsed” across the Baltic states, while tourism and investment had also declined, prompting Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to seek additional financial aid from Brussels.

“We are losing money … we are talking about how to support Ukraine, but we are a victim,” he told Politico, adding that economic ties with Russia should eventually be restored.

Despite seeking billions from Brussels to offset the fallout, Kulbergs has called for even tougher measures against Moscow, including a total EU visa ban for Russian citizens and renewed attempts to use frozen Russian sovereign assets for Ukraine.

Russia has long argued that the Baltic states have devastated their own economies by dismantling previously profitable ties while sharply increasing military spending over what their governments describe as a potential threat from Russia.

Moscow has repeatedly denied having plans to attack the Baltic states or other NATO members, dismissing such claims as “nonsense” and Russophobic fearmongering intended to justify inflated military budgets to taxpayers, while warning that European nations are preparing for a full-scale war against Russia.

Two Ukrainian children were attacked by two adults in Poland for speaking their native language, Kiev’s consulate in Gdansk has claimed.

The incident has come amid increasingly negative attitudes toward Ukrainians in Poland and a diplomatic row over Kiev’s veneration of nationalist groups implicated in the WWII-era massacres of ethnic Poles. Reports of hate crimes against Ukrainians have also risen sharply this year.

In a statement on Sunday, the Consulate General of Ukraine in Gdansk said the attack took place last week in Bydgoszcz, a city in north-central Poland.

A 14-year-old girl and her 12-year-old brother were “subjected to aggression by adults simply because they were speaking Ukrainian to each other,” the consulate said.

The alleged attackers, a man and a woman, used obscene language and threatened the children “based on national intolerance,” according to the statement. They later allegedly twisted one child’s arm, smashed a drone the children had and threw pieces of it at the boy, leaving him with scratches.

“We strongly condemn any manifestations of xenophobia,” the consulate said.

The case comes as public sentiment toward Ukrainians in Poland has hardened. Reported hate crimes targeting Ukrainians rose by more than 30% in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2025, according to police data cited by Polish media.

More than two thirds of Poles also believe Ukrainian men of military age who are not legally employed in the country should be deported, according to an IBRiS survey published last week.

Moscow has long accused Kiev of venerating Nazi collaborators and nationalist figures at the state level, while claiming Ukraine’s Western backers deliberately overlook the practice. The “denazification” of Ukraine is among Russia’s stated goals in the conflict.

A US Navy destroyer spent four days without power in the South China Sea last month, depriving its crew of hot meals, flushing toilets, and air conditioning, CNN has reported. The report comes as US sailors in the Persian Gulf are facing similar conditions.

The USS Benfold, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, suffered an “engineering casualty involving its generators” while on an exercise in the South China Sea last month, a Navy spokesman told CNN on Monday.

The Benfold lost the ability to maneuver on its own, and lost galley services, toilets, air conditioning, and drinking water, the spokesman said. At the time of the incident, temperatures in the South China Sea averaged between 32 and 37 degrees Celsius.

Another US warship, the guided missile cruiser USS Robert Smalls, provided hot meals to sailors aboard the Benfold, before it was towed to the Philippines for repairs. The Benfold has since returned to duty.

The USS George Washington has since been ordered to redeploy to the Persian Gulf to relieve the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose crew have been at sea for almost nine months. Conditions on board the Abraham Lincoln have deteriorated, with toilets reportedly out of order, food running short, and multiple sailors attempting suicide. 

A photo circulating on social media last week suggested that frustrated sailors were writing anti-Israel messages on the wings of the Lincoln’s aircraft, including “be a good goy and do what Israel tells you to,” and “Bibi’s cucks.”

US servicemen’s morale is completely depleted in war against Iran, writing anti-Israel messages on a dust flap:

"Be a good goy and do what Israel tells you to"

"Operation Epstein Fury"

"Peace deal #64 incoming... ALL THIS FOR THE HOLY LAND"

"LOVE ISRAEL I AM A GOOD GOYIM"… pic.twitter.com/xBmHE6MyCQ

— AF Post (@AFpost) August 16, 2026

The Pentagon already rotated one aircraft carrier – the USS Gerald R. Ford – out of the Persian Gulf after it suffered repeated malfunctions, including a fire in its laundry room and the overflow of raw excrement from its toilets. The Ford, which is the only vessel in its class and the most advanced aircraft carrier in the US Navy’s fleet, is now undergoing repairs at Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia, and is expected to be out of commission for around a year.

The UK is deliberately escalating the Ukraine conflict and acting as an accomplice to Kiev’s terrorist attacks, Russia’s embassy in London has said, warning that Britain will be held accountable for its actions.

The statement comes after a Sunday Times report claiming that Ukrainian forces have used drones supplied by two British manufacturers for long-range attacks inside Russia over the past six months.

Multiple Ukrainian military sources told the newspaper that British UAVs had been deployed against industrial and military targets, including oil refineries in Volgograd and Yaroslavl.

The Russian Embassy responded on Monday, saying that the report confirms that “London is deliberately opting for an escalation of the Ukraine crisis, while hypocritically professing a desire for peace.”

“In doing so, the United Kingdom is acting as an accomplice and co-perpetrator of the bloody crimes and terrorist attacks committed by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, seeking to contain Russia and inflict maximum damage on it by proxy,” the embassy wrote, warning that “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences for which it will have to answer.”

“The deeper its involvement in the conflict and the greater its support for Kiev’s terrorist machinery, the higher the price it will pay,” the statement concluded.

Kiev has sharply intensified its long-range attacks in recent months, launching hundreds of UAVs at a time against Russian territory. Moscow says the strikes have increasingly hit energy infrastructure, residential areas and other civilian sites, killing and wounding dozens of civilians, including children.

Russia has responded by stepping up its own missile and drone strikes against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities, logistics centers and infrastructure supporting its armed forces.

Moscow has repeatedly argued that Western weapons deliveries, intelligence sharing and targeting assistance make NATO countries direct participants in the conflict. Last week, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that Russia would continue to adopt “much harsher methods to destroy everything that enables the West to fuel Kiev’s war machine.”

Russian officials have also warned that Ukraine-linked weapons manufacturing facilities scattered across Europe could be regarded as legitimate military targets.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to “bomb the sh*t out of” Oman if it strikes a separate deal with Iran on control of the Strait of Hormuz, despite Oman’s key role as a mediator between Washington and Tehran.

In addition to brokering talks between the US and Iran, Omani negotiators have been conducting parallel negotiations with Tehran aimed at establishing a safe route for shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran reportedly wants to charge fees for safe passage of the strait after an interim period, and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters on Monday that Iran had reached an “understanding” with Oman on the matter.

Asked about these Omani-Iranian talks, Trump told Fox News that “if Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the sh*t out of them.” 

The US rejects any agreement that would involve Iran collecting tolls, and Washington has signaled that it will not lift its blockade on Iranian ports unless Tehran relinquishes this demand. Speaking in New York on Friday, Trump claimed that the Islamic Republic was “very badly defeated,” and that he would soon “be declaring the Strait of Hormuz a territory of the US.”

A senior Iranian official told Reuters that Iran is prepared “to escalate tensions in the Strait of Hormuz and wider region” if diplomacy fails, and to launch “timely and precise strikes” to break the US naval blockade if necessary. Trump did not reply directly to this threat in his comments to Fox News, but demanded that Iran “raise the white flag of surrender.”

In a post on X on Saturday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi urged Trump to “accept the reality” that the US had suffered “strategic and heavy defeats.”

“The Strait of Hormuz has been Iranian, is Iranian, and will remain Iranian,” Gharibabadi wrote, adding that the waterway “will only be closed and opened under Iran’s command.”

US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February prompted Tehran to close the Strait of Hormuz, with Washington responding by imposing a naval blockade of Iranian ports. The blockade disrupted traffic through one of the world’s most important energy corridors, sending global oil prices soaring to as high as $120 a barrel.

Israel should carry out 30 to 40 “targeted assassinations” in Gaza every night, National Security Minister and prominent war hawk Itamar Ben-Gvir has said, claiming that some in the Palestinian enclave “are not people.”

