The Kennedy Center board has voted to restore Donald Trump’s name to the Washington arts venue, multiple media outlets have reported, just two months after it was removed on a federal judge’s orders.

The Trump-aligned board voted last December to rename the institution after Trump and John F. Kennedy, and his name was subsequently added to its facade. US District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled in May that the board lacked authority to change the name established by Congress and ordered the Trump signage removed. Workers complied in June.

This time, however, the board is not formally renaming the Kennedy Center after Trump. According to Axios, an inscription below the Kennedy Center sign will read “Restored and Renovated by President Donald J. Trump,” while the physical site will be named “the President Donald J. Trump Plaza.”

The board also voted Thursday to move forward with a two-year closure of the center’s main venue for renovations. The proposed overhaul would refurbish aging infrastructure, polish the building’s marble facade, and renovate its halls and theaters.

“Under President Trump’s bold leadership, the Kennedy Center is on its way to becoming the finest cultural institution anywhere in the world,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Axios.

The naming saga has already inspired legislation in Congress. In January, Senator Bernie Sanders and several Democratic colleagues introduced the Stop Executive Renaming for Vanity and Ego (SERVE) Act, which would prohibit federal buildings, land and other assets from being named after a sitting president. The bill remains at the committee stage.

Jason Arday, the former University of Cambridge professor who recently resigned amid allegations of plagiarism and misrepresenting his credentials, was found dead in his home on Friday, police said in a statement cited by the media. The death is not being treated as suspicious.

Arday, 41, had been recognized as the youngest-ever black professor at the institution when he joined as a professor of sociology of education in 2023. Following allegations that he plagiarized his 2015 PhD dissertation and the emergence of questions regarding his academic posts and other achievements, he resigned from his position. Arday denied the plagiarism allegations.

The Metropolitan Police said first responders called officers to the academic’s south London home on Friday afternoon after finding him “unresponsive.” He was pronounced dead at the scene.

“At this time his death is being treated as unexpected, but is not believed to be suspicious,” the police said.

The academic’s resignation came just two days after Cambridge announced an investigation into his academic qualifications and honorary appointments, as the wider controversy burst into the spotlight. Liverpool John Moores University, which had awarded him his PhD, had carried out its own probe but did not uphold the plagiarism allegations.

“Many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source,” he wrote, calling Arday a “plagiarist and fabulist.”

According to a detailed investigation by The Guardian, several of Arday’s claims about his academic posts and achievements were disputed by institutions, while police contradicted his account of an investigation into alleged racial abuse.

After being approached by a journalist investigating the alleged plagiarism, Arday allegedly reported him to police. 

UK police have faced several controversies and accusations of so-called “two-tier” policing.

The debate was reignited in June after bodycam footage was released showing the arrest of Henry Nowak after he had been stabbed by 23-year-old Vickrum Singh Digwa. The 18-year-old was handcuffed as he lay mortally wounded while officers initially dismissed his repeated pleas that he had been stabbed after his attacker falsely accused him of racism. One officer’s words, “Don’t think you have, mate,” ignited lasting public outrage over the event.

Cases of infectious disease, including an outbreak of gastroenteritis, have been reported among migrants in Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta following the mass influx from neighboring Morocco in late July.

Spain’s National Institute for Health Management (INGESA) confirmed the gastroenteritis outbreak among recently arrived migrants, Spanish media reported on Friday. The agency also confirmed cases of scabies and impetigo, while noting that both conditions were present in Ceuta before the latest influx.

INGESA, however, has rejected claims that Ceuta’s healthcare system has collapsed. The agency has also disputed reports of a tuberculosis outbreak, saying a suspected case tested negative.

Gastroenteritis is an inflammation of the stomach and intestines, usually caused by a viral or bacterial infection, with symptoms including diarrhea, vomiting and abdominal cramps. Scabies is a contagious skin infestation caused by microscopic mites that produces intense itching and a rash, while impetigo is a bacterial skin infection characterized by sores that can rupture and develop yellowish crusts.

More than 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta on July 30-31, many by swimming or crossing coastal breakwaters – a figure equivalent to roughly 70% of the enclave’s regular population. The influx overwhelmed reception centers and put additional pressure on healthcare and law-enforcement resources. Most of those who entered have since been returned to Morocco, but up to 11,000 are estimated to remain in Ceuta, according to local officials.

Once the naked hatred of German journalism prompted Vladimir Zelensky’s most fervent British backers to criticize Ukraine’s “gamification of killing” Russians, things went from bad to worse for Kiev – on the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena.

Russia punishes Ukraine with ‘harsher methods’

Vladimir Zelensky’s long-range strikes against Russia have already provoked a fearsome response from Moscow, but the Ukrainian leader doubled down this week, with his forces killing more than a dozen civilians in drone raids on Tatarstan and Krasnodar. 

Russia responded by wiping out military-industrial and dual-use facilities in Kiev and Zaporozhye and destroying port infrastructure on Ukraine’s Black Sea coast. RT has already covered Russia’s campaign against Ukrainian ports in detail, which Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said will intensify in an interview released on Friday morning.

Zelensky’s moaning, as Lavrov calls it, has been directed at his Western donors, who possess a dwindling supply of Patriot interceptor missiles that could help repel Russia’s missile barrages. However, the US used the bulk of the world’s Patriots in its war on Iran, and the Europeans aren’t in the mood to share. Moreover, as RT explained, Zelensky’s math is fundamentally flawed. Even if he were to get all the missiles he wanted, he’d only have enough interceptors to repel two attacks at best.

With all other options exhausted, Ukraine reportedly asked Russia for a truce with regard to attacks on shipping in the Black Sea. Moscow rejected the proposal, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accusing Kiev of “brazen acts of terrorism” against civilian ships and ruling out “half-measures that merely grant the Kiev regime a temporary ​breathing space.”

Zelensky learns how to lose friends and influence

Diplomatic relations between Poland and Ukraine are already strained due to Kiev’s stubborn veneration of Nazi collaborators, and the Polish public’s goodwill toward Ukraine is evaporating. According to a poll published on Wednesday, 67% of Poles support the deportation of unemployed Ukrainian men living in Poland as refugees.

Across the Atlantic, US Vice President JD Vance reportedly gave Zelensky a dressing down for attacking Black Sea shipping. According to the Financial Times, Vance’s patience reached its limit when Ukrainian forces attacked ships bound for a partly US-owned terminal in Russia’s port of Novorossiysk. 

Russia frees US Marine

Diplomacy paid off for the US this week when Russia agreed to release former US Marine Robert Gilman, who was arrested in 2022 after a drunken assault on a policeman in Russia. Gilman was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and arrived back on US soil on Tuesday.

Welcome home, Robert Gilman! 🇺🇸

After more than four years detained in Russia, American citizen Robert Gilman is finally back on U.S. soil.

Thanks to the Trump Admin, another American is safely home where he belongs.

God bless Robert Gilman, and GOD BLESS AMERICA. 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/Tn8C8h9QBD

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 12, 2026

“After my discussions with President Vladimir Putin, Russia has agreed to release him, very much on a humanitarian basis,” US President Donald Trump stated. “We appreciate this decision.” US envoy Steve Witkoff apparently played a central role in the negotiations and thanked Putin for his “personal ​engagement throughout this process.” 

Gilman’s mental health has reportedly deteriorated in incarceration, and he is expected to receive treatment at home in Texas.

Germany’s spy expansion

Under the new legislation tabled by Merz’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, the BND will be permitted to carry out offensive cyberattacks on Russia and other foreign adversaries, while the BfV will be allowed to infiltrate Germans’ smartphones and computers. The new powers were described as “a revolution” by Dobrindt. Moscow described them as another example of Germany’s “rabid militarization,” while Germany’s right-wing AfD warned that they will turn the BfV “from an early warning system of democracy into an architect of a totalitarian reality.” We’ve seen this before in Germany, and it did not end well. 

The BfV’s new powers will likely be turned against the AfD, the country’s most popular political party and a poll-topper in Saxony. The agency has already tried to list the party as a “right-wing extremist” group and been granted permission to surveil the AfD’s Bavaria chapter. 

The rise of Islamic NATO

As Europe tears itself apart, the Middle East’s Sunni powers are drawing closer together – with profound implications for the region. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan signed the ‘Mecca Pact’ this week, agreeing to treat an attack against one member as an attack against all three. However, it remains unclear how the three countries would react to such an attack. The so-called ‘Islamic NATO’ has already been criticised in Iran as a “paper agreement” that will make Saudi Arabia no safer than the presence of American troops on its soil. 

If any country is concerned about the pact, it’s India, foreign policy analyst Robinder Nath Sachdev told RT India on Tuesday. With a nuclear-armed Pakistan strengthening its alliances, New Delhi must work out what it needs to do “to counter this new reality, which is a worrisome reality,” he said. He added that India will have to look at “our other partnerships with other nations, including, of course, Russia.”

Tucker meets RT

As the fallout from Tucker Carlson’s political manifesto continues to settle, historian and RT columnist Tarik Cyril Amar looked at why Israel is potentially more worried about a third-party challenge by Carlson than the US Republican establishment is. Meanwhile, RT’s Rick Sanchez sat down with Carlson himself for an exclusive, hour-long interview.

Carlson ruled out any plans to run for president, but unloaded on the US’ “criminal” leadership class, the “permanent bureaucracy,” and the Democrat/Republican consensus on money and foreign policy that has created a “one-party state posing as a democracy.” The conservative journalist revealed how Israel had attempted to recruit him to share the infamous Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020, and promised to keep speaking out against the neocon “war lobby” and Israeli influence in Washington, no matter the risk.

“What are you going to do about it? Kill me? OK, I’m not afraid of that. I’m a Christian. So I’m just going to keep talking,” he told Sanchez in one particularly powerful exchange. 

Showdown in the West Bank

The US-Israeli alliance seemed to meet its limits this week when a group of armed Israeli settlers laid siege to three Palestinian families in their homes in the West Bank village of Qusra. As it turns out, one of these families had relatives living in the US, and the response from Washington was unusually sharp.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee – who has previously equated Tucker Carlson’s criticism of Israel with antisemitism – described the settlers as “unsettlers” and “Israeli terrorists,” saying that “doing this to this family’s home is criminal.” Huckabee is typically supportive of the illegal settlement of Palestinian land, and his condemnation of this incident looked like an attempt to draw a line between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ settlers as much as a message to West Jerusalem.

RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij traveled to Qusra, but was unable to reach the besieged Palestinian homes despite her having received clearance from the IDF due to Israeli settlers who harassed her crew. Watch the full encounter below:

The Kiev regime is fighting a NATO proxy war against Russia at the expense of its own people while its leadership pockets Western funding, US journalist and geopolitical analyst John Varoli has said.

Speaking to RT on Friday, Varoli said Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and “his clique” have “absolutely no interest” in the Ukrainian people, adding that they neither represent, care for, nor serve them.

“The Ukrainian regime serves the interests of the NATO countries, which are fighting a proxy war against Russia,” Varoli said. “They are literally willing to fight until the last Ukrainian,” he added.

Varoli said Zelensky’s “masters” in Brussels, Washington, D.C., and London are telling Kiev to keep fighting Russia for as long as they remain in the conflict.

Kiev seeks to avoid receiving the bodies of fallen Ukrainian soldiers because it would have to compensate their families, the journalist claimed, adding the regime has “huge amounts of money” and receives billions of dollars from NATO every month.

“But the question is, where is that money going?” Varoli said, adding: “It’s going into the pockets of Zelensky and his oligarchs. That money is being stolen.”

WATCH the full video below.

The US Republican Party must address the economic pressures facing Americans or risk driving more young people toward socialism, Vice President J.D. Vance has said.

Vance made the remarks in an interview with Fox News on Thursday, pointing to the cost of housing and education, access to well-paid jobs, and the ability to start a family as key concerns.

“Our response to that can’t just be to ignore the economic concerns that I think are feeding this rising interest in socialism,” Vance said.

He pointed to what he described as trillions of dollars in new investment flowing into the US, saying it would create middle-class jobs. He also cited stabilizing housing prices and the administration’s push for lower interest rates, while acknowledging that the effects of its policies could take time to be felt.

“My warning to my fellow Republicans would be if we don’t get this right, don’t blame young people for being sympathetic to socialism. We’ve got to blame ourselves,” Vance said.

He added that Republicans could not counter the trend simply by defending the free market, saying “You don’t stop socialism by throwing slogans at people about the free market. You stop socialism by making people’s lives better.”

Vance’s comments come ahead of November’s midterm elections, with the cost of living among the main issues worrying voters. A national poll conducted by Marquette University Law School in May showed inflation and living costs were the public’s top concern, cited by 37% of respondents.

Economic pressures have been compounded by higher energy costs fueled by the US-Israeli war on Iran and by Trump’s tariffs, while high home prices have made homeownership more difficult to attain. The median asking price for a US home stood at $430,000 in June, according to data cited by Forbes.

The divide has also become more visible in electoral politics, with progressive candidates making gains in Democratic primaries across the country. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, rose to prominence on an affordability-focused platform.

Republicans have also faced weak ratings on the economy. The Marquette survey put Trump’s approval on the economy at 30% and on inflation and the cost of living at 22%, while respondents favored Democrats over Republicans on handling both issues.

US hospitals have billed tens of millions of dollars for sex-changing interventions on minors, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The ‘Wolves in White Coats’ report, released this week and citing watchdog research, said hospitals and clinics have billed nearly $120 million for more than 5,500 surgeries and 8,500 courses of hormones or puberty blockers for minors since 2019.

Some providers may have used misleading or potentially fraudulent billing codes to get insurers to cover the interventions, according to HHS. The department identified nearly $50 million in claims for puberty blockers given to children aged nine to 17 under a general hormone-disorder code without a gender-related or early-puberty diagnosis on the same claim.

Hospitals and clinics identified in the report have been referred to the Department of Justice and investigators from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for potential violations of federal law. According to HHS, the observed billing patterns require additional investigation.

The report said the procedures offered hospitals a long-term source of revenue, as minors who begin hormone drugs can remain in medical care for years. Citing outside estimates, it put lifetime costs at up to $75,000 without surgery and as much as $170,000 when operations are included.

“The Biden Administration ... contributed to the expansion and normalization of sex-rejecting interventions through nondiscrimination policies ... and other federal programs,” the report stated.

The move is part of a broader rollback of transgender-related policies since Trump returned to office. His administration has moved to restrict medical transition procedures for minors, bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, and restrict people with gender dysphoria from serving in the US military.

At least 27 US states have enacted restrictions on gender-transition procedures for minors, while several major hospitals have stopped offering some services amid legal challenges, funding pressure and changing medical guidance.

The British government is refusing to disclose information on how an Israeli “information warfare” firm targeted Scotland’s pro-Palestine first minister. Nobody’s saying who ordered the operation, but a trail of clues leads through Africa to Tel Aviv.

RT already covered the French plot in our ‘Wired for War’ series, and BlackCore’s activity in Scotland followed a similar playbook. At least 256 accounts were created to spread disparaging information about First Minister John Swinney, a vocal supporter of Palestine who has publicly stated that “a genocide is unfolding in Gaza as a result of Israel’s actions,” banned public funding to Israeli-linked companies, and called on the British government to recognize the State of Palestine.

The British government has refused two separate Freedom of Information requests filed by The National, a Scottish newspaper. In one response, the government said it would not disclose any information it had on BlackCore, as to do so would “prejudice relations between the United Kingdom and any other state,” The National reported on August 11. In a second response, it explained that the request was denied in order to “avoid giving offence to other nations and retain the trust of our international partners.”

Let’s be clear - a genocide is unfolding in Gaza as a result of Israel’s actions.

We all have a moral and legal responsibility to act, and Scotland will play its part.

Today I have set out a range of diplomatic, economic and humanitarian measures. Read below for more. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/suoMbpNu2j

— John Swinney (@JohnSwinney) September 3, 2025

The other state referenced here is evidently Israel.

Is BlackCore an Israeli intelligence cutout?

Little is known about BlackCore. The company scrubbed its online presence immediately after the Viginum report was published, but according to archived material from its website, BlackCore is “an elite influence, cyber, and technology company built for the modern era of information warfare.” It specializes in “shap[ing] narratives” and “influenc[ing] perceptions” for clients in politics and government, and supposedly has been operating for 15 years.

According to an investigation by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, the company is not registered anywhere in the world, but shares web infrastructure with two companies founded by tech entrepreneur Guy Geyor and lawyer Doron Afik. Both of these firms employ veterans of Israeli intelligence agencies, including one former member of the Israel Defense Forces’ Unit 8200.

French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said France has demanded information on BlackCore from the Israeli government. However, it is unclear whether Israel has responded.

The Africa connection

BlackCore’s operations went beyond the US and Europe. In the course of their investigation, Vigilum agents discovered that some of the same social media accounts used to spread falsehoods about three left-wing candidates in France were used to spread content promoting Angola’s ruling MPLA movement. The accounts switched their usernames from French to Portuguese to reach Angola’s Portuguese-speaking population, but forgot to switch languages in some cases, continuing to post in French.

Investigators found a BlackCore-associated web address – ‘angola-plan.blackcore.online’ – which detailed a four-week training program that the company provided to the Angolan government in February. The program covered “communicating positive government campaigns” and “social media operations.”

BlackCore was also tied to a project called ‘Politizando Angola’ on multiple social media platforms, and a TikTok account called ‘Deep Dive Africa’. Both accounts use the same branding, and are linked by phone number to a fake Islamic charity that BlackCore used in its French and Scottish operations.

‘Deep Dive Africa’ promoted an Israeli medical mission to Togo in February. A humanitarian project of the Sheba Medical Center, the mission was in no way connected with BlackCore’s election operations. However, the Sheba Medical Center is entirely funded by the Israeli state, meaning BlackCore was using the same web infrastructure to carry out ‘information warfare” in some countries, and state-backed soft power operations in others. 

All roads lead to Israel

The hospital post is not a smoking gun. Rather, it is an example of how every detail in the BlackCore story is another thread leading back to Tel Aviv. The same pattern is borne out across the growing sphere of Israeli private intelligence agencies and cyberwarfare companies: ‘former’ Israeli spies working in the private sector, almost exclusively to advance Israeli interests, often with the tacit backing of the Israeli government.

While it is understandable that Israel would seek to wash its hands of any involvement in foreign interference, the fact that the UK would trade political capital to protect Israel’s reputation – after the EU also refused to investigate Israeli election meddling in Slovenia and Cyprus – raises another uncomfortable question: just how much influence does one Middle Eastern state have on the leaders of Europe?

The US is making military support for NATO members contingent on how closely they align with President Donald Trump’s foreign policy, Bloomberg has reported.

Washington has recently sent NATO members a document containing a series of questions aimed at gauging their alignment with the Trump administration, the agency said.

Governments were asked whether they had “been publicly supportive” of US foreign-policy initiatives, including those in the Middle East and Western Hemisphere, the outlet reported, citing a copy it had reviewed. Washington also wanted to know what “restrictions” individual countries have imposed on US forces operating from military bases on their territory.

The apparent loyalty test comes amid widening tensions between Washington and its traditional European allies, with Trump repeatedly accusing NATO members of relying on US protection while failing to contribute enough to their own defense.

Trump has long been a fierce critic of NATO countries’ defense spending, repeatedly accusing European members of underfunding their militaries and effectively relying on Washington to bankroll their defense.

Earlier this summer, he renewed his criticism ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, arguing that the US “spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit.” He contrasted nearly $1 trillion in annual US defense spending with significantly smaller expenditures by individual European allies.

Defense spending is not the only source of friction, however. Tensions have intensified further over the US war with Iran, with Trump criticizing European allies for refusing to become more directly involved and complaining that “they were not there for us.”

Several NATO members also refused to allow Washington to use jointly operated military bases for offensive operations against Iran. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth branded the restrictions “shameful,” arguing that they had put American troops “at risk.”

The growing disagreements have, in turn, fueled debate in Europe about reducing its reliance on Washington for security. European officials have increasingly discussed “strategic autonomy” and the need to develop greater capacity to defend the continent should US priorities diverge from the rest of NATO.

Two developments in recent days offer a revealing picture of how Russian-Syrian relations are evolving after the change of power in Damascus.

On August 9, after roughly 18 months of negotiations, Russia and Syria agreed on a new memorandum defining the future framework for the use of facilities of the Russian military bases in Tartus and Hmeimim. Almost simultaneously, a delegation from Rossotrudnichestvo (the Russian federal agency responsible for foreign humanitarian and cultural cooperation) delegation held talks with Syrian officials and preparations were announced for reopening the Russian House cultural exchange centre in Damascus. Military cooperation is being reformulated rather than dismantled, humanitarian links are being restored, while trade, food supplies, energy and education continue to connect the two countries.

Much of the Western debate assumed that the fall of Bashar Assad’s government would sharply reduce Russia’s position in Syria. Moscow had been one of Assad’s principal political and military partners, while the forces that replaced his government had fought against the old order. Yet foreign policy is rarely governed by symbolism alone, especially in a country emerging from a devastating conflict. Syria’s new authorities are increasingly judging external partners by a more practical measure. What can each of them offer Syria now, when the country needs reconstruction, food, energy, security and political room for maneuver?

The new Damascus authorities have no past Russia relations to remain loyal to, but they do have present problems they need to manage. Syria faces damaged infrastructure, weak fiscal capacity, serious energy shortages, high dependence on imported food and a still incomplete process of restoring effective state authority. Under such conditions, ideological preferences give way to utility. Partners are assessed by the markets, resources, technologies and security assistance they can provide.

This helps explain why the new Syrian leadership is seeking closer relations with the United States, the European Union, Türkiye and the Gulf states while avoiding a rupture with Moscow. That policy only appears contradictory if Syria is expected to choose one geopolitical camp. Damascus needs Western investment and access to international finance, but it also needs functioning supply chains, energy resources and military expertise. A country that has spent years under sanctions and war has little incentive to close channels that still work.

The discussion around Russian oil illustrates this clearly. In early August, Reuters reported that the Syrian side had signalled to Washington its willingness to substantially reduce purchases of Russian oil. Limiting Moscow’s economic presence is part of Washington’s regional strategy, but Russia has become a major supplier of oil to Syria, and replacing those volumes quickly is much harder than declaring an intention to diversify imports.

Damascus may try to reduce dependence on Russian supplies over time, but diversification is not the same as disengagement. The former increases Syria’s autonomy, while the latter would remove one of the few external channels already functioning at scale. Better relations with the West do not require the elimination of ties with Moscow, just as closer cooperation with Moscow does not prevent Damascus from attracting Western or Gulf investment. The more external options Syria has, the harder it becomes for any single partner to dictate the terms of its foreign policy.

Russia’s importance is most evident when bilateral trade is examined not merely by total value, but by its composition. For Syria, what matters is that Russian supplies are concentrated in sectors directly affecting daily life, social stability and the government’s ability to keep the economy functioning – such as food security.

According to Syrian customs data cited by Reuters, around 85% of the wheat imported by Syria in the 2025-2026 season came from Russia, amounting to approximately 2.9 million tonnes. In a country where bread remains a basic element of mass consumption and household budgets have been weakened by years of conflict and inflation, such supplies have significance far beyond ordinary commerce. Grain affects state procurement, consumer prices, subsidies and public sentiment. A disruption in wheat imports can quickly spill over from the economic sphere and become a political problem.

Russia already has the production capacity, commercial interest and logistical experience needed to deliver large quantities. Abandoning such a source without a reliable substitute would be economically reckless.

The same applies to energy. Russia supplied Syria with around 16.8 million barrels of oil in 2025, while in the first months of 2026 deliveries reached roughly 60,000 barrels per day, an increase of about 75% over a relatively short period. Syrian domestic production remains far below pre-war levels and is insufficient to meet national demand. Imported oil is vital for transport, electricity generation, agriculture, industry, public utilities and reconstruction.

In a fragile post-conflict environment, oil shortages can undermine public confidence and deepen social tension. Western and Gulf actors can offer finance, investment and advanced technologies, but many such opportunities require time and political negotiations. Russian food and energy supplies respond to immediate needs, which is crucial for a government trying to stabilise the country now rather than several years from now.

The new memorandum concerning the Russian military bases in Tartus and Hmeimim is a product of the same pragmatism. It can be seen as a reduction of Russia’s military footprint because Syria is regaining control over part of the civilian infrastructure and the old legal model is being revised – but it is still a restructuring, not a full withdrawal. After 18 months of negotiations, Moscow and Damascus managed to avoid the breakdown of military cooperation, instead finding a way to transform it.

According to the information made public, civilian facilities are to pass under Syrian management, while military sites are expected to be transformed into joint Russian-Syrian training and professional development centres. Part of the Russian military presence is also expected to remain. Its importance lies in creating a model the new Syrian leadership can defend politically. The previous framework was closely associated with the Assad era and could be portrayed as an infringement on sovereignty. The new model gives Damascus greater formal control while preserving access to Russian military expertise.

This compromise would make little sense if Syria had already decided to remove Russia from the country. The 18 months of negotiations suggest the opposite. Damascus wanted different terms, not a complete break, while Moscow wanted to preserve a meaningful role without insisting that previous arrangements remain untouched. The result is a framework better suited to the new political reality.

Syria’s armed forces face a long process of reconstruction. Training, command structures, equipment maintenance, border security and territorial control all require resources and external assistance. It is far from certain that the US or the EU are prepared to take responsibility for rebuilding Syrian defence capabilities comprehensively. Their interests in Syria are also fragmented, shaped mostly by counterterrorism, border security and regional competition. Support for a stable Syria does not necessarily mean support for a militarily stronger and more autonomous Damascus.

Russia has decades of experience dealing with Syrian military institutions, familiarity with much of the equipment in service and long-standing knowledge of the country’s defence infrastructure. Moscow is not Syria’s only possible security partner, but replacing its accumulated expertise quickly would be difficult.

The new Syrian leadership is clearly not trying to reproduce Assad’s foreign policy. Damascus wants better relations with Europe and the United States, investment from the Gulf, expanded trade with Türkiye and reintegration into the international economy. Yet none of these goals requires a break with Russia. In fact, the wider Syria’s network of partners becomes, the more useful Russia may be as one of several external poles that help Damascus preserve strategic flexibility.

Value, not ‘values’

Russia remains important not because Syria’s new authorities share the worldview of their predecessors, but because Moscow still offers tangible value in sectors vital to recovery. It supplies food and energy, retains military expertise and possesses established institutional links. For a government trying to stabilise a country after years of war, predictability and practical capacity can matter more than political sympathy.

Western pressure may influence individual areas of Russian-Syrian cooperation, particularly where energy trade, sanctions and security arrangements are concerned. But persuading Damascus to abandon a partner already embedded in critical supply chains and security structures is much more difficult than urging it to diversify. Syria can cooperate with the West without accepting a zero-sum logic in which every gain in relations with Washington or Brussels must be matched by a loss for Moscow.

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been grappling with dismal conditions for months during the US-Israeli war on Iran, amid mounting reports of severe exhaustion, supply shortages, and mental-health problems among crew members. The problems have sparked an uproar among crew members’ families and prompted demands for answers from US lawmakers.