While a claimed ceasefire is supposed to have been in effect over Gaza, Israel has continued air strikes while negotiations stalled over the issue of disarmament by Hamas and the withdrawal of the IDF from the territory.

In a podcast interview Saturday, Ben-Gvir reiterated his opposition to the reduced level of Israeli military operations under the armistice.

“We need to carry out targeted assassinations in Gaza, taking down 30-40 every night. Not just those who endanger you at that moment,” he said.

There are people there who are not human beings. They don’t need to live, they are not people.

“In my imagination, I see all of Gaza as ours, very consolidated settlements, throughout Gaza,” he said.

Since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war, Ben-Gvir has consistently advocated policies well to the right of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including harsher conditions for Palestinian prisoners and the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism.

West Jerusalem’s hardline policies and conduct in Gaza have generated widespread international condemnation, while Netanyahu’s push for military action against Iran has further strained perceptions of the Jewish State in the US, its most important ally.

A Pew Research Center survey published in June found that 60% of Americans had an unfavorable view of Israel, compared with 42% in 2022. Across 36 countries surveyed by the pollster, majorities in most expressed unfavorable views of Israel, including 68% in France, 69% in the UK and 73% in Germany.

Afghanistan has marked five years since the Taliban swept back to power amid a chaotic US withdrawal. Celebrations have been held across the country, with officials describing Afghanistan as safer and “free.”

The US invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 following the September 11 attacks, for which Washington identified Al-Qaeda as being responsible. The group’s leaders, including Osama bin Laden, were based in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan at the time.

US forces withdrew as the country’s Western-backed government rapidly collapsed and the Taliban recaptured Kabul in August 2021. Once central to US foreign policy – with American taxpayers footing an estimated $2.3 trillion bill for the 20-year occupation – Afghanistan has since largely faded from Western attention.

However, Afghanistan remains under sweeping sanctions, while the Taliban government is still largely unrecognized abroad.

RT India’s Runjhun Sharma traveled to Afghanistan to see how much the country has changed – and whether it is now as safe as its authorities claim, noting “there’s a lot of nuance, a lot of layers to the Taliban story.”

Moscow is alarmed by reports that Ukrainian military personnel are involved in operations carried out by illegal armed groups against countries in Africa’s Sahel region, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. 

Speaking after talks with Ghanaian Foreign Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa on Monday, Lavrov argued that the involvement of serving troops, rather than individual mercenaries, indicated activity conducted at the state level.

The Russian minister also accused former colonial powers of fueling terrorism in Africa. “It is no secret that this is done by France, which directly works with illegal armed groups, arms them, finances them and instructs them,” he said.

“First and foremost, [France] instructs them on creating problems for those countries, in this case in the Sahara-Sahel region, that have decided to finally, completely and irreversibly break with their former colonizers and are consistently pursuing this course,” Lavrov stressed.

Ablakwa, meanwhile, described the Sahel as the “global epicenter for terrorism, violent extremism.”  He said that Ghana and Russia had agreed to work together to support Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali in addressing the security challenges facing the region.

The Ghanaian foreign minister also thanked Moscow for supporting a UN resolution that declared transatlantic enslavement a grave crime against humanity. “We see in Russia a reliable partner,” Ablakwa noted.

Russia and Ghana are set to sign an agreement allowing visa-free travel for holders of diplomatic and service passports. Lavrov said the measure is expected to facilitate contacts between the two governments in areas ranging from foreign policy and trade to investment, humanitarian exchanges and education.  

Southern African countries should process their critical minerals domestically instead of exporting raw materials that create wealth and manufacturing jobs elsewhere, the region’s top official has said.

Southern Africa is regarded as the continent’s richest and most diverse critical-minerals region. Members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) hold major deposits of cobalt, copper, lithium, graphite, manganese and platinum-group metals, placing the bloc at the center of global competition for resources used in clean energy, electronics and military technology.

At the 16-member bloc’s summit in Durban, South Africa, on Monday, Executive Secretary Elias Magosi pressed leaders to turn that mineral wealth into industries and jobs.

“We do not need permission from anyone to start this process. Let’s start now,” he said.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo), a SADC member since 1998, is the world’s leading cobalt producer and second-largest copper supplier. Zambia is another leading copper producer, while Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique hold significant deposits of lithium, platinum-group metals and graphite, respectively.

China already controls major copper and cobalt operations in the DR Congo and has invested heavily in Zimbabwe’s lithium industry. Beijing is also funding a $1.4 billion refurbishment of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway, an export route linking Zambia’s mining belt to the Indian Ocean.

Washington and Brussels are backing the Lobito Corridor, a competing trade route linking mining areas in Zambia and the DR Congo to Angola’s Atlantic coast. The European Commission has said the project will help secure raw materials for Europe’s green and digital industries while creating jobs in Africa.

The bloc also announced steps to strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation with Russia on the sidelines of the summit. SADC said Deputy Executive Secretary for Regional Integration Angele Makombo N’Tumba met Tatiana Dovgalenko, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Department for Partnership with Africa, on Sunday to advance a draft action plan under a 2018 cooperation agreement.

SADC said the proposed plan covers industrial development, trade, digital infrastructure, agriculture and technology. The two sides also discussed military-technical cooperation and preparations for the third Russia-Africa Summit.

Gulf states are covertly shipping oil through the Strait of Hormuz on tankers with their transponders switched off despite severe disruptions to normal traffic and intermittent attacks, Bloomberg reported on Sunday, citing people familiar with the shipments.

The de facto closure to normal traffic through the strait due to the US-Iran conflict has affected a strategic waterway that has historically been the route for around a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade. The conflict initially sent global oil prices soaring to nearly $120 a barrel. Some energy experts have warned that oil prices could reach $150 over the coming months.

The volumes shipped through the heavily disrupted passage exceed market estimates of 4 million barrels per day, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg on condition of anonymity, without specifying by how much. The UAE, Iraq, Qatar, and Kuwait have reportedly been moving barrels through Hormuz using “dark” tanker transits, with crude later transferred to other vessels in the Gulf of Oman.

The risks remain significant, with ADNOC telling Bloomberg that 23 of its vessels have come under attack since the US-Iran conflict began, leaving one crew member dead and 20 others injured. Last week, ADNOC reported that two of its vessels came under attack in Hormuz, with all crew members reported safe. UAE authorities blamed Iran for the attacks, calling on Tehran to reopen the strait.

Saudi Arabia also appears to be preparing to use the route, with 16 supertankers positioned off Oman’s coast and three more expected in the coming days, the news agency noted, adding that the vessels can carry up to 38 million barrels of oil.

Insurers say they are seeing a steady stream of requests for coverage from Gulf producers despite the dangers. “It’s a dark trade,” Pankaj Khanna, CEO of Heidmar Maritime Holdings, told Bloomberg, describing it as the only option even as many shipowners remain unwilling to take the risk.

Botswana President Duma Boko has challenged the characterization of Africa as the world’s next major economic frontier, arguing that the continent has already reached that position and should deal with foreign partners accordingly.  

African nations should approach investors from a position of strength rather than as supplicants, Boko told RT in an exclusive interview. He said governments must set their own conditions for access to resources, including local processing, technology deployment and skills transfers. 

“Africa is actually the ‘now’ frontier,” Boko said. 

The president said Botswana is also seeking deeper ties with Russia and is planning to open an embassy in Moscow. He noted that Russia is the only permanent member of the UN Security Council in which Botswana does not have a mission, describing the absence as an “anomaly” that needed to be corrected.

“We need these collaborations to explore the rest of the country, about 70% which remains largely unexplored,” the leader said.  

Boko sees cooperation with Russia as important for Botswana’s diamond industry. He said the two countries need to work together to protect the market from oversupply.  

He also argued that African economies have historically been geared toward extraction and the export of unprocessed resources, with insufficient emphasis on developing local industrial capabilities and skills. 

“We now must focus on not being big on extraction, but take it all the way to actually producing finished goods, which the world needs,” he said. 