The vessel, a 5,000-person nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier capable of carrying up to 90 aircraft and conducting more than 100 combat sorties a day at peak capacity, left San Diego in late November. It has now been deployed for more than 260 days, including more than 200 consecutive days at sea – an extraordinary stretch by Navy standards.

On top of that, the flattop has spent much of that time in a combat environment, with Iran claiming to have targeted it on numerous occasions. Even as US officials insist the carrier remains operational, the hardships of a prolonged campaign appear to be taking their toll.

Here is what we know about the issues facing the aircraft carrier and its crew.

What are conditions like aboard the Abraham Lincoln?

The complaints from crew members and their families go well beyond the usual discomforts of a long deployment.

They include shortages of toothpaste, deodorant, and soap, problems with hot and potable water, broken toilets, unreliable laundry facilities, disruptions to food supplies, and mail delays so severe that some care packages reportedly disappeared into the system for months. Other reports describe mold, failing plumbing, and holes worn through parts of the flight deck from extensive use without adequate repairs.

Democratic Congressman Mike Levin claimed that the food situation is so bad that crew members’ meals “came down to half a cup of rice and two tortillas.” The meager meals were first reported by USA Today as early as mid-April, although the Pentagon denied that there were food shortages at the time.

The USS Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for more than 250 days, pushing its crew to the limit. Sailors report exhaustion, deteriorating living conditions, shortages of basic supplies and serious food problems: small portions, poor-quality meals and periods of depleted stocks. The… https://t.co/iWYaeKchzU pic.twitter.com/C4cheR4N2M

— Tom Antonov (@Tom_Antonov) August 13, 2026

According to Maritime Executive, the supply problems are partly due to logistics, as the main base of the 5th Fleet is located in Bahrain, deep inside the Persian Gulf, meaning many shipments must pass through the Strait of Hormuz and risk Iranian strikes.

Is the crew burning out?

There are strong indications that it is. One of the most striking episodes confirmed by CENTCOM occurred on August 3, when a sailor went overboard from the Abraham Lincoln and was recovered roughly an hour later.

🚨🇮🇷🇺🇸 Text messages from a sailor aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln reveal no milk in three months and ROTTEN food arriving at sea...

He reportedly wrote that almost nothing fresh makes it out except meat, because only frozen goods survive the supply run, and called it the worst… pic.twitter.com/ylCgsHap26

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 13, 2026

Citing US officials, CNN reported that the Navy treated the incident as a mental-health episode, adding that the sailor was medically evaluated and later removed from the ship for further care.

At a meeting with Navy leaders, another spouse said her husband had sent a message saying he hoped he “doesn’t wake up tomorrow,” according to Stars and Stripes.

“The morale is not good,” one family member said, as cited by MS Now. “Apparently, the ship’s doctor or therapist said they need to hit port soon, or people are going to start, you know, losing their minds.”

Could stress on the flattop lead to violence?

Citing an unnamed “informed military source,” Iranian news agency Tasnim reported earlier this month that seven US Navy personnel had been killed and several others wounded in a violent confrontation aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

According to the report, an adviser to CENTCOM, commander Adm. Brad Cooper, boarded the carrier to address complaints about the prolonged deployment but was booed and pelted with water bottles before the confrontation escalated into a knife fight.

How much pressure has Iran put on the Abraham Lincoln?

Multiple analyses have suggested that Iran,  which is militarily inferior to the US,  has been relying on attritional warfare to hold its ground and gain concessions from Washington. Kamal Kharrazi, head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, said Iran was prepared for a “long war” and argued that the longer the conflict continued, the greater the economic pressure on other countries would become.

As the conflict has dragged on, Tehran has claimed to have mounted numerous attacks on the Abraham Lincoln. On March 1, Iran announced it had fired four ballistic missiles at the carrier, with CENTCOM saying the missiles “didn’t even come close.” Later that month, Tehran claimed that missiles and drones had struck the vessel, rendering it inoperable and forcing it to withdraw – an allegation also rejected by Washington.

In early April, Iran said it had launched multiple waves of attack drones toward the Abraham Lincoln group in the northern Indian Ocean, forcing it to withdraw.

While it is unclear whether the Abraham Lincoln sustained any damage during the attacks, it was hardly operating in a benign environment, with CENTCOM reporting roughly 10,000 aircraft flights and the expenditure of about 1.5 million pounds of ordnance during the mission.

What beef do US lawmakers have with the Pentagon?

On Wednesday, a member of the US Senate’s Armed Services Committee, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, published an open letter to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, raising “serious concerns” about the situation aboard the ship and questioning whether it could sustain continued operations.

“The Lincoln is not an isolated case. Recent carrier deployments have repeatedly stretched beyond their originally anticipated durations, suggesting that extended deployments may be becoming a feature rather than an exception of the Navy’s force-generation model,” he added.

Fellow Senator Ruben Gallego has called for a bipartisan congressional oversight visit to the Abraham Lincoln, casting doubt on Pentagon assurances.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has gone further, blaming Hegseth personally and saying sailors are “paying the price” for Pentagon failures. “When Pete Hegseth was nominated, everyone knew he was completely incompetent... Pete Hegseth must be fired immediately,” he insisted.

What does the Pentagon say in response to the accusations?

Hegseth dismissed reports of poor living conditions and food shortages aboard the Abraham Lincoln as “completely misrepresented,” while acknowledging that some deployments could last longer and be tougher than others.

Meanwhile, the AP reported that the USS George Washington is now moving toward the Middle East from Vietnam to replace the Abraham Lincoln. The redeployment is expected to weaken the US footprint in the Pacific amid tensions with China, however.

Bottom Line

While the Pentagon insists that the Abraham Lincoln “remains fully capable of meeting all mission tasking,” and there is no credible evidence that Iran managed to cripple the ship, its crew appears to have come dangerously close to the breaking point.

After more than eight months of deployment, the vessel appears to be struggling with logistics and supplies of basic amenities, amid growing concerns over its crew members’ mental health. While the Abraham Lincoln is expected to be relieved soon, its performance raises questions about Washington’s overall ability to sustain effective long-term operations against even a militarily inferior adversary.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has won back his seat in parliament, in a by-election boycotted by every other major British party. Farage vacated his seat and triggered the election in an effort to “stick two fingers up to the establishment.”

Farage was declared the winner in his Clacton constituency on Thursday, with the Reform leader taking 63% of the vote, a 17% increase from 2024.

However, Farage’s only opponents this year were novelty and fringe candidates, with the Labour Party, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Greens boycotting the election. Out of these candidates, Count Binface, a BBC comedian whose costume includes a bin on his head, won 27% of the vote.

The boycott was a calculated move by the UK’s establishment parties aimed at delegitimizing the election. Farage vacated his seat in July in an attempt to win it back with a larger majority than in 2024, an outcome that would have humiliated his opponents in the mainstream parties. In a statement at the time, he described the election as a chance for voters to “stick two fingers up to the establishment.”

LIVE: Nigel Farage declares victory against the establishment. 🔥https://t.co/YNLoGFCdmT

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) August 14, 2026

While Farage was denied the opportunity to defeat Labour and the Conservatives for the second time in two years, he still portrayed his win on Thursday as a “victory against the establishment.”

“I called this by-election because I wanted the people of Clacton to be my judge, not the mainstream media in Britain, and the political establishment who paint us as criminals,” he told supporters after results were announced. “We have beaten the candidate for the uniparty.”

At the time Farage vacated his seat, he had been under investigation by Britain’s parliamentary standards watchdog since May, over a £5 million ($6.7 million) gift he received from cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne before he took office in 2024. The probe was set to be expanded after the Sunday Times revealed that he failed to declare funding from convicted fraudster George Cottrell between 2019 and 2024.

Farage maintains that he did nothing wrong, and that Harborne’s donation was “a large personal gift” which will allow him to pay his security bills. Farage insists that he was under no obligation to declare benefits from Cottrell – who allegedly allowed the Reform leader to stay in his properties and avail himself of private security – as he was not in office when he received them.

The investigation was paused when Farage relinquished its seat, but was immediately reopened once results came in on Thursday.

Palestinian residents of the West Bank village of Qusra have been ordered to leave their homes after a days-long siege and repeated attacks by Israeli settlers, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) declaring the area a closed military zone in what it claims is a move to protect civilians.

In an interview with RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij, Han Abdul Karim Hassan, a besieged Palestinian resident of Qusra, said the IDF declared the village a military zone after days of enabling terror by the settlers.

“The army came and entered the area while I was standing here, accompanied by a whole procession of settlers, so I asked them, ‘Aren’t you here because of the settlers?’” Hassan said. “Then they told us, evacuate the house now.”

“Then the girl called me, and I told her not to come out; in other words, I told her, ‘Don’t come out because you’ll be killed,’” he added.

Hassan stressed that Jewish settlers established the outpost in January, launching daily attacks and intimidation. He said they tore down the gates of the farm and the doors of the house, blocked roads, and cut off electricity, water, and food supplies.

“That situation has been going on for two weeks, and they still haven’t resolved it,” he added. “My children are exhausted, they’re being confined.”

Earlier this year, Israel allocated 1.3 billion shekels ($431 million) for 34 new West Bank settlements, as its expansionist policies face criticism from the UN, Arab countries, and EU members. Settler violence against Palestinians has also surged since Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war.

Watch RT’s full report from the area below:

More than 500 people have been evacuated in the southwestern French department of Landes as wildfires continue to spread and threaten nearby communities.

Prefect Gilles Clavreul ordered an expansion of the evacuation zone after the blaze grew to cover around 1,100 hectares, or roughly 2,700 acres, officials said on Friday. Some 525 people have now been moved to safety, up from around 400 on Thursday, when the latest fire broke out.

France is among several European countries battling wildfires amid a spell of extreme heat that has caused health emergencies and disruptions to power generation across the continent. Temperatures in Landes are expected to reach around 36°C, raising the risk of fresh flare-ups, fire chief Arnaud Fabre warned, according to French media.

Around 500 firefighters have been deployed to contain the blaze. Flames reportedly advanced to within a few hundred meters of the community of Luglon, although no homes or other property have so far been reported destroyed.

”The next fifteen hours will be decisive,” Clavreul told reporters.

🔥 L'incendie de Luglon, dans les Landes, est toujours actif mais a perdu en intensité

🌳 Les flammes ont parcouru 1 100 hectares

🚒 500 sapeurs-pompiers et sapeurs-sauveteurs sont mobilisés, dont des renforts venus de plusieurs départements français

✈️ Un hélicoptère… pic.twitter.com/TVGH4ubDET

— Association Prévention & Signalement Feux De Forêt (@asso_psfdf) August 14, 2026

Landes is heavily covered by pine forests and is particularly vulnerable to wildfires. The area burned in the current fire season has already surpassed levels recorded during the severe wildfire year of 2022. Across France, around 120,000 hectares, or nearly 300,000 acres, have reportedly burned.

The French Interior Ministry has said that 420 people were detained on suspicion of starting fires, either deliberately or through negligence.

The only nuclear power plant in Romania has been completely shut down due to record-low Danube River levels, state-owned energy company Nuclearelectrica announced on Thursday.

River water is essential for cooling many European nuclear plants, making low levels an increasing constraint on power generation. The severe heatwave and drought across Europe have pushed the Danube and Rhine, two of the region’s most vital rivers, to historic lows, disrupting stable electricity generation in several countries while hampering industrial output and major trade routes.

Cernavoda, which accounts for about 20% of Romania’s power output, has two reactors, each with a capacity of 706 MW. In late July, Nuclearelectrica shut down one of them as water levels in the drought-hit river fell dramatically.

Last week, Romanian authorities sank four rock-filled barges near the Danube’s Bala Canal in an unprecedented effort to redirect water toward the Cernavoda plant after the military blasted a channel through the riverbed. Water levels, however, ultimately fell below the threshold needed to keep the reactor operating, forcing the management to disconnect it from the power grid.

At the same time, Bucharest declared a state of energy emergency for August, urging businesses and households to voluntarily reduce consumption during peak evening hours. The government has prepared a system to cut power for industrial consumers in ‌stages and with prior notice if needed.

The energy strain has been felt across the region, with Hungary’s Paks nuclear plant forced to sharply cut output as the Danube fell to record lows.

France has also reduced nuclear generation amid high river temperatures and low water levels. Earlier this week, French state-run energy group EDF said a massive swarm of jellyfish had forced the operator to shut down three reactors at Gravelines, one of the largest nuclear power plants in the country.

The severe drought has hit hydropower generation in Italy, while Norway’s reservoirs have fallen to their lowest level in three decades.

Analysts warn the reactor cuts and outages could increase electricity import dependence among the bloc’s most vulnerable countries and drive up power prices across the EU. The disruption could further deepen the bloc’s energy crunch, which began with the loss of cheap Russian gas following Ukraine-related sanctions on Moscow. The strain has worsened this year amid the US war on Iran and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global energy shipping route.

Brad Pitt has started drinking again and this really is cause for celebration among millions of ordinary people around the world, because after all, what brings us closer to the great and famous, but our vices?

I have often heard people who enjoy a glass of cognac in the morning point out that Winston Churchill used to do much the same, but when asked in what other respects they resemble the First Lord of the Admiralty, twice British prime minister, and Nobel Prize winner, they usually have less to say. And now, if Brad Pitt has started drinking again, perhaps he has become a little closer to us ordinary people, or perhaps we have become closer to him.

But if Pitt has started drinking again, there must have been a reason he stopped, given in 2019, Pitt spoke openly about giving up alcohol. “I’d taken it as far as I could take it, so I removed my drinking privileges,” he said, and by then, he had been sober for about three years.

Of course, it wasn’t as though he had accidentally got drunk for the first time in his life that day, and the point isn’t how much someone consumes on one particular occasion, it’s the cumulative effect. Alcohol can erode a person’s character slowly and gradually, so gradually that the person himself may barely notice, with good physical health, professional success, wealth, and modern medicine allowing someone with a serious drinking problem to remain highly functional for an extraordinarily long time.

Brad Pitt was never found unconscious under a fence and that particular image is worth mentioning because, in our society, lying under a fence is traditionally regarded as the definitive proof that someone has finally become an alcoholic. But alcoholism rarely looks like that, and many people with serious alcohol problems remain successful, go to work, raise families, and are seldom seen visibly drunk. However, money and status don’t change what ethanol does to the human body.

Then came sobriety, but now, according to a recent interview, Pitt has begun allowing himself an occasional drink again. Bottles were noticed at his home, and when asked about them he reportedly described what he was doing as “moderate drinking.”

Here’s what I would tell you, dear Brad Pitt, should you ever care to listen: those morning cognac drinkers are no more Churchill than I am Brad Pitt. I’ve never appeared in a film, I’ve never seen Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Aniston up close, I’ve won neither an Oscar nor a Golden Globe, millions of female admirers have never written to me, and advertisers have somehow resisted offering me multimillion-dollar contracts.But there’s one respect in which you and I are not merely similar but indistinguishable, because illness is wonderfully democratic and dear Brad, I too am an alcoholic.

You are 62 years old and by my standards, you possess an almost unlimited amount of money and access to the finest medical care in the world, but you know something as well as I do, for an alcoholic, the idea of “moderate drinking” is a dangerous one. A person who returns to alcohol after years of sobriety doesn’t necessarily return as the person he was before he began drinking, but decades of habits and associations are still there.

That’s the insidious thing about alcoholism as gradually, every important event becomes connected with alcohol. Celebration means alcohol, disappointment means alcohol, meeting friends means alcohol, being alone means alcohol, and success, failure, boredom, anxiety, holidays, funerals, Friday evenings all mean alcohol. Eventually the brain finds a reason to drink in almost everything.

The way out begins with understanding that life is richer, more interesting, and ultimately more fulfilling than the experiences alcohol promises us. Pitt already knows this and he’s spoken about Alcoholics Anonymous and about the men he met there with considerable affection and respect.

Seven years of sobriety is no small achievement, but neither are three decades of drinking habits easily erased, so think again, Brad. Remember that flight from Europe. Remember the row with your family and the beer spilled over your wife, remember the moment when you decided that enough was enough and, in your own excellent phrase, revoked your own drinking privileges.

Perhaps there was wisdom in that decision that shouldn’t now be discarded simply because enough time has passed to make the past seem less dangerous. There’s an English expression about “falling off the wagon.” Don’t fall off the wagon, Brad, because it’s much harder to climb back on.

This article was first published by Gazeta.ru, translated and edited by RT team

A powerful explosion has ripped through a weapons factory in Italy owned by Franco-German defense group KNDS, a major arms supplier to the Ukrainian military.

No casualties were reported in the blast, which occurred near the town of Colleferro, about 45 km southeast of Rome, on Thursday.

Mayor Giulio Calamita told reporters that the community of roughly 50,000 people, which has longstanding ties to the factory, narrowly avoided a tragedy because many employees were away for the summer holidays. Twenty-four workers were inside the building at the time of the explosion and all were reported safe, according to the RAI news agency.

Footage circulating online shows flames rising behind a group of buildings before a powerful blast sends burning debris into the air.

NOW - Massive explosion tears through an ammunition plant near Rome owned by Franco-German defense giant KNDS, a major supplier of weapons systems and munitions to Ukraine.pic.twitter.com/v9pBj26Zsz

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) August 13, 2026

KNDS owns the facility through its national subsidiary, KNDS Ammo Italy. The plant manufactures medium- and large-caliber ammunition, including 155mm artillery shells that are reportedly supplied to Ukraine through European intermediaries. KNDS has close defense ties with the Ukrainian military and opened a subsidiary in Kiev in 2024.

#Roma, incendio ed esplosione nel deposito di un'azienda a Colleferro: 10 squadre #vigilidelfuoco in azione per operazioni di spegnimento delle fiamme, che si sono propagate anche alla vicina vegetazione. Elicottero Drago in ricognizione sulla zona [#13agosto 17:30] pic.twitter.com/hCc1JFBNug

— Vigili del Fuoco (@vigilidelfuoco) August 13, 2026

A preliminary investigation found no indications of foul play, Italian media reported, citing law enforcement sources.
Colleferro has previously seen deadly accidents linked to weapons production at the site, which over the years was owned by Bombrini-Parodi-Delfino (BPD), Snia Viscosa, and Simmel Difesa before being acquired in 2014 by Nexter Systems, now renamed KNDS France, according to media reports.

Earlier this week, a fire also damaged a munitions factory in Bulgaria’s Gabrovo Province. Authorities declared a seven-day partial state of emergency on Thursday because of the danger posed by shells scattered within a 500-meter radius by secondary explosions.

Israeli defense officials have been shocked by the rapid recovery of Iran’s military capabilities since the heavy bombardment by the US and Israel in the opening stages of the conflict, the Jerusalem Post has reported.

Earlier this week, a senior adviser to the chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) said that Iran’s output of ballistic missiles and drones exceeds the rate at which they are being deployed. “Even if the war lasts for several years, our ballistic missiles will continue to rain down on the enemy,” Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Naqdi told Press TV.

In an article on Thursday, the Jerusalem Post said it has independently confirmed that statements by senior Iranian officials of accelerated arms production in the country are accurate.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has claimed for months that Iran’s defense industry was set back years after US and Israeli forces attacked the country around 30,000 times, striking over 2,600 missile and industrial military targets, during the hottest phase of the conflict in late February and early April, the article read.

According to Israeli officials, the Iranians were not only able to swiftly access underground missile sites affected by the US-Israeli airstrikes, but also figured out other creative ways to rebuild their arsenals.

If Tehran keeps manufacturing between 100 to 300 missiles per month, it could become a prohibitive threat for Israel already in 2028, the paper suggested.

This possibility will likely influence broader Israeli strategy about when and if another attack on Iran might be needed, it added.

“The IDF will continue to analyze developments and to be prepared accordingly,” the spokesman stressed.

While Israel has refrained from military action against Iran since June, the standoff between Washington and Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz continues.

The traffic in the key waterway, which accounts for a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas trade, has reduced to eight ships per day amid reports of more strikes on vessels, according to Reuters. It stood at between 130 and 140 ships daily before the conflict.

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that the Americans had “total control” over the strait. Tehran denied the claim the next day, saying that the waterway remains “under Iran’s control and management” and will stay closed until the US changes its behavior.

The White House has accused more than 40 nations, including some of its closest partners, of helping Chinese goods evade US tariffs by exploiting differences in levies imposed on third countries. 

A new 25-page report titled ‘The Great Transshipment Scam’, released by the White House on Thursday, names Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, India, Israel, Taiwan, and the EU among those allegedly involved in the practice. 

The document claims the “scam” involves sending Chinese-made goods through another country, where they are lightly processed, repackaged, or relabeled before being shipped to the US under a new declared origin. 

Washington says the practice took off after President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Chinese products in 2018. Since returning to office, Trump has expanded levies to much of the world, creating wide differences in tariff rates between trading partners. Last month, he also imposed new tariffs on imports from 60 countries over alleged failures to combat forced labor, drawing protests from several major US partners. The White House acknowledged that such gaps may themselves have increase incentives for rerouting. 

China has repeatedly condemned Trump’s tariff regime, accusing Washington of protectionism and economic coercion and arguing that its trade and technology restrictions disrupt global commerce.

Earlier this month, the Chinese Commerce Ministry announced tighter export controls on drones and related technologies and retaliatory measures against several American entities, warning of further countermeasures if Washington introduces new restrictions.

US President Donald Trump has imposed steep tariffs on imported drones and their components, potentially complicating Ukraine’s plans to expand UAV sales to Washington.

Under a proclamation signed on Thursday, drones weighing more than 25 kg and those equipped with thermal imagers will face tariffs of 100%, along with certain docking stations and critical components. Smaller unmanned aircraft will be subject to a 25% levy.

Lower rates will apply to selected US partners, including 15% tariffs for the EU, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, and Taiwan, and 10% for the UK. The measures are set to begin taking effect in 21 days, with some delayed for 180 days.

Trump said a Commerce Department review found that the US was “too reliant” on foreign drones and components. The White House said the measures are intended to reduce supply-chain and security risks while rapidly expanding domestic production.

The move, however, could complicate Kiev’s recently revived push to sell drones to the US.

Trump said last month that Washington would buy Ukrainian UAVs, while Reuters later reported that Kiev had agreed to export drones for the Pentagon’s Drone Dominance program. During discussions last year, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky suggested a broader drone deal with the US could eventually be worth between $10 billion and $30 billion.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates’ daughter Phoebe has been accused of knowingly using a “cookie stuffing” scheme at her shopping startup that allowed the company to collect commissions for sales it did not actually generate, according to Bloomberg.

Phia, co-founded by Gates and fellow Stanford graduate Sophia Kianni, markets itself as a digital shopping assistant that finds cheaper products and discount codes. Despite Gates trying to distance herself from the “nepo baby” label and present the venture as independent of her billionaire father, it immediately attracted tens of millions of dollars from prominent Silicon Valley and celebrity investors during its first funding round and was actively promoted by Bill Gates.

The controversy around the company first erupted last month, when Bloomberg reported that Phia’s browser extension was automatically inserting affiliate tracking cookies into online purchases, allowing it to claim commissions even when shoppers had not used its coupons or links.

The practice, known as “cookie stuffing,” can constitute federal wire fraud, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years.

However, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that internal Slack messages and source code show Gates and Kianni had known about the practice for months.

In one December exchange, Gates reportedly asked developers to ensure automatic cookie drops were working across retailers so Phia could monetize “every transaction.” Kianni later told engineers that “whatever we can do to keep these cookies dropping will be amazing.”

After the features were disabled in July, average daily revenue reportedly fell from about $80,000 to between $10,000 and $28,000. Phia claims part of the decline came from suspending other monetization tools and says it has begun reversing improperly attributed commissions while hiring a compliance chief.

Gates has denied involvement in Epstein’s crimes and told the US Congress this year that the financier had tried to blackmail him over his extramarital affairs. He has called his association with Epstein a serious mistake.

German camera maker Leica has excluded a Russian photographer from its prestigious Oskar Barnack Award (LOBA) following Ukrainian criticism over his links to the Russian RIA Novosti news agency.

Valery Melnikov, a three-time World Press Photo winner, said in a social media post this week that his long-term series, ‘Mariupol. Open Wounds’, had initially been selected by the Leica jury for the 2026 shortlist before being dropped.

The project, which Melnikov has worked on since 2022, documents civilians living in the Black Sea port city of Mariupol, in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR). The city was liberated by Russian forces in May 2022 following an 85-day battle that left much of it in ruins. The DPR, along with Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions, voted to join Russia in referendums later that year. 

Leica had initially described the series as focusing on residents who “suffer the unbearable humanitarian consequences of the war.”

Melnikov said the complaints came from “either photographers or bloggers from a neighboring country” who described him as a “Kremlin-media-linked photographer.”

Ukrainian photographer Sergey Korovainiy, who has covered the conflict, had publicly criticized Leica’s decision to shortlist Melnikov, according to media reports.

According to Melnikov, Leica representatives told him that some of the photographs in the project had been taken while he was working for RIA Novosti. He stressed that his employment history had always been public, adding that the competition rules contained no restrictions on such circumstances.

Leica has not publicly addressed Melnikov’s account of the conversation.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, several EU member states have seen discrimination against performers from other nations perceived to have sympathy for Russia. Moscow has denounced such measures as “Russophobic censorship,” warning that attempts to “cancel” Russian culture will ultimately fail.

Melnikov, a 2015 LOBA finalist, has covered global conflicts, including in Syria, Afghanistan, and Mali. The winners of the 2026 award are due to be announced on October 8 in Wetzlar, Germany.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has branded Israeli settlers besieging three Palestinian families in their West Bank homes “terrorists.” The days-long siege has targeted several properties, including one owned by a dual US citizen.

According to the UN, the blockade in the village of Qusra began last Sunday, leaving approximately 15 Palestinians, including at least two children, trapped in their homes without access to electricity or water supplies. The Palestinians are also believed to be running out of food and medicine.

Huckabee, known for his pro-Israel views and support for the settler movement, issued the rare rebuke in a post on X on Thursday.

“The actions of those doing this to this family’s home is criminal… Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting. No excuse for such thuggish behavior,” the diplomat wrote.

The US envoy also claimed that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the police had removed the “Israeli terrorists” from Qusra at the US Embassy’s request.

The US intelligence community doubted reports of an Iranian plot to kill President Donald Trump by shooting down Air Force One as it departed a NATO summit in Türkiye, the Washington Post has reported. Their assessment was reportedly conveyed to the administration, yet the Secret Service still opted to covertly move Trump to another aircraft.

US media broke the story of the clandestine maneuver this Monday. On leaving the meeting, Trump abruptly switched from his new Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-8 to the previous Air Force One, but it turned out he secretly left that aircraft as well in an airport catering truck, flying aboard a smaller military plane to the UK. He is said to have reboarded the older Air Force One there to create the impression that he was on it the entire time.

CIA analysts were highly skeptical of intelligence on an imminent assassination plot and conveyed that position to the administration. Reports about the threat were “Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence,” an unnamed intel official told the Post.

Trump admitted to switching planes on Tuesday, insisting he was only doing what the Secret Service considered the best course of action. “I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go in a different flight, different plane. I just have to do what they say,” Trump told reporters. 