A historic Palestinian village widely described as the last entirely Christian community in the occupied West Bank is facing near-daily Israeli settler attacks and growing restrictions, residents and activists have told RT.

RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij visited the Kaa’bneh family, part of a Palestinian Bedouin community living in Taybeh, east of Ramallah, where she witnessed settlers approaching with sheep and goats at sunset, hurling rocks, and trying to breach the fences. The family says such incursions can happen several times a day.

“They come and vandalize our property, cut through the fencing and bring their sheep onto our land,” Naif Kaa’bneh said. “They break the water tanks and cut off the electricity. If someone is filming, they beat them.”

Kaa’bneh said the harassment has continued for years but intensified recently, blaming Israeli military inaction for allowing settlers to act with near-total impunity. He said troops can take hours to respond to attacks and have never detained those responsible.

“They have never once come and arrested a settler. We tell them, ‘There’s the settler.’ The soldier just turns his head, pretends he hasn’t seen anything, and they leave,” he said.

Meanwhile, locals say new settler outposts are appearing on the hills around Taybeh, fueling fears that residents are being steadily hemmed in and pushed from land they have inhabited for generations.

Watch Charlotte Dubenskij’s full report below.

At least 355 people were detained by the Moroccan authorities near Ceuta on Saturday as security forces sought to prevent another mass crossing into the Spanish enclave called for on social media.

Moroccan state-owned broadcaster Medi 1 TV said 294 migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa and 61 Moroccans accused of facilitating the attempted crossings had been detained. Reuters had earlier reported at least 111 detentions in and around the border city of Fnideq, citing a Moroccan Interior Ministry source who identified 109 Sub-Saharan African migrants and two Moroccan citizens.

Police reportedly fired tear gas at groups gathering on hills near the border. Spain, meanwhile, deployed soldiers and hundreds of additional police officers to Ceuta.

The security operation followed online calls for a mass crossing on August 15 and came two weeks after more than 72,000 people crossed into Ceuta on July 30, overwhelming the enclave. At least 100 people reportedly died while attempting to reach Spanish territory.

The crisis has revived a sovereignty dispute between Madrid and Rabat. Morocco has claimed Ceuta and Melilla since gaining independence in 1956. Spain regards the enclaves, which it has controlled for centuries, as integral parts of its territory.

Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles rejected the claim, declaring that Ceuta and Melilla were Spanish and “cannot be touched.” Spain’s Foreign Ministry said the country’s territorial integrity was not open to discussion.

More than 8,000 people entered Ceuta in 2021 amid allegations that Morocco had eased border enforcement during a diplomatic dispute with Spain. The incident was widely viewed as retaliation for Madrid’s decision to provide medical treatment to Polisario Front leader Brahim Ghali, an advocate of Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco. Morocco denied using migration to pressure Spain.

Spain sent more than 500 additional police officers to Ceuta and installed a maritime barrier after the July 30 surge. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said about 5,000 migrants remained in the enclave. Those without the right to stay would be returned to Morocco and barred from travelling to mainland Spain, except in cases of extreme vulnerability, he added.

Russia seeks foreign technologies and management expertise rather than investment based on simple “screwdriver assembly,” presidential adviser Anton Kobyakov has said.

Speaking to TASS on Sunday ahead of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, a major international platform for attracting investment to Russia’s Far East and expanding economic ties with the Asia-Pacific, Kobyakov said Moscow favors pragmatic, “win-win” cooperation involving joint production, capital-intensive industries and scientific research.

“We need the best management practices and the best technologies – all of it!” Kobyakov said. “We no longer want to engage in ‘screwdriver assembly’ of some components of their products. We have done this before,” he explained, referring to a model where foreign manufacturers import largely finished components for basic final assembly.

Numerous US, European, and Asian companies pulled out of Russia due to supply problems caused by the sanctions imposed on Moscow by the West after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Other firms left due to the risk of secondary sanctions or public relations pressure.

Moscow has since tightened the rules for potential returns. Earlier this month, President Vladimir Putin signed legislation allowing Russian courts, under certain conditions, to terminate buyback rights held by foreign investors.

Kobyakov said businesses from Germany, France, Italy, the UK, Switzerland, Spain, Greece and the Netherlands continue maintaining contacts with Russia despite political pressure from their governments.

Russian officials have argued that Western sanctions ultimately strengthened domestic industry by spurring import substitution and domestic production. Putin said last year that sanctions had become “a powerful catalyst for structural changes” in the economy, prompting Russian businesses to occupy market niches abandoned by foreign companies and accelerate the development of domestic technologies.

Hundreds of Moroccan migrants have protested in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta, demanding asylum as thousands remain stranded in the area following mass border crossings last month.

The crisis erupted on July 30-31, when an estimated 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta from neighboring Morocco – equivalent to roughly 70% of the enclave’s population of around 84,000. While most returned shortly afterward, an estimated 7,000 to 9,000 remain, straining reception centers, hospitals, and law enforcement.

The influx has triggered a bitter dispute over the migrants’ fate. Ceuta Mayor-President Juan Jesus Vivas has called for asylum claims linked to the surge to be rejected and migrants returned to Morocco.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska backed the hardline approach last week, saying irregular arrivals would not be allowed to remain in Ceuta, reach mainland Spain, or obtain legal status, except in rare cases of extreme vulnerability. Judicial associations have pushed back, insisting claims must be assessed individually and that illegal entry does not forfeit the right to seek asylum.

Amid the row, several hundred migrants staged a sit-in on a popular Ceuta beach on Sunday, urging the Spanish authorities not to return them to Morocco. Footage shows protesters waving Spanish flags and banners while chanting: “We need asylum!”

“We Moroccans are protesting without food or water, we will continue sitting here,” one protester told the Ruptly video agency. Separate footage shows security forces detaining several migrants on the beach, though it is unclear if they were part of the protest.

Another wave of nearly 300 migrants attempted to enter Ceuta on Saturday but was stopped by Moroccan police, according to state broadcaster Medi 1 TV. Another 61 Moroccans accused of facilitating the attempt were arrested, the broadcaster said.

Brussels sticks to sidelines as migrant row deepens

Multiple EU members have pinned the blame for the Ceuta crisis squarely on Madrid and its permissive approach toward migration. Leaders of 22 EU nations accused Spain of undermining the bloc’s security in an August letter, with several calling for its exclusion from the Schengen borderless travel zone. Italy introduced temporary checks on travelers arriving from Spain on August 1, while France tightened border security.

Brussels, meanwhile, has largely sought to sit out the increasingly bitter dispute. The European Commission has refrained from penalizing Spain over the Ceuta crisis and praised Madrid for preventing irregular migrants from reaching mainland Europe, while dismissing calls for Schengen restrictions. However, it has also stopped short of offering Madrid substantial backing, so far limiting its response to sending a team of migration experts to Ceuta to assess what additional financial and operational support may be needed to secure the EU’s external border.

Commenting on the crisis, Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev also blamed EU migration policies, suggesting that “migrants are coming en masse to personally thank Ursula [von der Leyen] and other migration-friendly EU bureaucrats for their great migration incentives.” In a separate post, he warned that the “failure to admit migration mistakes is undermining what is left of Europe.”

Legacy media tries to hide this and calls the stories about Ceuta “Russian propaganda.” Failure to admit migration mistakes is undermining what is left of Europe. https://t.co/4rjJlfNa1S

— Kirill Dmitriev (@kadmitriev) August 17, 2026

Hamas has reaffirmed its commitment to disarm and demilitarize Gaza during direct talks with US President Donald Trump’s adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, Axios reported on Sunday, citing a source familiar with the matter.

The meeting was aimed at locking in a pledge Hamas first made in late July, when Trump announced that his Board of Peace – an international body he chairs to oversee the implementation of his Gaza peace plan – had reached a “historic agreement” with the Palestinian group on disarmament and the transfer of civilian and security control to a technocratic administration.

In exchange, the Board of Peace would press Israel to make corresponding moves, including initial troop withdrawals, while accelerating humanitarian relief and reconstruction.