The scandal also coincides with the departure of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who announced on Wednesday she would leave her position at the end of the month “so she can spend more time” with her family. The 28-year-old, who became a mother for the second time in May, returned to the White House after a hiatus in June. Leavitt’s abrupt departure has sprouted theories that she was among the unwitting officials left on the decoy aircraft and that the affair may have been the final straw for her.

Released in early August, the Japanese Ministry of Defense’s latest white paper signals that Tokyo, under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, is converting years of incremental modernization into a more integrated and far-reaching national-security architecture – one that is altering the strategic landscape along China’s eastern periphery. It envisages a system designed not merely to absorb an attack, but to conduct strikes farther from Japanese territory.

The white paper frames Japan’s security environment as the most severe and complex since the end of World War II. It points to Chinese military activities near Japanese waters, the Taiwan question, North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, and closer coordination among China, Russia, and North Korea. These are Tokyo’s stated assessments. More consequential is the early revision of Japan’s three core security documents – the National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Buildup Program – and the translation of the post-2022 defense expansion into a tighter, more comprehensive system.

Two developments stand out: a major reorganization of intelligence and the military and the operationalization of long-range counterstrike systems that extend Japan’s reach well beyond its traditional defensive perimeter.

A new intelligence command for a new era

A central institutional step is the creation of the National Intelligence Bureau on July 31. Upgrading the former Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office, the bureau consolidates information from across government agencies and operates with roughly 700 personnel as the secretariat of a National Intelligence Council chaired by the prime minister. Japan has long managed with fragmented intelligence structures; the new body is designed to function as a stronger central ‘control tower’.

This move coincides with expanded satellite and maritime surveillance, cyber and electromagnetic capabilities, and improved joint command arrangements under this year’s reorganization of the military. The white paper lists command-and-control and intelligence functions among seven priority areas and describes a national defense architecture that deliberately links diplomatic, intelligence, economic, and technological instruments.

Further steps – anti-espionage legislation and the possible creation of a dedicated foreign-intelligence agency – remain under discussion. The direction is clear: tighter integration of intelligence collection, analysis, economic security, technology policy, and military planning.

The second defining change concerns counterstrike. The white paper identifies stand-off defense systems as a core pillar of the buildup and presents counterstrike capabilities as essential for deterring invasion. Japan maintains that these systems remain consistent with senshu boei – its exclusively defense-oriented policy – while seeking the ability to address threats before they reach Japanese territory.

In practice, the shift alters Japan’s traditional posture. For decades, Japanese defense emphasized territorial protection, missile interception, and responses after an attack had begun. Long-range systems change that. Japan is acquiring Tomahawk cruise missiles and upgrading indigenous stand-off weapons. Among the systems drawing particular attention is the Type-25 anti-ship missile, designed to engage naval targets at greater distances. Development of hypersonic weapons and unmanned platforms – aircraft, surface vessels, and underwater vehicles grouped under a SHIELD (Synchronized, Hybrid, Integrated and Enhanced Littoral Defense) concept – is also advancing. These elements form a more complete kill chain linking intelligence, surveillance, command, and distant engagement.

From a regional perspective, such capabilities complicate security calculations along the first island chain and in waters near Taiwan. Japanese territory can increasingly function not only as a defensive position but as a platform supporting or conducting operations farther from the home islands.

Resources, industry, and structural change

Financial resources are expanding in parallel. Japan accelerated its target of defense spending equivalent to 2% of GDP. Fiscal 2026 expenditures, including costs related to the Special Action Committee on Okinawa and the realignment of US forces, exceeded ¥9 trillion (almost $56.5 billion) for the first time. The white paper elevates defense production and the technological base to a central place, treating them as integral to overall defense capability.

This year’s reorganization of the military reflects this approach. Joint command structures are being strengthened, procurement is being linked more closely to domestic industry and dual-use technologies, and greater participation by startups is being encouraged. The April revision of the Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology further eases restrictions on exports, presenting them as means to strengthen deterrence, support partners, and sustain production capacity.

These steps increase the potential for joint production, maintenance, and supply-chain integration with the United States and other partners, positioning Japan as a more active node in a wider defense-industrial network.

Nuclear policy remains formally constrained. Japan has not decided to acquire nuclear weapons, and Prime Minister Takaichi has repeatedly stated that the country upholds the Three Non-Nuclear Principles of not possessing, producing, or permitting the introduction of nuclear weapons. At the Nagasaki Peace Memorial Ceremony on August 9 marking the 81st anniversary of the atomic bombing – and days earlier in Hiroshima – she affirmed that the country “firmly upholds the three nonnuclear principles” while promoting “realistic and practical initiatives” toward a world without nuclear weapons.

Yet the wording has drawn attention for its careful ambiguity. Takaichi described Japan’s current stance without offering an explicit pledge that the principles would remain unchanged in the security documents now being revised. Discussion around the third principle in particular – the ban on introducing nuclear weapons into Japanese territory – has become more flexible. Government experts reviewing the documents have examined whether that restriction should be reconsidered, with some officials arguing that changed circumstances require a fresh look at nuclear deterrence.

Japan’s advanced civilian nuclear industry, reprocessing facilities, and technical expertise already constitute a latent nuclear capability – an industrial and scientific foundation that could, under certain conditions, be redirected more rapidly than that of most non-nuclear states. This debate does not inevitably lead to a decision to weaponize, but it does indicate that the political boundaries around nuclear policy are less rigid than in previous decades. Given the existing technological base, any long-term movement in this area would carry significant regional implications.

Why China is watching closely

China has responded with diplomatic criticism and military signaling. Chinese officials have described Japan’s accelerated military development as a dangerous turn toward remilitarization and have objected particularly strongly to Japan’s long-range strike capabilities. Beijing has also continued maritime and military activity around areas of strategic importance to Japan, while China-Russia military cooperation has remained an important element of the regional security environment.

Beijing is responding not just to Tokyo’s aggregate military strength, but to its position inside a wider regional network. Japan’s defense cooperation with the US, Australia, the Philippines, South Korea, and other countries is becoming more interconnected. The Japanese strategic documents themselves describe the objective as building multilayered networks and improving interoperability in training, operations, equipment, and industrial bases.

The result is a changing equation. Japan remains much smaller than China in population, military expenditure, and overall military capacity. But it is becoming a considerably more capable, connected, and technologically sophisticated military power than before.

For China, that means the strategic environment along its eastern periphery is changing. Japan is no longer simply the relatively constrained maritime power of the postwar decades. It is developing the intelligence, strike, industrial, and technological capabilities required to act earlier and farther from its territory, while remaining closely integrated with the US-led security system. In short, a more assertive Japan is redrawing the map of East Asian security – and Beijing knows it.

The US military lost 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones, or a quarter of its entire supply of the reconnaissance craft, during its war on Iran, the Washington Post has reported. The loss cost the US taxpayer an estimated $1.3 billion.

The loss figures were revealed by the Washington Post on Thursday, citing three unnamed US officials. A fourth US official told the newspaper that not all the lost drones were shot down. Some, they said, crashed after losing communications with their operators.

A successor to the MQ-1 Predator, the MQ-9 Reaper is a medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) drone, capable of flying for up to 30 hours while carrying out surveillance missions or targeted strikes with Hellfire missiles. One of these craft costs between $30 and $50 million, and the US military had approximately 185 before the US-Israeli war on Iran began on February 28 – 165 in the Air Force, and 20 operated by the Marine Corps.

Within hours of the war beginning, reports of downed Reapers began circulating on Iranian Telegram channels. Video footage soon followed, with the Iranian military claiming to have shot down multiple MQ-9s mid-flight, and destroyed others as they sat in hangars at US bases across the Gulf region.

By the time the US and Iran reached a tentative ceasefire on April 9, preliminary reports in US media suggested that around two dozen Reapers had been shot down by Iranian forces. If the Washington Post’s figures are accurate, the initial accounts may have undercounted the losses by almost half.

The MQ-9 Reaper entered service with the US Air Force in 2007, and was extensively used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the US’ undeclared wars in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and beyond. Synonymous with President Barack Obama’s drone assassination program, the MQ-9 Reaper was viewed as untouchable until 2017, when Houthi forces in Yemen managed to shoot one down with a Soviet-era anti-air missile.

A string of losses followed, and by the time the US and Israel began striking Iran in February, the Reaper was already considered obsolete and ineffective against any military with anti-air capabilities.

The Reaper is one of multiple weapons systems left in short supply by the Iran war. The US has reportedly used more than half of its Patriot and 80% of its THAAD anti-air missiles, and a third of its Tomahawk cruise missiles since February 28. US President Donald Trump has denied that the US is facing a missile shortage, but has asked Congress for $87.6 billion to cover “urgent needs” related to the war, including $21 billion for munitions.

US military installations across the Pacific are in an alarming state of decay, a new Pentagon inspector general’s report has found, calling for “immediate attention” to fix crumbling infrastructure.

The heavily redacted report, released this week, is part of an ongoing audit of US military facilities in the region. Inspections at 11 installations have revealed various severe issues, including collapsing ceilings, corroded walls, and a significant presence of mold. Additionally, there is extensive use of hazardous construction materials such as asbestos and lead-based paints.

The unclassified “management advisory,” dated August 6, goes on at length about the Kadena and Yokota air bases in Japan. The uncovered issues affected both “mission‑critical systems” and “other critical infrastructure… and housing infrastructure.” Multiple buildings at the bases have “visible corrosion, visible mold, visible fire damage, visible cracks on the building exterior and interior, visible concrete spalling, and exposed rebar,” as well as “inoperable communication connections” according to the advisory.

In some instances, storage buildings had multiple rusted-through holes exposing the hardware inside to the elements. Housing units have suffered from “ceiling collapses, visible mold, or visible concrete spalling,” repeatedly prompting relocation of assigned servicemen and their families. Some of the buildings also had crumbling facade elements “ranging from small fragments to large slabs” falling off, posing a threat to personnel.

The decay of US military installations in the Pacific has been a persistent issue for years, yet neither civilian nor military authorities have been able to reverse it. In 2024, for instance, the Biden administration launched an Installation Infrastructure Action Plan to address the disrepair at bases overseas. According to the plan, at least “70 percent of utility systems at Pacific Air Force locations [were] severely degraded due to the highly corrosive environment.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been pushing a staggering $1.5 trillion defense budget for fiscal year 2027, a sharp increase over the more than $901 billion enacted for the current year. The massive $600 billion increase alone is almost twice the total annual military budget of China, which has been painted as the main US rival by the White House. The administration has repeatedly singled out the Pacific as its priority, rallying local allies to spend more on defense, citing China’s alleged military buildup.

Fidel Castro, the revolutionary leader who ruled Cuba for nearly five decades, was one of the defining figures of the Cold War, defying successive US administrations and surviving hundreds of reported assassination attempts.

To mark the 100th anniversary of Castro’s birth, a new RT documentary looks back at his rise to power, his confrontation with Washington, and the ideas that shaped Cuba under his rule.

A key Soviet ally in the Western Hemisphere, Castro stood at the center of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Under his rule, Cuba endured decades of US economic pressure while making major advances in healthcare, science, and education.

The film also explores Castro’s historic ties with Moscow and the legacy of a leader whose influence reached far beyond his Caribbean island.

Watch on RT.

Vladimir Zelensky has made an unusually specific claim about what Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian ballistic missiles.

In an interview with CNN, Zelensky said Ukraine currently has enough Patriot interceptors to amount to roughly 1% of America’s existing stockpile – itself reportedly depleted by the war with Iran and a source of some acrimony between US President Donald Trump and his secretary of war, Pete Hegseth.

Nevertheless, Zelensky used the CNN interview to call on Washington to sell Ukraine 5% of its remaining Patriot missile stockpile, which he claimed would be enough to get Kiev through the winter. The former actor went further on air, saying that 10% of the US inventory would allow Ukraine to shoot down every Russian ballistic missile fired at the country.

But the numbers quickly begin to fall apart under scrutiny.

How many missiles does the US have, and what does Zelensky want? 

The total number of Patriot interceptors currently at America’s disposal is classified, but the most recent estimates put the figure at around 800, after the US reportedly burned through some 65% of its total inventory during the war on Iran.

Zelensky’s proposed 10% transfer would therefore amount to about 80 Patriot interceptors.

That may sound substantial – until it is compared with the rate at which Kiev has been using them. Zelensky adviser Dmitry Litvin told the New York Times in March that Kiev had received and used some 600 Patriot missiles over four years. There is also the rate at which Russia is firing ballistic missiles to consider.

Zelensky himself told Axios in late July that Russia was firing 30 to 40 ballistic missiles in each major attack, with such strikes occurring three to five times a month.

On July 5-6, Russia reportedly launched 29 ballistic or similarly high-speed missiles in an attack focused heavily on Kiev. Ukraine intercepted none of them, with Ukrainian officials attributing the failure to a shortage of interceptors.

Less than two weeks later, Russia reportedly launched 25 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles and ten Zircon missiles – 35 in total – alongside several other weapons in another barrage focused largely on Kiev. Ukraine claimed to have intercepted 17 of the Iskander/Zircon/S-400 missiles.

Does Zelensky’s missile math make any sense?

Even under the extraordinarily favorable assumption that every Patriot interceptor destroys an incoming ballistic missile, 80 interceptors would be enough to defeat only 80 targets. At the rate of 30-40 ballistic missiles per major attack cited by Zelensky himself, that would provide enough ammunition for roughly two large-scale attacks – again, assuming every interceptor hits its target.

US and NATO defense doctrine calls for launching between two and four Patriot interceptors at each incoming missile. Zelensky’s claim that a Russian barrage involves 30 to 40 ballistic missiles would therefore mean that Kiev could expend as many as 80 interceptors – or 10% of the estimated US inventory – on a single attack.

Three to five such attacks a month, involving 30 to 40 ballistic missiles each, would amount to roughly 90 to 200 incoming ballistic missiles per month. Eighty Patriot interceptors could not destroy all of them even with an impossible 100% success rate.

At a 1:1 interception ratio, 80 Patriots would cover 80 ballistic targets. At 2:1, they would cover 40. At 3:1, about 27.

In other words, 10% of America’s estimated stockpile of roughly 800 interceptors could plausibly provide enough ammunition for robust ballistic-missile defense against one major barrage, or perhaps several weeks to a month of more selective protection.

It could not literally “destroy all the Russians’ ballistic missiles,” as Zelensky told CNN.

There is another inconsistency, however. According to Axios, just weeks before making his 10% proposal, Zelensky said he needed 300 Patriot interceptors before winter because of the scale and frequency of Russian ballistic-missile attacks.

If the relevant US inventory is around 800 missiles, 300 would represent nearly 40% of the total. Yet Zelensky is now suggesting that approximately 80 – barely a quarter of his previous request – could accomplish something far more ambitious.

What’s the bottom line?

Moscow’s most recent ballistic-missile barrages against Ukraine have reportedly further eroded Kiev’s ability to mount even a token defense. Zelensky’s 40-day influence operation has also significantly backfired, earning him a dressing-down from Washington over attacks on shipping in the Black Sea. His apparent failure to anticipate that Russia would respond in kind and shut down Ukraine’s Black Sea ports could reportedly cost the Ukrainian economy another 1.5% of GDP.

Zelensky may be working from a different estimate of America’s missile inventory, or assuming that US production would provide a recurring supply in the future rather than a one-time delivery. Alternatively, his use of the phrase “destroy all” may simply be another example of his usual rhetoric rather than a literal claim that Ukraine could intercept every ballistic missile Russia launches.

That leaves two possible interpretations: Either Zelensky is using his own media-manipulation techniques to deliberately simplify or exaggerate the figures in an effort to strengthen his case for further depleting America’s stockpiles, or his assessment of how long such a stockpile would last is seriously mistaken.

The defense team of Tyler Robinson, the man accused of killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk last September, has argued that the defendant should be spared the death penalty, as he only “hit the intended target.” The defense attorneys insist that the prosecution has been unable to prove the alleged shooter put other people’s lives at risk, thus committing aggravated murder.

The latter, which is a capital crime in the state of Utah, requires at least one “statutory aggravating factor” to qualify as such.

Kirk, a popular podcaster and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was shot in the neck and killed while speaking to about 3,000 attendees of an event at Utah Valley University in Orem on September 10, 2025.

Robinson was apprehended two days later. Investigators allege that he was the sniper who fired the fatal shot from a rooftop, about 130 meters (140 yards) from the packed venue.

In Tuesday court filings, Robinson’s defense attorneys argued that prosecutors had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant “knowingly created a great risk of death to another other than Charlie Kirk.” Kathy Nester, Michael Burt, Richard Novak, and Staci Visser wrote that the “only evidence presented supports that the bullet traveled above, not through, the crowd,” and thus no one other than Kirk was in the line of fire.

Robinson’s defense team also pointed out that the alleged shooter did not specifically mention “any threat or intended harm to any other individual(s)” in communications with his romantic partner, Lance Twiggs, which was cited as evidence by the authorities.

The prosecutors, in turn, contend that Robinson’s alleged motivation for the assassination stemmed from Kirk’s public opposition to same-sex marriage and gender transitioning.

According to family members and media reports, Robinson became radicalized and mentioned the conservative activist in conversations before the shooting. The unfired rounds recovered from the rifle allegedly used in the assassination reportedly bore inscriptions, including “Hey, fascist! Catch!”

Robinson’s defense team had petitioned Utah District Judge Tony Graf to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty back in June, accusing them of staging a “media tour” concerning a bullet fragment recovered from Kirk’s body. The defense attorneys alleged that this constituted a violation of restrictions on public comments on the case.

The hearing is expected to resume on September 1, with Robinson yet to enter a plea.

Iran can stay in the fight in a prolonged armed conflict with the US, even if it lasts the rest of Donald Trump’s term in office, a senior Iranian general has said.

Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) voiced confidence in Tehran’s ability to sustain a long-term confrontation during an interview with PBS on Tuesday. His remarks came amid media reports of pressure on US munitions stockpiles and declining morale among American forces deployed in the Middle East.

Tehran’s objective is “to attain deterrence so that the enemy never dares to attack us, so we can live with security,” Naqdi told the US broadcaster when asked whether Iranian commanders intended to “drag out” the conflict until Trump was no longer in office.

“One way is to prolong this war until we get to the next term of the presidency and cause attrition, so that if anyone else wants to attack Iran, they will know there is a cost,” he said.

The conflict has become increasingly unpopular among US voters, raising concerns among Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections.

Trump has alternated between threats of further military escalation and claims that Iran has been weakened to the point of almost accepting a peace agreement favorable to Washington. On Wednesday, he claimed that the US naval blockade of Iranian ports, imposed in April, had been widely described as a “wall of steel” and that Tehran “has no money.”

“The longer this war lasts, the more experience we gain,” Naqdi told PBS. “We had never seen a real war to gain real experience to learn how to fight with America. In these five months, we have learned how. We have also seen how the American military is weaker than what we perceived.”

Should those stockpiles eventually be exhausted, he added, Tehran could instead target what he described as “thousands of [American] economic interests throughout the world.”

The US State Department reportedly ordered Israel to stick to its word and pull its troops out of Lebanon after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said his forces were “here to stay” in the south of the country.

Under a US-brokered framework signed on June 26, Israel agreed to leave the territory it currently occupies in Southern Lebanon in exchange for the Lebanese government disarming Hezbollah and establishing its own military as the sole armed group in Lebanon. During a visit to the occupied territory on Wednesday, Katz declared that “the IDF is here to stay in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza.”

“The United States expects all parties to act in accordance with the framework agreement they have agreed upon, and Israel has clearly stated that it has no territorial aspirations in Lebanon,” a State Department official told Barak Ravid – an Axios reporter whom Israeli politicians and security officials regularly leak to – on Wednesday.

🇺🇸🇮🇱🇱🇧The Trump administration criticized Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz's remarks about maintaining Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon, stressing that his comments contradict commitments the Israeli government made under the framework agreement with the United States…

— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) August 12, 2026

“A permanent Israeli military presence in southern Lebanon is inconsistent with the commitments given in the framework agreement and does not align with the long-term peace and security of both countries,” the official added.

Israel currently occupies roughly 600 square kilometers of southern Lebanon, including some territory north of the Litani River. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have demolished dozens of villages, and the occupation has resulted in the forced expulsion of more than 1.2 million Lebanese civilians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested that Israel could permanently annex certain areas of southern Lebanon. In an interview with Fox News last month, Netanyahu claimed that some Christian villages in Lebanon “have actually asked to be annexed to Israel because we protect them against the Hezbollah fanatics who want to kill them.”

Netanyahu did not name any of the villages, and more than a dozen local Christian leaders in southern Lebanon issued a statement calling his remarks “completely fabricated” and “unrelated to reality.”

Israel’s war on, and occupation of, Lebanon has directly interfered with US-Iran peace talks. The July 17 memorandum of understanding agreed by Washington and Tehran reportedly called for the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” a clause that Israel has not heeded.

A sweeping overhaul of Germany’s intelligence services proposed by the government could infringe on police powers in violation of constitutional safeguards, opposition politicians have warned.

On Wednesday, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt presented a 730-page package comprising three draft laws that would significantly expand the powers of the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s foreign and domestic intelligence agencies respectively.

While there is broad political agreement that Germany’s security apparatus requires modernization, critics say the proposed expansion of the BfV’s mandate goes too far. Germany has traditionally maintained a strict separation between intelligence gathering and police work to prevent concentration of power.

“Dobrindt, with these demands that he hastily dictated into the draft legislation, is doing far more harm than good,” Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader Wolfgang Kubicki told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

Dobrindt has argued that the proposed intelligence “revolution” is necessary to tackle an evolving “hybrid threat landscape.”

Critics contend that the proposed reform would fundamentally alter the relationship between the state and citizens, particularly because the BfV operates under a different system of legal oversight from ordinary law-enforcement bodies, which generally require judicial authorization for intrusive measures.

“Equipping a secretive security agency with such powers will predictably create more chaos and problems,” Kubicki said.

Green Party MP Konstantin von Notz likewise argued that the reform represents a fundamental departure from existing norms and would “end up before the Federal Constitutional Court.”

The BfV has for years scrutinized the right-wing, anti-immigration AfD over suspected threats to Germany’s constitutional order, giving the agency expanded legal grounds to surveil its leaders. The AfD has rejected the allegations and accused the authorities of using the agency for politically motivated pressure.

Christian Wirth, another AfD lawmaker, warned last month that the proposed reform could transform the BfV “from an early warning system of democracy into an architect of a totalitarian reality.”

The AfD continues to post strong polling numbers despite other major German parties maintaining a policy of refusing to form governing coalitions with it.

Party co-leader Alice Weidel argued this week that the trend could eventually allow the AfD to form single-party governments in some federal states.

She pointed to recent polling in Saxony-Anhalt showing the party at 43% ahead of an election in early September, more than twice the share of the vote it received there in 2021.

The Kuril Islands will forever remain Russian land, with Japan looking for trouble by continuing to stick to its claim over the archipelago, former Russian President Dmitry Medvdev has said.

The Kuril archipelago came under Soviet control at the end of World War II following Japan’s defeat and was subsequently incorporated into the USSR. Tokyo, however, continues to claim the four southernmost islands – Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and the Habomai islets – which it calls its “Northern Territories.” The dispute has been the main obstacle to Moscow and Tokyo signing a formal peace treaty in the eight decades since the conflict.

On Thursday, Tokyo lodged a strong protest over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first-ever visit to the Kurils, with Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi calling the trip “absolutely unacceptable” and saying it “hurts the feelings of the Japanese people.” 

The Japanese Foreign Ministry also summoned the Russian ambassador to the country, Nikolay Nozdrev, over Putin’s trip, Kyodo News reported.

In post on X later in the day, Medvedev said that “Takaichi can prattle on all she likes about the Kuril Islands being ‘historically Japanese,’ but this chatter won’t change a thing. They were, are, and will remain Russian land.”

“Anyone who fails to understand this will face the monstrous consequences of their delusion,” the official, who currently serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, warned without elaborating.

Putin traveled to Iturup, the largest of the Kuril Islands, on Thursday morning, touring a local fish processing plant, a medical center, and a school. He is only the second sitting Russian president to visit the Kurils after Medvedev made the trip in 2010.

Putin addressed the dispute on Wednesday while attending the final stage of Russian Pacific Fleet exercises off Sakhalin. He blamed Tokyo for the broader deterioration in relations between the two countries.

“I would like to emphasize that we pose no threat. We have absolutely no grievances against Japan. On the contrary, it’s Japan that has territorial claims against our country, specifically regarding the Kuril Islands issue,” he insisted.

The status of those territories “is enshrined in international documents as a reality resulting from World War II. Yet even on this, Russia was prepared to seek a solution to reach a peace treaty,” Putin said.

Moscow and Tokyo signed a declaration in 1956 that “opened the way” for a peace agreement, but Japan later backed out of it, the president recalled. After the fall of the USSR, Russia also engaged in constructive relations with several Japanese leaders, including Shinzo Abe, who served as prime minister in 2006-2007 and 2012-2020 and “did a lot” to align the positions of the two nations, he added.

The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to equip its officers with special gloves capable of delivering painful electric shocks to people resisting arrest, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) notice.

Known as G.L.O.V.E. (Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter), the devices are made by Kentucky-based Compliant Technologies and have already been used by some US prisons and police departments.

ICE plans to spend between $10 million and $20 million on what the DHS calls “conductive distraction and de-escalation devices,” under a contract running through March 2027.

The manufacturer does not publicly disclose the price of the gloves, but AP reported that ICE plans to purchase thousands of the devices.

The DHS plans to award the contract to Compliant Technologies without competitive bidding, with the solicitation expected as early as Friday.

Headed to Las Vegas this week for Shot Show! Let us know if you're attending and stop by the booth. pic.twitter.com/pKhky6eIXQ

— Compliant Technologies (@CompliantT_CD3) January 18, 2025

A DHS spokesman told Time magazine on Wednesday that “ICE is constantly assessing the needs of our officers in the field to ensure they have the tools and equipment necessary to safely arrest and remove criminal illegal aliens from our country.”

When approached by AP, Compliant Technologies founder and CEO Jeff Niklaus said that “unfortunately, we are unable to speak on this subject.”

John Peters, president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths, likened the shock to a bee sting, describing it as “immediate and sharp.”

Peters told AP the gloves could be used to force uncooperative suspects out of vehicles or homes, as well as to maintain order in ICE detention facilities.

The planned purchase has drawn criticism from civil liberties advocates amid mounting scrutiny of ICE’s use of force.

Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said ICE has spent the past year demonstrating that its officers are “too quick to use force.”

“Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public,” she said.

The planned acquisition comes after nationwide protests over the fatal shootings of two US citizens by federal immigration agents in Minnesota in January.

Nearly 370 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons, many without having been convicted of a crime, RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij has reported, citing Palestinian and Israeli rights organizations.

The number of minors held under administrative detention – which allows imprisonment without charge or trial – has almost doubled in just over a year, according to the latest figures from Israel’s prison service.

Israel says around 90% of the detained minors are being held for security-related reasons but have not been convicted, according to an RT report. Prison terms generally range from two to three years, although some minors have received sentences of between ten and 20 years.

Israeli police also report that around 100 minors are detained each month for entering Israel without a permit.

The detentions have come amid mounting allegations of mistreatment inside Israeli prisons. Former detainees and rights organizations have reported abuse, torture, starvation, physical and psychological harm, sexual violence and denial of medical treatment.