During a rare 90-minute in-person meeting in Egypt on Sunday, Kushner reportedly told Hamas political chief Khalil al-Hayya that the group must take “tangible steps on disarmament if they want Israel to take steps of its own.”

Al-Hayya reportedly asked Kushner to tell Trump that Hamas remains committed to relinquishing its weapons, the source claimed.

“We thanked them for the commitment, but we want to see real efforts [from Hamas] and not just words,” the source stated. “It was important for Kushner to lock them into this commitment in person.”

Kushner is expected to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday to discuss reciprocal measures. Last week, Netanyahu rejected the roadmap, insisting that Israeli forces would not withdraw until Hamas was “genuinely disarmed.”

Meanwhile, on Sunday, the foreign ministers of Türkiye, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE issued a joint statement condemning Israel’s rejection of the peace framework and Palestinian statehood.

The eight countries said West Jerusalem bears “direct and full responsibility” for obstructing peace efforts. They urged active US involvement in implementing the plan, which has been endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2803.

Six civilians have been killed in a Ukrainian missile strike on Russia’s Belgorod Region, acting Governor Aleksandr Shuvaev has said.

The attack targeted the village of Koloskovo in the Valuysky district on Monday morning, according to the regional head. Four other people were also injured, including a 14-year-old child.

Two of the injured received medical assistance but declined hospitalization. The two others, including the teenager, were taken to the Valuysky district hospital for treatment, the official said.

A structure at the site of the strike burned down, and a passenger car was damaged, Shuvaev added.

The attack came amid a large-scale overnight Ukrainian drone raid on Russian territory. The Defense Ministry said air defenses intercepted and destroyed 205 UAVs over several regions, including Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Kursk, and Rostov, as well as Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.

Belgorod Region, which borders Ukraine, has been subjected to repeated missile, artillery, and drone attacks since the escalation of the conflict in 2022. In recent months, Ukraine has sharply intensified its long-range drone campaign in the region, targeting oil facilities, warehouses, residential buildings, and other civilian infrastructure deep inside Russian territory. The escalated attacks come as Kiev’s forces continue to suffer setbacks on the battlefield.

Moscow maintains that its strikes only target military sites and infrastructure supporting Ukraine’s armed forces.

Tehran will pay out cash rewards to any Iranian citizen who kills or captures a US serviceman, Army Chief Amir Hatami has announced, warning Washington against putting troops on Iranian soil.

Speaking at an event on Sunday in remarks carried by state broadcaster IRIB, Hatami said the initiative had been drawn up after “numerous requests” from Iranians seeking to take part in the nation’s defense.

“Any individual who kills or captures and surrenders an American aggressor will receive a reward of $30,000 or 5 billion Iranian tomans from the Iranian Army,” Hatami said. “Iranian women who successfully carry out this action will receive double the reward.”

Hatami also said weapons used to kill American troops would be purchased by the state for twice their value and displayed in a planned museum, with their owners receiving replacements.

The US has yet to launch a ground operation in Iran. However, Western media have reported that Washington is considering missions that could put large numbers of troops on Iranian territory.

The Pentagon has reportedly examined a major raid to seize Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium from heavily fortified nuclear facilities. According to the New York Post, the operation could involve thousands of troops, with elite units retrieving the material while larger forces secure the sites.

Hatami also called on American forces to leave the Middle East, saying they are “no longer permitted to enter the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman, and the Strait of Hormuz.” He added that Tehran would not allow US bases in the region to return to their “previous state.”

The US and Israel launched their military campaign against Iran in late February, accusing Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran retaliated with strikes on American and Israeli targets across the region.

A temporary ceasefire later collapsed, while indirect negotiations have failed to produce a lasting settlement. Washington has continued military and economic pressure on Tehran, while Iran maintains that its nuclear program is peaceful.

A Ukrainian drone attack on a civilian car in Russia’s Kherson Region has killed a married couple, according to Governor Vladimir Saldo.

The vehicle was hit by a UAV identified as a ‘Hornet’ near the village of Druzhbovka on Sunday, Saldo wrote on the Max messenger service.

“The car was carrying a married couple – business owners from Nizhniye Serogozy. They were traveling to Melitopol to purchase goods for their shop. Both were killed at the scene as a result of the strike,” he added.

The regional head accused the Ukrainian military of deliberately targeting civilians and extended his condolences to the victims’ families.

Russian officials have accused Kiev of systematically targeting civilian transport. On the same day, a Ukrainian drone hit a car in the village of Budki in Kursk Region, killing a female passenger and injuring the driver, according to Governor Aleksandr Khinshtein.

Moscow has condemned Ukrainian drone attacks on civilian infrastructure and residential areas as acts of terrorism aimed at compensating for Kiev’s battlefield setbacks.

Russia has responded by intensifying long-range missile and UAV operations against Ukraine’s military-industrial and logistics infrastructure.

The Russian military maintains that it does not target civilians and that its strikes are directed solely at military sites and related infrastructure.

Officials in Washington are allegedly discussing the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iran as the months-long conflict continues to escalate, former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed.

Greene, once a prominent MAGA ally, made the allegation in a post on X on Sunday. She said the issue had been raised during strategy meetings, but did not identify those involved or provide evidence.

“They are discussing using nuclear weapons on Iran in strategy meetings,” she wrote. “I’m not speculating, I know. And it’s pure evil.”

Greene claimed Washington is considering lowering the threshold for nuclear use despite US President Donald Trump repeatedly declaring victory in the conflict. She warned that such a move could trigger a “nuclear holocaust” and drag the world into a much wider war.

The White House has not publicly confirmed that any such discussions are taking place.

Greene has increasingly criticized Trump over the US-Israeli war on Iran, putting her at odds with a political movement she was once closely associated with.

The US and Israel launched their unprovoked military campaign against Iran in late February, accusing Tehran of being on the verge of creating a nuclear bomb. That was despite US intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stating there was no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.

Iran retaliated with strikes on American and Israeli targets across the region and later restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Washington and Israel have continued to demand “zero enrichment” and the removal of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile.

Tehran has rejected the demands, insisting its nuclear program is peaceful and enrichment is a sovereign right. At the same time, it has warned that it could reach weapons-grade levels if attacked again, while noting it has made no decision to build a bomb.

Ukraine’s largest steel plant has partially suspended production after a Russian missile strike damaged key facilities.

Located in Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk Region, ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog is an integrated steelworks that produces rolled products, including steel used in Ukrainian weapons and military equipment, according to the Russian military.

In a Telegram post on Sunday, the company said the overnight attack had damaged “the main energy and blast-furnace production facilities” and partially halted operations. It added that specialists were assessing the extent of the destruction and the prospects and timeframe for recovery.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed striking workshops at the metallurgical complex, saying the site was targeted in a combined attack involving ground- and air-launched precision weapons and long-range drones.

Another target was Kiev-111, a facility operated by Ukrdefense Company that manufactures components for attack drones, Khrushch interceptor UAVs, and Harpia anti-aircraft drones.

Russia has intensified strikes on Ukrainian defense-related facilities and logistics following a 40-day “operation of influence” announced by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in late June. Kiev portrayed the campaign of long-range drone attacks as an effort to force Moscow into negotiations on its terms.

Over the following weeks, Ukraine targeted Russian oil refineries, logistics warehouses operated by retailer Wildberries – often described as “Russia’s Amazon” – and sites far from the front line.

Moscow described the attacks on energy infrastructure, residential buildings, and logistics hubs as terrorism, saying they killed dozens of civilians.

As the deadline expired in early August without the campaign achieving its objectives, the head of Zelensky’s office, Kirill Budanov, dismissed the significance of the timeframe, claiming that “what matters is the result.”

The ensuing Russian strikes on Ukraine’s defense industry have depleted Kiev's stock of Patriot interceptor missiles, leaving air-defense crews “helpless” against the barrages, according to the Financial Times. Moscow maintains it never targets civilians.

US President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon to substantially scale back joint military exercises with South Korea, citing his “very good relationship” with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said he was “not happy” that Washington had agreed to take part in the annual exercises, which are due to begin on Monday.