Israel is also holding the bodies of more than 100 Palestinians who died in its custody, according to a recent report cited by RT.

The situation in the West Bank has received comparatively little international attention amid the war in Gaza, where Israeli military operations have caused widespread destruction and displacement.

Gaza’s Health Ministry has put the Palestinian death toll since October 2023 at 73,386, with another 174,250 people wounded. Israel launched its military campaign following the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel, in which around 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage.

Meanwhile, arrests and raids have continued across the West Bank, leaving a growing number of Palestinian minors in Israeli custody.

Watch the full report by RT correspondent Charlotte Dubenskij below.

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has threatened to reconsider Warsaw’s $50 million annual spending on Elon Musk’s Starlink after the satellite internet provider excluded Polish customers from its European roaming region.

Starlink’s new roaming system groups 36 European countries and territories into a single region, allowing customers to use the service across participating states. Poland, however, has been specifically left outside the zone.

“Hey, @elonmusk, big man, stop discriminating Polish users of Starlink or we might re-think paying you $50 million p.a. for your services,” Sikorski wrote on X on Wednesday.

The “big man” jab appeared to revive a public spat between Sikorski and Musk last year. After the Polish minister suggested Warsaw might seek an alternative to Starlink if the service became unreliable, Musk told him to “be quiet, small man,” accused him of exaggerating Poland’s contribution, and insisted there was “no substitute for Starlink.”

A lightning strike at an Ohio prison injured 16 inmates, leaving one seriously hurt, as deadly storms swept across the US Midwest, state authorities said.

Lightning struck the Grafton Correctional Institution on Tuesday as a group of “incarcerated individuals were returning from the evening meal,” the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) said.

All 16 were initially taken to outside hospitals, with one evacuated by air ambulance. By Wednesday, four remained hospitalized, including one with serious injuries, according to Governor Mike DeWine. No deaths or staff injuries were reported.

The lightning strike came during severe storms that swept across the US Midwest, bringing tornadoes, flash flooding, powerful winds, and widespread power outages.

video released from the State prison complex in Grafton yesterday evening as over a dozen inmates were injured by an apparent lightning strike pic.twitter.com/MAAWTnf8Fw

— Ed Gallek (@edgallekfox8) August 12, 2026

Preliminary data from the US weather service’s Storm Prediction Center indicated that the system could qualify as a derecho – a widespread, long-lived windstorm associated with a fast-moving line of thunderstorms.

Absolutely INCREDIBLE storm structure moved through Phillipsburg, Ohio a short time ago!

📷️ Viewer Submission pic.twitter.com/IW4RNS5enQ

— Max Velocity (@MaxVelocityWX) August 11, 2026

Video published by the Ohio Department of Transportation shows powerful winds flipping a moving car on a highway in Columbus.

BREAKING: Severe Derecho Storm With Winds In Excess Of 100mph Steamrolling Through Midwest.
Car On Ohio Freeway Thrown & Rolled Over By Severe Thunderstorm Derecho Winds! pic.twitter.com/kNgi0kaaHn

— John Basham (@JohnBasham) August 11, 2026

At least three deaths were reported during the storms.

Hobart, Indiana 8/11/2026 11:15am central
NWI Northwest Indiana NW Indiana
MCS Derecho

Unbelievable. Worst storm I've ever been in. By far.

🚨🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/CtH1E4FCLT

— John Scherman (@john22scherman) August 12, 2026

An Ohio resident died during a medical emergency after flash flooding prevented first responders from reaching him, Governor Mike DeWine said. A four-year-old boy was killed after a tree fell on a home in Indiana on Tuesday, according to local authorities. A third person died in a house explosion in Portage, Indiana, which authorities were investigating as potentially weather-related, the Associated Press reported.

American journalist Tucker Carlson has told RT that he is not afraid of being killed for using his platform to say what he believes is true.

The former Fox News host has adopted a staunch non-interventionist stance toward US involvement in foreign conflicts in recent years, breaking sharply with President Donald Trump on key foreign policy issues such as Washington’s war on Iran and support for Israel. Since leaving the news network, Carlson’s podcast has routinely garnered millions of views and featured high-profile interviews, including a 2024 conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In an exclusive interview with RT’s Rick Sanchez on Wednesday, Carlson said he had “got old enough and insulated enough from the normal levers of control to say what I really think is true.”

What are you going to do about it? Kill me? OK, I’m not afraid of that. I’m a Christian. So I’m just going to keep talking.

“This Iran war, the war with Russia – these are the things that will destroy the US, and I live here and my family’s been here for 350 years, and… I don’t want to see my country destroyed,” he said.

Another prominent right-wing influencer who was highly critical of hawks within the Republican Party and US involvement in foreign wars, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated last year.

The murder prompted debate over incitement and inflammatory political rhetoric amid a rise in political violence targeting public figures in the US, including multiple attempts on Trump’s life.

Watch the full exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson below:

The German government is expected to grant the country’s intelligence agencies greater powers, including offensive cyber capabilities against foreign adversaries, according to Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt.

NATO member states have on multiple occasions accused Russia of hacking government servers, jamming aircraft GPS signals, and redirecting Ukrainian drones into their airspace, with little to no evidence. Moscow has dismissed the allegations as warmongering aimed at justifying the “rabid militarization” of Europe.

Berlin’s Foreign Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) are set to undergo “historic reform,” Dobrindt told Bild.

The legislation will transform “intelligence services into genuine intelligence agencies,” he said, adding that “this is a revolution in our security architecture because, for the first time, we are giving the intelligence services operational powers.”

Dobrindt cited hybrid threats supposedly faced by Germany, as well as “attempts at destabilization through sabotage, espionage, cyberattacks, and covert operations by foreign powers.”

The spy agency would also be given greater access to communication and video data, which would be analyzed with the help of artificial intelligence, according to the media outlet.

Dobrindt is to present the reform to the German cabinet on Wednesday. The minister reportedly stressed that the BND and BfV need stronger “operational capabilities and active powers” to fight modern state terrorism and extremist groups.

Dobrindt announced an imminent cabinet decision to expand the powers of the BND in mid-June, while inaugurating a new hybrid warfare center in Berlin.

Last December, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that the German government was seeking to authorize the BND to conduct cyberattacks, sabotage, and other offensive operations abroad.

Additionally, under the plan, the intelligence agency would also be vested with broader domestic surveillance powers, with agents to be allowed to enter suspects’ homes to secretly install spyware on computers and other devices, according to the report.

Two pilots have been killed after a US Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopter crashed in a field in central Texas and burst into flames, sparking a large wildfire and prompting evacuations in the surrounding area.

The helicopter, based at the Fort Hood military installation, went down near Salado at around 1:35 PM local time on Wednesday, according to the US Army and the Bell County Sheriff’s Office. Both crew members aboard were confirmed dead.

“It crashed into a field, and you could tell it was a violent crash,” sheriff’s office spokesman Cliff Coleman told reporters.

The impact sparked an uncontrolled grass fire that spread across roughly 100 acres. The blaze was about 45% contained by 5 PM local time, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. The authorities ordered evacuations in the area as firefighters worked to contain the flames.

Footage from the scene showed burning debris scattered across scorched ground as emergency crews tackled lingering fires.

JUST IN: Two Pilots Killed After Fort Hood Apache Helicopter Crashes In Central Texas

An AH-64 Apache attack helicopter based at Fort Hood crashed Wednesday afternoon near Salado in Bell County, Texas, killing both pilots on board.

The crash sparked a large, uncontrolled grass… pic.twitter.com/g5gZSl9pKK

— Bruce Snyder (@realBruceSnyder) August 12, 2026

No people on the ground were injured and the helicopter did not strike any buildings or other structures, according to local authorities.

The Apache can carry up to 16 Hellfire missiles, 76 rockets and 1,200 rounds of ammunition for its 30mm cannon. The US Army describes its latest AH-64E variant as its most advanced attack helicopter, with the fleet expected to remain in service for decades.

It remains unclear where the helicopter was coming from or where it was headed.

US President Donald Trump has ordered an end to federal funding for so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors through two major government healthcare programs.

The move comes amid a broader rollback of transgender-related policies introduced under previous administrations.

The new restrictions will apply to Medicaid, a joint federal-state health insurance program primarily serving low-income Americans, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which covers children whose families do not qualify for Medicaid but may struggle to afford private insurance.

“We are not going to pay for our innocent children to undergo these barbaric surgeries and practices, which result in unthinkable and irreversible harm to their young bodies,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday.

Individual states will still be able to use their own funds to pay for the treatments.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said the decision followed a review by the Department of Health and Human Services that found significant gaps in evidence supporting medical gender transition for minors and raised concerns about potentially irreversible effects.

“Children deserve our protection, not experimental interventions that pose serious risks and convey no proven benefits,” CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz said, arguing that ending federal funding would save taxpayer money and protect minors from potentially irreversible harm.

The move is part of a broader rollback of transgender-related policies since Trump returned to office. His administration has moved to restrict medical transition procedures for minors, bar transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports, and restrict people with gender dysphoria from serving in the US military.

At least 27 US states have already enacted restrictions on gender-transition treatment for minors, while several major hospitals have stopped offering some such procedures amid legal challenges, funding pressure, and changing medical guidance.

Israel has been intentionally igniting wildfires in forests and agricultural land across southern Lebanon using drones and various munitions, Lebanese firefighters have claimed to The Guardian.

Large areas of woodland, olive groves, and farmland have burned in the nearly two months since the June 17 ceasefire largely halted fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Hussein Fakih, the head of civil defense in the Nabatieh region, estimated that fires have affected 30-40% of land in some areas close to the front line.

He said Israeli forces began setting fires immediately, alleging that drones have dropped incendiary materials while white phosphorus shells and illumination flares have been fired into woodland.

On Tuesday, Israeli forces dropped flares over a wooded area outside Khiam, sparking fires, according to Fakih. A drone later struck near firefighters attempting to extinguish the blaze, forcing them to withdraw.

The allegations come alongside evidence of extensive destruction across Israeli-occupied parts of southern Lebanon. A visual investigation by the Financial Times and journalism nonprofit Lighthouse Reports found widespread damage to homes, schools, farmland, forests, and essential infrastructure. Satellite imagery indicated that much of the destruction occurred after Israeli forces had established control over evacuated villages in mid-April.

Israeli forces subsequently pushed deeper into southern Lebanon and established what officials have described as a security buffer zone. By June, Israel reportedly controlled around 2,000 square kilometers of Lebanese territory – roughly one-fifth of the country.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has repeatedly demanded a complete Israeli withdrawal and pledged to restore essential services so displaced residents can return.

Conservative journalist Tucker Carlson has accused the US political establishment of turning Americans against each other, telling RT that key decisions are made by unelected officials and the system no longer represents ordinary voters.

Speaking to Rick Sanchez on Wednesday, Carlson said Americans are “encouraged to hate” their fellow citizens as Republicans and Democrats are pitted against one another.

“The truth is, it’s not the differences between us that are the problem, it’s the consensus at the top,” Carlson said, accusing the two parties’ leaders of “collusion against the American people” and acting against the interests of their own supporters.

Carlson, who backed Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, has since distanced himself from the Republican Party amid disagreements over the US war on Iran and Washington’s relationship with Israel. In June, he said there was “no chance” he would support the party in the November midterms, while also ruling out backing the Democrats.

Carlson has pledged to help establish a third party, describing the current system as a “one-party state posing as a democracy,” and last week presented a ten-point vision for America. He has ruled out a presidential bid himself, telling Sanchez: “I’m not planning to run for president, that’s for sure.”

He went on to claim that major decisions in Washington are not made by officials chosen by voters, but “by the permanent bureaucracy, the deep state.” 

Carlson described the system as a “fraud,” saying Americans are given the illusion that elections offer meaningful political choice. He said the US therefore needs an alternative, although he acknowledged that he does not know what form it should take. 

The former Fox News host also accused the country’s broader leadership of pursuing interests disconnected from those of ordinary Americans. He claimed the US government had been “hijacked” by people using it “for their own purposes,” describing the underlying problem as a “bad leadership class.”

Watch full interview:

Israeli Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is expected to decide whether to charge two close aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over alleged lobbying on Qatar’s behalf, local media has reported citing sources.

The so-called Qatargate affair erupted early last year, when Israeli Channel 12 dropped a bombshell investigation alleging that the closest advisors to the PM were paid by Doha to promote Qatari interests to the top security and political authorities in the country. The investigation implicated Yisrael Einhorn, Ofer Golan, Jonatan Urich, and Eli Feldstein, with the latter official already arrested over alleged involvement in the theft and leak of classified documents prior to the publication.

Urich and Feldstein were both detained and questioned last March over the allegations, while Einhorn, who resides in Serbia, refused to return to the country. Golan, a longtime spokesman for Netanyahu, has survived the longest among the implicated officials, departing from his role only this April.

The AG is now expected to decide whether to proceed with the charges against Urich and Feldstein, Israeli media reported on Tuesday. While the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies have not submitted their assessment on the affair yet, unnamed Justice Ministry officials told Channel 13 there was “sufficient evidence” to charge the suspects over contacts with a foreign actor.

Apart from Netanyahu’s aides, the affair could hit Mossad director Roman Gofman, media reports have said. Prior to taking over the agency this June, Gofman served as Netanyahu’s military secretary and could have a conflict of interest over his close ties to the suspects. Justice Ministry officials are now reportedly deliberating whether the intelligence chief should be barred from signing off on the impending assessment from his agency.

The Qatargate affair has left a new major dent in the reputation of Netanyahu, who has been facing assorted corruption allegations for over a decade. The ties between his aides and the Qatari government appear to have been quite long-standing, with the implicated officials allegedly helping Doha regain its positions in the Gulf as early as amid the 2017-2021 diplomatic crisis, as well as develop a strategy to improve its reputation ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.