“These exercises are not only costly, with much of these costs paid for by the United States of America (as usual!), but send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile,” he wrote, describing North Korea as “unthreatening and respectful” during his presidency.

Trump said it was too late to cancel the drills outright and had therefore instructed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to “substantially reduce” them.

The 11-day Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises were scheduled to run through August 27, with around 18,000 South Korean and roughly 5,000 US troops expected to take part.

Trump also took a swipe at Seoul over its refusal to join Washington’s campaign against Iran.

“I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’” he wrote.

During his first presidency, Trump sought to improve ties with North Korea after years of strained relations, meeting Kim three times and scaling back some joint exercises with Seoul. In 2019, he became the first sitting US president to enter North Korea during a meeting with Kim at the Demilitarized Zone. 

Pyongyang has long described such drills as rehearsals for an invasion and has responded by expanding its own nuclear arsenal, describing it as necessary to deter a US attack.

On Friday, ahead of the latest Ulchi Freedom Shield exercises, Pyongyang denounced the drills as a “new level of threat” and vowed to respond with a “new level of deterrent.” 

Russia has also backed Pyongyang’s security concerns. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said last month that Moscow no longer supports calls for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, arguing that expanded US-led military activity has left North Korea to see no alternative to nuclear weapons for safeguarding its sovereignty. 

At least 15 cases of rape have been recorded in the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta since it was swarmed by the massive influx of migrants in late July, El Mundo reported on Sunday, citing Spain’s national gendarmerie.

The crisis erupted on July 30-31 when an estimated 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta. While many have already reportedly returned, the invasion has put heavy pressure on infrastructure in Ceuta, a small city whose population was around 84,000 as of last year, according to government data.

Multiple media reports and videos have since shown thousands of migrants remaining on the streets and in makeshift camps on Trampolin Beach and elsewhere in the city.

This came after at least four migrant girls under 14 have reportedly been treated for alleged sexual assaults.

The influx has come as immigration has become an increasingly divisive political issue in Spain and elsewhere in Europe, spurred on by high-profile sexual abuse and assault cases involving migrants.

The Ceuta crisis has also fueled tensions within the EU and triggered criticism of Spain’s lax immigration policies from politicians across Europe. The leaders of 22 EU nations signed a letter accusing Madrid of undermining the bloc’s security in early August, while several countries called for Spain to be excluded from the Schengen borderless travel zone.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has rejected criticism, calling the joint EU letter ”selfish, polarizing and unlawful” and insisting that the current crisis was not a consequence of Madrid’s overall migration policies.

Russia has historically protected itself across several fronts by maintaining buffer states along the borders it shared with threatening powers. These states didn’t necessarily have to like Russia, much less become its allies, but their usefulness lay in causing even greater problems for Russia’s potential adversaries.

For a long time, the Crimean Khanate played such a role by consuming Polish resources that might otherwise have been directed against Russia and Poland, in turn, helped shield Russia from the full weight of German pressure, while in the east, the Dzungar Khanate performed a similar function during the 17th and 18th centuries. Its horsemen sometimes burned Russian settlements in Siberia, but they were a much greater scourge for China.

This remains a useful principle of Russian strategy because when Moscow lacks the resources to act decisively in a particular region, it can benefit from independent powers pursuing their own interests there, provided they cause Russia’s adversaries more trouble than they cause Russia itself. The US and Israeli attack on Iran in February 2026 opened a second, southern front in the West’s struggle to preserve its global dominance after the first front opened in Ukraine more than 12 years ago and a third is now taking shape in East Asia, where China will be the principal target.

Hostilities between the US and its allies on one side, and Iran and its direct or indirect supporters on the other, have now entered a protracted phase and Russia must watch these developments closely because its ability to intervene directly in the Middle East remains constrained by the concentration of its forces on the Ukrainian front.

Earlier this month, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Türkiye signed a trilateral collective-defense agreement in Mecca. The document contains something resembling mutual obligations in the event that one of the signatories comes under military attack and some observers immediately described the new grouping as a “Sunni NATO” or “Muslim NATO.”

The agreement will not overturn the geopolitical order of the Middle East and none of the three states has surrendered its independence or committed itself to an integrated military structure, yet the initiative shouldn’t be dismissed. Its members could create as much difficulty for Russia’s Western adversaries as they might for Iran, Russia’s friend.

The appearance of such an agreement also weakens the political order that Washington established in the region after 1991 as major regional powers are beginning to discuss their security among themselves rather than waiting for the US to organize it for them.

It is often claimed that Washington benefits from instability in a region that supplies energy to Europe and China and there’s some truth in this, but the US is deliberately dismantling parts of the globalized system it created during the second half of the 20th century because China now draws at least as much benefit from that system as America does.

None of these countries possesses either the strength or the determination to end US hegemony in the Middle East. So the importance of the Mecca agreement lies elsewhere. Governments in a region long treated as strategically subordinate to Washington are discussing how to provide for their own security and that’s a warning for the US and good news for countries seeking a more just international order.

There is little reason, however, to expect the Mecca grouping to become a functioning military alliance, given the interests shared by its members are primarily political. They can use one another’s influence and regional authority to improve their respective positions, but they have few grounds for fighting a war together. The existing Saudi-Pakistani defense relationship didn’t produce any substantial response from Islamabad when Iranian forces attacked targets in the kingdom and Türkiye, meanwhile, speaks constantly about Palestinian rights but has avoided measures that would inflict serious damage on Israeli interests.

A durable military alliance requires more than declarations of solidarity and history suggests that it also needs a dominant power capable of directing joint defense planning and establishing a common adversary.

The circumstances surrounding NATO’s creation were exceptional. Western European governments had emerged from the Second World War exhausted and financially ruined and they needed an enduring American presence. Washington, for its part, required a secure territorial base from which to contain the Soviet Union. Even the US failed to reproduce this arrangement elsewhere and its attempts to create NATO-style organisations in Southeast Asia through SEATO and in the Middle East through CENTO didn’t survive. Neither region offered the political discipline, accepted hierarchy or common definition of the enemy that made NATO possible.

A successful military alliance also requires a common understanding of domestic political order and NATO has one with controlled oligarchic democracy at home and Russia abroad, with the Soviet Union occupying the role of external enemy during the Cold War.

For Russia, this is reassuring. Each member of the new grouping could create difficulties for Moscow independently, whether in the South Caucasus, Central Asia or the wider Muslim world, but there’s little chance that they will coordinate a sustained attack on Russian interests.

Nor are they likely to form a united front against Iran because their disagreements, ambitions and competing partnerships will prevent that, so the Mecca agreement will therefore contribute more to Russia’s objectives than it will threaten them. It complicates American strategy, encourages regional independence and places further limits on Washington’s ability to impose a single political order across the Middle East.

Russia doesn’t need the members of this new grouping to become friends or allies, it just needs them to occupy the attention and resources of its adversaries while Moscow remains concentrated on Ukraine.

On Russia’s southern flank, that is the only calculation that matters.

This article was first published by Vzglyad.ru, translated and edited by the RT team.

Ukrainian draft officers detained Metropolitan Sergius of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) on Sunday, a lawyer for the church said, in the latest escalation of Kiev’s long-running crackdown on the country’s largest denomination.

Ukraine’s conscription drive has grown increasingly violent and corrupt as it attempts to make up for battlefield losses and with the supply of willing recruits long since exhausted. Regional mobilization officials have been detained on charges of taking bribes for deferments, and the threat of being pressed into military service has reportedly been used to pressure journalists to not publish damning reports.

Sergius heads the UOC’s Tulchin diocese in Vinnitsa Region. Draft officers detained him, along with Archpriest Anatoly Vishnev, in southeastern Kiev, according to a Telegram statement by Archpriest Nikita Chekman, a lawyer who represents the UOC.

Sergius was released later in the day, but his passport was seized, Chekman said in an update.

Both the detention and the seizure were carried out “without proper procedural formalities,” with no paperwork or legal basis provided for either action, he said, adding that the UOC considers the TCK’s actions unlawful.

Conscription officers were still attempting to process Archpriest Vishnev as of Sunday evening, Chekman added.

Our team will take all measures provided by law to challenge the unlawful detention, confiscation of the passport, and illegal mobilization of the clergyman.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, Ukrainian authorities have imposed sanctions on UOC clergy, raided its monasteries and churches, and backed efforts to transfer its properties to the Kiev-affiliated Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU). The schismatic organization was launched in 2019 under then-President Pyotr Poroshenko.

Moscow, meanwhile, has called it an attempt to “destroy Orthodoxy in Ukraine.”

In late June, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned plans to rebury prominent Ukrainian political figures at the Kiev Pechersk Lavra, accusing the authorities of using the iconic monastery to promote “anti-heroes disguised as heroes.”

The head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, Aleksandr Alferov, who previously served as a spokesman for the neo-Nazi Azov unit, said last month that the government plans to establish what he called a national “Pantheon” at the Lavra.

Lebanese families are struggling to make ends meet as the country’s long-running financial crisis deepens amid Israeli attacks that have devastated homes and farmland, RT correspondent Steve Sweeney reports from Beirut.

Gasoline prices soared by around 25% in February, while food and rent costs spiked by around 20% last year, adding pressure in a country where more than a third of the population lives below the poverty line, according to World Bank estimates.

Many Lebanese are also grappling with unpaid wages, Sweeney reports.

“If the economic situation continues as it is, I’m telling you, there will be a social explosion. People will turn against one another because when hunger strikes, boundaries disappear,” a local taxi driver told RT. Lebanon is “living on borrowed time,” dependent on international decisions and aid for basic necessities, added.

IDF have reportedly deliberately ignited wildfires in woodland, farmland, and olive groves in southern Lebanon since the June 17 ceasefire with Hezbollah.

Watch the full RT report below:

Except for the unfortunate victims of Western information blackouts and propaganda, it has long been obvious that Ukraine under its leader-beyond-elections Vladimir Zelensky is not a democracy, even by the real world’s low standards. Zelensky’s regime is extremely corrupt, authoritarian, and lethally vicious.

Critics, for instance, are imprisoned and killed by a combination of torture and neglect, such as the late Gonzalo Lira, or locked away for 15 years for, in effect, the thought crime of calling for unity among Russian and Ukrainian workers, such as the socialist Bogdan Sirotyuk. Other targets of the regime are subject to assassination attempts, including abroad. Precisely because the Zelensky regime is so lawless, scary, and vicious, Ukrainians usually do not speak openly about just how terrible it is.

That’s why a recent YouTube interview with pop star Olya Polyakova has caused national uproar. Famous, outspoken, and uninhibited, Polyakova deplored Ukraine’s oppressive and stifling atmosphere. “Are we in a concentration camp, in a camp for political prisoners?” she asked and predicted that “soon, we will all be terrified, frightened mice that sit in their holes and do not even dare stick out their nose.”

Polyakova also fearlessly pushed the Zelensky regime’s single most painful button: “They’ll grab someone from your family, or anyone, in the street and you’ll just walk past” pretending not to see anything out of fear, just to be left alone. That was not a general point but a very concrete one: The conversation quickly turned to Ukraine’s institutionalized manhunts to feed the meat-grinder war.

Polyakova had watched “scores of videos” of these violent kidnapping operations, she insisted, breaking another taboo: In Ukraine, it is verboten to acknowledge what these very real videos, filmed and shared by Ukrainian witnesses, demonstrate: that, in reality, citizens are helpless, even hunted subjects in a great sordid bargain with the West, trading Kiev’s cannon fodder for Western money, privileges, and sheer ego flattery for a small, rapacious, and ruthless establishment.

The Zelensky regime dishonestly dismisses the videos of press-ganging those sacrificial Ukrainians as unrepresentative or “Russian propaganda,” applying its dull default dodge. But for Polyakova, the videos are not only representative and true – as they are – but evidence of a larger problem: In a country where anyone “can now be snatched in the street,” the fundamental sense of right and wrong, of good and bad, is gone, and principal notions of humane conduct have fallen apart. 

Even according to a Ukrainian official, the rights of Ukrainians are infringed in 90% of all military mobilization procedures. In reality, the videos showing teams of people snatchers beat and kick and drag away their victims are merely the tip of the iceberg. Physical violence at the point of entry, as it were, is only part of a brutal and criminal mix that continues with long forced disappearances, isolation, deprivation of legal counsel, threats, torture, extorted signatures, and, last but not least, the brutalization of those trying to help the victims, including lawyers brave enough to approach the military recruitment centers.

It is these aspects of Polyakova’s surfeit of honesty that explains the massive backlash the most. Ukraine’s de facto propagandists and regime talking heads have come out in force to discredit her and signal to ordinary Ukrainians that hers is a way of thinking and, worse, talking they better not be caught applauding or even emulating. The main line of attack is – drum roll, trumpet blasts, and big surprise confetti – Russia, Russia, Russia. That is, the smear that Polyakova is playing into the hands of Moscow’s propaganda.

Neither the Western proxy war, sacrificing Ukraine – and masses of ordinary Ukrainians – for a perverse and futile Western dream of defeating and demoting Russia, nor the Zelensky regime that would long be gone without that war, can survive the truth. It may be ironic that it takes a pop star combining conventional beats with revealing outfits to state that truth loudly, but then the regime she is up against is led by a low-taste comedian gone very, very dark. Polyakova may stand her ground or she may be forced to recant. The genie is out of the bottle either way: The showman Zelensky can be upstaged.

Striking footage of this week’s total solar eclipse filmed from Russia’s Arktika-M satellite has been released, showing the Moon’s shadow sweeping across Earth.

Russian space corporation Roscosmos shared the video on Telegram, giving viewers a glimpse of the eclipse from hundreds of kilometers above Earth.

Roscosmos also shared another view from orbit, publishing four photographs taken by cosmonaut Pyotr Dubrov from the International Space Station, around 400 km above Earth. The images show the Moon progressively ‘eating’ into the Sun from different sides.

The total eclipse occurred on August 12, with the path of totality stretching from Greenland and Iceland across the Atlantic to parts of Spain, Portugal, and northern Russia. A partial eclipse was visible across much of Europe, North America, and northwest Africa.

Total solar eclipses occur somewhere on Earth roughly every 18 months, but any given location can wait centuries to experience one.

The next total solar eclipse is due on August 2, 2027, when totality will pass across southern Spain, Gibraltar, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and Yemen, according to the US National Solar Observatory.

Russian MMA champion Islam Makhachev has made UFC history with a commanding welterweight title defense against Ireland’s Ian Machado Garry, notching his 17th straight victory and smashing a UFC record.

UFC 330 at Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia on Saturday went the full five rounds, with Makhachev dictating the 25-minute bout through wrestling and ground control while mixing in dynamic striking, including a damaging second-round head kick which knocked Garry down.

A former lightweight world champion, Makhachev had not entered the octagon since November, when he won the welterweight title on his debut in the division.

He faced Garry unbeaten for nearly a decade and riding a 16-fight winning streak – a UFC record he shared with Brazilian legend Anderson Silva. The victory took Makhachev’s overall record to 29 wins and one defeat, while the 28-year-old Garry suffered the second loss of his 19-fight career.

“We, Russia, have proven that we are number one in the world. We’ll beat all records,” Makhachev told the press after his victory. He admitted, however, that securing a victory in the championship rounds is “always hard.”

“I have nothing but respect for Islam… He won. I have no complaints, no excuses,” Garry said after the decision. In a social media video, the Irishman remained upbeat, saying it “wasn’t my night” and congratulating Makhachev, whose career he said he had always respected.

Numerous sports federations and governing bodies barred Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competition following the February 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict, ostensibly in solidarity with Kiev and following a recommendation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Russian fighters, however, have remained active in global MMA, with major promotions including UFC, Bellator and One FC declining to follow the guidance.

“We’re a global business,” he said. “Bad sh*t happens all the time all around the world and…yes we will run the business like we always have.”

While the UFC stopped holding events in Russia due to logistical and financial hurdles stemming from sanctions, Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy for investment and economic cooperation, previously said efforts were underway to bring UFC tournaments back to the country.

Last month, the International Olympic Committee provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, clearing the way for Russian athletes to return to international competition en masse, a development Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova welcomed, saying: “Common sense has prevailed!”

The US is looking to Russia’s air defense technology as it develops a new generation of mobile radars following losses suffered during the war with Iran, Military Watch has reported. New THAAD radars are reportedly set to gain a mobile sensor platform function similar to those built into Russia’s S-300 and S-400 systems from the outset.

According to a report published earlier this week, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) destroyed more than $3 billion worth of American air defense radars during the first week of the war on the Islamic Republic launched by Israel and the US in late February.

The losses reportedly included lower-value radars such as the AN/TPS-59, valued at around $70 million, as well as an AN/FPS-132 radar and two AN/TPY-2 X-band mobile radar systems from the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system, each valued at more than $1 billion. The destruction of the radars dealt a major blow to the situational awareness of US forces and their allies, the military-focused magazine noted.

The reported approach would potentially move away from the traditional Western concept of a self-contained air defense battery, according to the report. Instead, radars would serve as nodes in broader networks, allowing a mobile sensor to detect a target and relay data to remote launchers while remaining physically separate from the interceptors, the magazine noted.

According to Military Watch, the destruction of the radars reportedly forced the US and Israel to rely more heavily on ship-based sensors and an AN/TPY-2 radar stationed in Turkey. 

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Iranian strikes had caused up to $13 billion in damage to US military assets and facilities in the Middle East. Since the start of the US-Israeli war on the Islamic Republic, Tehran has carried out more than 2,000 air, missile, and drone strikes, damaging at least 20 sites in eight countries used by the US military. Iran has also damaged or destroyed more than 42 US military aircraft, several while parked at air bases.

Ukrainian conscription officers reportedly sprayed civilians with tear gas in Odessa after they tried to stop a press gang from seizing a man for military service.

According to the Novosti Odessa Telegram channel, several people approached a vehicle carrying draft officers during an alleged attempt at ‘busification’ – a pejorative term denoting a practice whereby draft officers snatch military-age men in public and drag them into vans to take them to conscription centers, often using violence against those who resist.

A video posted online by the outlet shows several people trying to pull away a young man whom the press gang was presumably after, while pushing the draft officers back into their vehicle. The officers then appear to spray tear gas at the crowd before hastily driving off amid expletives and angry shouts of “get out of here.”

Kiev has increasingly relied on violently enforced conscription amid battlefield losses and Russian advances, with reports of ‘busification’ emerging almost daily.

While officials insist mobilization is unavoidable in the conflict with Russia, many citizens see the system as rife with state-sanctioned corruption and as disproportionately targeting the poor.

Recruits and their families have also accused authorities of systematic abuse, ignoring exemptions and drafting men medically unfit for service. Meanwhile, military-age men have resorted to various means to avoid the draft, from fleeing the country illegally to setting military recruitment offices on fire or hiding in their homes for months.

Saturday’s incident is not the first reported case of draft officers using tear gas on civilians. Earlier this month, a video purportedly showed a press gang assaulting a young couple in a taxi and repeatedly spraying them with what appeared to be tear gas while trying to drag the man from the vehicle. In late June, a press gang reportedly used tear gas on a 12-year-old girl caught up in an attack on a vehicle carrying draft officers.

Moscow has argued that growing public resistance to forced conscription shows that the Ukrainian government has lost its legitimacy and can only survive through increasingly authoritarian measures. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova recently described the situation as “absolute lawlessness.”

An 83-year-old man died and six more people were injured as a result of an overnight Ukrainian drone strike in Moscow Region, local governor Andrey Vorobyev has said, adding that electronic warfare shot down or intercepted 187 Ukrainian UAVs.

The strike comes as Kiev has intensified long-range attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure and residential areas. Earlier this month, a Ukrainian drone struck a crowded beach in the southern resort of Gelendzhik, killing at least seven people, including three children, and injuring dozens more.

Drones were intercepted over Domodedovo, Podolsk, Stupino, Odintsovo, Naro-Fominsk, Ramenskoye, Chekhov, Kolomna, Kashira, and Yegoryevsk, Vorobyev said on Sunday in a post on Telegram.

The governor said that the 83-year-old man was killed when a drone fell on the grounds of a private house. Three people were injured in Podolsk as a truck driver suffered a hand injury in Klimovsk. Another man sustained shrapnel wounds at the Lesnoy allotment association, where a private house was also damaged, while a woman in the settlement of Zheleznodorozhny suffered a shoulder injury. None of the injuries were life-threatening, Vorobyev added.

Several homes and a shopping center were damaged in Domodedovo, where a balcony also caught fire. A private house and a church school were damaged in Chekhov, while a bathhouse was destroyed in Stupino, Vorobyev noted.

Wildberries press office confirmed the fire at its warehouse in Podolsk, saying that the facility had been evacuated and deliveries rerouted to other sites.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Sunday that 822 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over Russian regions and the Black and Azov seas. Five people were killed in the Rostov Region, while attacks also injured civilians in Belgorod and Bryansk regions. Damage was reported in several regions, including to homes, public buildings, and industrial facilities. In Belgorod, a drone attack on a civilian bus killed one woman and injured nine more people.

Russian authorities have condemned Kiev’s drone raids as terrorist attacks targeting civilians. In May, a triple wave of Ukrainian UAV strikes on a student dormitory in Donbass’ Starobelsk killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and partially collapsed the five-storey building.

Russia has responded to the raids by stepping up its long-range missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s military-industrial and logistical infrastructure. Moscow maintains that it never targets civilians, only military sites and infrastructure supporting Kiev’s forces.

Israel has spent tens of millions of dollars to boost its image in the US by seeking to influence how AI platforms portray the country, Politico has reported.

US public attitudes toward Israel have deteriorated in recent years, first over its response to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks and more recently over the US-Israeli war on Iran and its cost to taxpayers. Six in ten US adults now view Israel somewhat or very unfavorably, according to a June Pew Research Center poll, up from 53% last year and 42% in 2022. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is even less popular, with 65% expressing little or no confidence in his policies.

In a report on Friday, Politico detailed a $100,000 Israeli campaign aimed at influencing how large-language models such as ChatGPT answer questions about Gaza and the Israel-Hamas war. The effort centers on the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, a website publishing anonymous reports on anti-Semitism and geopolitical issues. The project was set up through French PR firm Havas Media, which handles much of Israel’s US influence work registered under the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and its subcontractor, ad agency Piro Inc, on behalf of the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LaPam).

The website hosts multiple unattributed reports framed as questions, including “Is Torture of Palestinian Prisoners a War Crime?” and “Who Is the Aggressor in the Israel-Palestine Conflict?”, which Politico said suggests the material was designed to be picked up and cited by LLMs. The outlet also said technical markers linked the website to Res, a Seattle-based AI startup that helps clients get recommended by AI models. The link was confirmed by Res CEO Hai Tran in an email.

While Piro’s FARA filings do not explicitly identify influencing LLMs as a goal, Politico said both ChatGPT and Perplexity cited Hanover Institute material in response to neutral queries about Gaza and Israel.

US frustration with Israel has extended beyond the general public, with politicians also becoming increasingly critical. Last month, more than 100 House Democrats backed an amendment that would have cut $3.3 billion in US aid to Israel. The measure failed due to Republican opposition but highlighted a growing partisan divide: just over two years ago, only 37 House Democrats backed a similar effort.

Germany’s governing CDU/CSU bloc has fallen to its lowest level of support in almost five years, trailing the opposition AfD by eight points, according to an INSA poll published by Bild.

Approval ratings for Merz’s coalition, comprising the Christian Democratic CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democratic Party, have declined steadily since it took office in May 2025. The government has faced criticism over continued economic stagnation and its failure to deliver on pre-election promises.

The survey, conducted by INSA for Bild am Sonntag and published online by Bild on Saturday, surveyed 1,203 people across Germany between August 10 and 14, with a reported margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

Support for the CDU/CSU dropped one point from the previous week to 20%, its weakest INSA result since October 2021. The AfD remained unchanged at 28%, making it the most popular party in the poll.

Together, the two governing parties received 32%, only four points more than the AfD alone. Several major reforms remain unresolved following coalition disputes over taxes, welfare, and spending priorities.

The findings also showed that 16% of respondents were satisfied with Merz’s performance, while 78% expressed dissatisfaction. Four in five disapproved of the federal government’s work.

Around 10,000 people demonstrated against the government in Plauen last week, according to Saxony police, demanding snap elections, lower energy costs, and changes to healthcare, migration, and military policy.

While unchanged from the previous week, the AfD’s 28% rating represents a substantial increase from the 20.8% it secured in the February 2025 federal election. The party has continued to rise in national surveys despite efforts by Germany’s mainstream parties to exclude it from governing coalitions.

Its growing support comes ahead of regional elections in eastern Germany, where it is polling at around 41% in Saxony-Anhalt and 36% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Researchers cited by Reuters have linked the party’s strength there to lower incomes, population decline, labor shortages, and perceptions of political neglect.

Local police are investigating a shooting at Charles Young Park that killed one person and injured four others in Lexington, Kentucky, on Saturday evening.

A four-year-old, a 14-year-old, and two adults were taken to hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, local police chief Lawrence Weathers said. The person who was killed was not immediately identified.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced the shooting while speaking at a Democratic Party dinner at a downtown hotel. The Lexington Police Department blocked off several roads around the park, while State Police officers were also at the scene, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported.

Authorities have not released information about a suspect or possible motive. Weathers said he did not believe there was an ongoing threat to the public.

Unverified videos posted online appeared to capture the moment the shooting began, with music and conversation stopping abruptly as gunshots rang out and people ran for cover.

WATCH: Moment shooting erupts at Charles Young Park in Lexington, Kentucky; 1 killed, 5 injured pic.twitter.com/myTSSvV8Gg

— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) August 16, 2026

At least one person was killed and five others injured (14 and 4 year old) in a mass shooting in Lexington, Kentucky at Charles Young Park. pic.twitter.com/QsPeHqdJtf

— Mr.TeaBagzzzz (@mrteabagzzzz) August 16, 2026

The shooting took place during East End Day, a local community event held at the park. Tents remained at the scene as police investigated.

🇺🇸 Une fusillade s’est produite dans le parc Charles Young à Lexington, dans le Kentucky, faisant un mort et quatre blessés, a rapporté la chaîne de télévision WKYT, citant la police de Lexington.
Selon la police, parmi les blessés figurent un enfant de quatre ans, un adolescent… pic.twitter.com/9HFzXjEAzD

— Pascal Laurent (@Pascal_Laurent_) August 16, 2026

“Gunfire at a peaceful event, in broad daylight, with women and children present is unacceptable,” Carama said.

Luigi Mangione has admitted to fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and pleaded guilty to two federal stalking charges.

The 28-year-old entered the plea before US District Judge Margaret Garnett in Manhattan on Friday, according to the Department of Justice. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, with sentencing scheduled for December 18.

Federal prosecutors said that Mangione traveled across state lines and tracked Thompson’s movements before the killing. He pleaded guilty to interstate stalking resulting in death and cyberstalking through interstate facilities resulting in death.

“I shot Mr. Thompson in Manhattan and he died,” Mangione told the court. He did not enter into a plea agreement with prosecutors, which can allow defendants to receive reduced charges or a lighter sentence in exchange for pleading guilty.

Mangione still faces eight felony counts in New York, including second-degree murder, six weapons charges, and possession of a forged instrument, with his trial due to begin on Sept. 8. Following his federal plea, his lawyers moved to dismiss the murder and firearms charges, arguing that New York’s double-jeopardy protections bar him from being prosecuted twice for the same crime.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has said it will oppose the motion, which must be resolved before the case can proceed.

The discharged shell casings and bullets found at the scene had the words “deny,” “depose,” and “delay” written on them, apparently in reference to the practice of denying health insurance payouts to clients.

A manifesto attributed to Mangione and published by the media referred to decades of “corruption and greed” in the US healthcare system, describing industry executives as “parasites” and accusing them of abusing the country “for immense profit.”

The case renewed public debate over health-insurance industry practices and access to care. Expressions of support for Mangione on social media have also prompted officials to warn against glorifying the killing or portraying him as a hero.

The DOJ announced in April 2025 that it would seek the death penalty. Garnett dismissed the capital murder and silencer-related charges in January, leaving two federal stalking counts. None of the remaining state charges carries the death penalty, following a 2004 ruling by New York’s highest court that struck down the state’s death penalty statute.

South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Saturday called on Pyongyang to engage in dialogue to formally end the Korean War, which has remained unresolved for more than 70 years.

The two countries have technically continued to be at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. Lee, who became South Korean president last year after his predecessor Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached over his attempt to declare martial law, has sought to improve relations with North Korea and its ally China, which had deteriorated under Yoon.

Lee made the proposal in a speech at a ceremony marking the 81st Liberation Day, which commemorates Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule in 1945.

“Let us put aside our intentions to threaten each other and begin discussions to end the long-running war as the directly involved parties,” Lee said, adding that they could also discuss “effective ways to halt the advancement of the North’s nuclear capabilities.”

North Korea has yet to respond to Lee’s proposal.

In April, President Lee Jae Myung apologized to North Korea over drone incursions into the country. South Korean prosecutors indicted three people – a National Intelligence Service employee, a military officer, and a graduate student – for sending unmanned aerial vehicles into North Korea between September 2025 and January 2026. Seoul had previously denied official involvement in the incursions, saying that they were carried out by civilians.

In March, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un described South Korea as the “most hostile state,” vowing to “thoroughly reject and disregard it.” Seoul would “pay the price” for its provocations, he stated.

Saudi Arabia has announced the formal launch of a multinational maritime defense coalition aimed at safeguarding shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as escalating hostilities with Yemen’s Houthis threaten one of the world’s most important trade routes.

Thirteen countries have completed the procedures required to formally join the alliance, while 15 have signed its joint statement, the Saudi Defense Ministry said on Thursday.

Riyadh described the development as the “actual launch” of the coalition and the beginning of its institutional and operational activation. Saudi Arabia will provide its first commander, while Pakistan is expected to appoint the deputy commander. The alliance is expected to coordinate intelligence sharing, joint exercises and maritime operations aimed at protecting commercial navigation in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

Earlier this month, the Houthis announced coordinated ballistic missile and drone strikes against military camps belonging to Yemen’s Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government. The group said it acted after detecting preparations for an offensive against Houthi-held territory.

Government forces acknowledged casualties, while Reuters cited government sources as saying at least 30 soldiers had been killed.

Tensions have been building since July, when a dispute over direct flights between Houthi-controlled Sanaa and Tehran helped unravel the longstanding truce. After Saudi-backed forces struck Sanaa airport on July 13 to prevent an Iranian aircraft from returning a Houthi delegation from Tehran, the group blamed Riyadh, declared the ceasefire over, and subsequently announced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia.

The confrontation poses a particular threat to Riyadh because the Red Sea has become an increasingly important outlet for Saudi oil amid the US-Iran conflict and severe disruption to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Saudi Aramco has redirected crude away from Hormuz through its cross-country pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Loadings there have averaged more than four million barrels per day since June, more than four times the level recorded during the same period last year, Reuters reported, citing tanker-tracking data.

With oil and petroleum products accounting for more than three-quarters of Saudi exports, a sustained disruption of Red Sea shipping could therefore threaten a crucial alternative export route.

The coalition’s activation also comes amid reports that Riyadh is preparing for a potentially broader confrontation with the Houthis. The Guardian reported earlier this month, citing Yemeni sources, that Saudi-backed forces were being re-positioned for a possible sea and ground offensive.