New York City Council is investigating Polymarket, Kalshi, and other predictive market platforms for “deceptive and predatory” marketing practices, accusing the industry of encouraging gambling and insider trading.

Council Speaker Julie Menin notified Kalshi, Polymarket, Coinbase, and Gemini Titan of the investigation on Tuesday. In a letter to Polymarket seen by Bloomberg, Menin referenced “troubling” news reports suggesting that the company and its competitors “target young adults – and thus potentially minors – with false, deceptive, and unconscionable advertising.”

According to the reports, Polymarket ​allegedly paid ⁠influencers to promote its platform without disclosure, produced videos showing fake trades on its site, presented losing bets as winners, and encouraged insider trading.

“Prediction markets aggressively entice consumers to bet and wager on sports, politics, culture, weather, and pretty much anything. We refuse to let New Yorkers, especially our young people, become collateral damage,” Menin said in a statement on Wednesday.

A White House staffer has been investigated for allegedly making bets based on her advance knowledge of US President Donald Trump’s remarks, while a US special forces soldier has been arrested for using classified Pentagon materials to pocket $400,000 by correctly predicting the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power in January.

Suspicious trades surged during the US-Israeli war on Iran, with The Guardian counting more than $1 billion in “perfectly timed” wagers, including an $850,000 bet just before US strikes on Iran began on February 28, and roughly $950 million in oil futures hours before US Trump announced a ceasefire. Suspicion fell on Washington insiders, and the White House warned staff against insider trading in April.

US journalist Tucker Carlson has said that people linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approached him with material from Hunter Biden’s laptop ahead of the 2020 US presidential election.

The laptop belonging to the son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden became the focus of a major controversy weeks before the vote after the New York Post published material from it pointing to alleged influence-peddling involving the Biden family. The story was widely questioned by US media at the time, while dozens of former intelligence officials suggested it bore the hallmarks of a Russian information operation.

Speaking to RT’s Rick Sanchez on Wednesday, Carlson recalled that he was working at Fox News at the time and said he sent one of his producers to meet a person connected to Netanyahu.

“People connected to Netanyahu came to us,” he said, adding that they claimed to have information from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“It was the Israelis who were pushing that,” Carlson said, referring to the laptop allegations. “They called me.”

Asked who originally obtained it, Carlson said he did not know. “Some people claim it was the Russian security services that did that. Maybe. I have no idea.” he said.

Carlson went on to suggest that Netanyahu did not want Joe Biden to win the 2020 election, pointing to the Israeli leader’s close relationship with Donald Trump. He characterized the episode as Israeli interference in US politics.

The laptop scandal erupted in October of 2020, weeks before the US presidential election, when a Delaware computer repair technician released copies of a hard drive containing emails suggesting foreign influence peddling by the Biden family. The New York Post was the first outlet to publish the story. 

Thereafter, CNN published an analysis titled ‘The anatomy of the New York Post’s dubious Hunter Biden story.’ Talking heads and hosts frequently asked if Donald Trump was spreading ‘Russian disinformation’ by bringing up the scandal during presidential debates.

The Washington Post published multiple opinion pieces downplaying the scandal, while the New York Times published an article titled ‘Trump Had One Last Story To Sell. The Wall Street Journal Wouldn’t Buy It’. US federal broadcaster NPR refused to cover the story at all, while the British Guardian published pieces criticizing social media platforms for allowing the story to circulate, citing “likely misinformation.”

Watch full interview below:

Sometimes trust develops gradually in settings that most people are unaware of, such as a working group, a ministerial handshake, or an agreement made on the fringes of a summit that garners national attention for a single day.

For the better part of a decade, Pakistan and Russia have been developing this kind of trust. In the summer of 2026, there were a number of quiet episodes in quick succession that essentially focused on security, diplomacy, energy, education, and trade, with Afghanistan running through almost all of them as a shared concern.

Work behind the scenes

On June 23, Russian and Pakistani officials gathered in Islamabad for the 12th edition of their Joint Working Group on Countering International Terrorism, led by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Dmitry Lyubinsky and Pakistan’s additional foreign secretary, Ambassador Khalid Jamali. The discussion focused on regional terrorist threats, with a particular emphasis on those originating in Afghanistan. The 12th such meeting – a number which indicates that the relationship is designed not for headlines, but for continuity, the kind that can withstand changes in government and the overall geopolitical climate. The two parties agreed that further intelligence sharing and international cooperation would be critical.

Let us get the practical logic right: Bilateral channels like this one fill a void that slower, more bureaucratic multilateral organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the UN cannot cover on their own. Pakistan values Russia’s counterterrorism experience, particularly in urban warfare and counterinsurgency, while Russia is interested in Pakistan’s own operational experience along its western border. It is not a formal alliance, but it benefits both parties.

A few weeks earlier, the two countries’ interior ministries had already been busy. On June 6, Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi met his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Kolokoltsev, on the sidelines of an SCO gathering in Bishkek, signing agreements on curbing illegal immigration, repatriating citizens, and countering narcotics trafficking. It wasn’t bilateral-only: Naqvi held similar meetings that week with the interior ministers of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Pakistan used a regional platform to navigate several bilateral conversations in a few days. One element is worth noting: Participating ministers estimated that approximately 25 terrorist organizations are now functioning in Afghanistan. That single figure explains why Islamabad and Moscow continue to find reasons to communicate more effectively than any communiqué wording about “shared concerns” can.

There is undoubtedly a shared concern for both nations. Nearly every issue on this bilateral agenda includes Afghanistan, although Pakistan and Russia approach it in different ways. Islamabad’s main worry is groups that it claims operate from Afghan territory against targets in Pakistan, primarily the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which Pakistan firmly believes the Taliban authorities are harboring. This is denied by Kabul, which views the issue as an internal one in Pakistan. The Islamic State – Khorasan Province (ISKP), which has claimed assaults far beyond Afghanistan’s borders, even inside Russia, is Moscow’s top concern.

Where the two countries converge is on engagement rather than isolation as the way to manage that risk. In April 2025, Russia removed the Taliban from its list of designated terrorist organizations, and in July 2025 it went further, becoming the first country to formally recognize the Taliban administration as Afghanistan’s government. This was a historically loaded step, given that the Soviet Union fought and lost a nine-year war there against the mujahedin forebears of today’s Taliban. Moscow’s own explanation leaned on both security and economics: continued cooperation on counterterrorism and counter-narcotics, alongside stated interest in energy, transport, agriculture, and infrastructure projects inside Afghanistan. That recognition was formalized further in January 2026, when Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted the credentials of the Taliban government’s ambassador in Moscow.

The Shanghai spirit

Here comes the question as to why the SCO is important. None of this happens in isolation. Pakistan joined the SCO as a full member in 2017, and the group has become one of the more useful platforms on which Islamabad and Moscow meet as equals. They are two states with overlapping headaches: porous borders, extremism that ignores maps, and narcotics routes that have outlived several governments on both ends. Pakistan’s interior minister has repeatedly invoked the “Shanghai spirit”: mutual trust, equality, and respect for sovereignty as the most suitable or perhaps the only framework for shared security challenges.

Kyrgyzstan has held the SCO’s rotating chairmanship since the Tianjin summit in September 2025, with a year focused on long-term stability, including a proposed International Center for Combating Organized Crime in Bishkek. The 2026 SCO Heads of State Summit will be held there from August 31 to September 1. Pakistan is set to assume the chairmanship immediately afterward. Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar has said Pakistan will use its chairmanship year to emphasize economic ties, connectivity, and regional security, ahead of hosting the next Council of Heads of State summit in Islamabad in 2027, which will be Pakistan’s first time hosting the organization’s flagship leader-level gathering.

The economic relationship between Russia and Pakistan is still finding its footing and both governments now talk about that gap openly. In June, they agreed to work toward a Program of Economic Cooperation running through 2030, aimed at expanding trade and investment and clearing longstanding barriers to bilateral business. Pakistan’s energy minister described the relationship as having moved from Soviet-era ‘unfriendly country’ status to that of a ‘trusted friend’ across trade, energy, defense, and technology, pointing to four recent meetings between Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President Putin as evidence of sustained high-level attention. A Russia-Pakistan Readmission Agreement signed in Bishkek is also expected to ease visa procedures for business travel.

Connectivity is a specific focus: Pakistan has agreed to explore joining Russia’s International North-South Transport Corridor, a roughly 7,200-km sea, rail, and road network linking India, Iran, Azerbaijan, Russia, and Central Asia, with Gwadar Port floated as a possible link point in Pakistan, complementing rather than competing with Chinese-backed infrastructure in the country.

Slow and steady progress

It would be easy to see all of this as background noise – working groups, sidebar signings, chairmanship handovers, and pipeline negotiations that have run for over a decade. But the pattern holds together. Pakistan and Russia have built a security relationship with real institutional depth, anchored in shared (even if not identical) worries about Afghanistan; a diplomatic calendar that gives Pakistan a bigger regional platform through 2027; and an economic relationship that both sides now describe candidly as underdeveloped and in need of exactly the kind of patient, unglamorous work on trade corridors, pipelines, and payment mechanisms that rarely makes the front page but is usually what determines whether a partnership becomes durable rather than merely symbolic.

Not every diplomatic story needs a dramatic turn to be worth telling. Sometimes the story is simply that two neighbors who once had little to say to each other now have a standing appointment across several tracks at once and keep it, year after year, one number, one agreement, one pipeline at a time.

Most Poles would back the deportation of unemployed military-age Ukrainian men, a recent survey by the Warsaw-based IBRiS Institute for Market and Social Research has indicated.

Public perception of Ukrainians in Poland has deteriorated in recent months amid a diplomatic spat between the two countries linked to Kiev’s lionization of the perpetrators of WWII massacres of Poles.

Ukraine imposed general mobilization shortly after the escalation of the conflict with Russia in February of 2022, barring nearly all military-age men from leaving the country. Nevertheless, tens of thousands have crossed the border illegally and fled to the European Union.

As of late June, some 961,170 Ukrainians were residing in Poland under temporary protection, according to Eurostat.

Over a million Ukrainians have also fled to Russia since 2022.

On Wednesday, Rzeczpospolita newspaper, citing the IBRiS survey, reported that 67% of respondents believe that Poland should deport Ukrainian men of military age who are not legally employed in the country. The poll was conducted last week after the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party put forward the proposal.

While the idea unsurprisingly proved popular among PiS supporters and those sympathetic toward the right-wing Confederation party, over 50% of voters backing the ruling coalition of pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk also said they would back the deportation of Ukrainian men, according to the survey.

Earlier in July, Rzeczpospolita, citing data from Poland’s National Police Headquarters, reported that there had been a 30% year-on-year rise in hate crime complaints from Ukrainians residing in the country.

Multiple videos depicting assaults on Ukrainians in Poland have been circulating online in recent months.

Relations between Warsaw and Kiev soured after Zelensky named one of the country’s commando units after the “heroes of the UPA” (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) in May. Poland holds the Ukrainian nationalist militia, which collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II, responsible for the massacre of up to 100,000 Poles in what is now western Ukraine.

Despite a fierce backlash from the Polish public and officials, as well as the European Parliament’s condemnation of what it described as an “unnecessary and unprovoked escalation,” Kiev has stood by the decision.

Meanwhile, in mid-July, the EU announced that it would stop granting temporary protection to newly arriving Ukrainians liable for military service starting from March 2027.

Around the same time, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt similarly told Die Welt that while “asylum is, of course, still possible [for Ukrainians] in principle… fleeing military service is not grounds for asylum.”

Ukrainian officials have, in turn, repeatedly urged EU member states to repatriate Ukrainian draft dodgers as Kiev has struggled to replenish its military amid mounting casualties.

Moscow has accused the leadership in Kiev and its Western backers of being willing to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

The Pentagon was accused of whitewashing US Army crimes after publishing its annual estimate of civilian casualties in 2025.

The report, submitted to Congress late Monday and obtained by US news outlets, contains numbers that are far lower than estimates by independent outlets.

The Pentagon concluded that US military operations killed 153 civilians and injured 243 last year. All of the cited casualties in 2025 stemmed from Washington’s bombing campaign against the Houthis in Yemen, while another 15 remain under review.

However, independent monitors have reported figures significantly higher. The Airwars group has estimated that at least 258 civilians may have been killed during the Yemen campaign, while the Yemen Data Project has put the toll at 238 dead and 467 injured. The Pentagon recorded no civilian casualties from US military operations in the Western Hemisphere, despite dozens of strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific beginning in September of 2025 – a point of particular criticism.

Two US government officials cited anonymously by The Intercept rejected the Pentagon’s assessment, with one describing the report as a “total whitewash” and another calling it “a f***ing joke.”

More than 200 people have been killed since Washington launched its campaign against suspected drug-smuggling vessels. Around 120 died in 2025 alone, but none were classified as civilians in the Pentagon report.

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has called for immigrants to be housed more widely across the UK, as the country continues to grapple with large numbers of people crossing the English Channel.

More than 3,000 illegal immigrants have reportedly reached the country by boat in the three weeks since Burnham replaced Keir Starmer as prime minister.

The crossings increase the already existing pressure over asylum accommodation in Britain. Burnham’s Labour Party is facing increasing voter rejection over its pro-immigrant stance while opposition parties have strengthened their policy stances on immigration. Burnham told the media on Tuesday: “We cannot have a situation where it’s only the poorest communities in the country that receive all of the dispersal of refugees and asylum seekers.”

“I do believe all parts of the country need to […] play their part,” he added.

The government plans to accommodate up to 1,250 male asylum seekers at a former military site near Piddington, a village of around 400 residents in Oxfordshire. Locals have opposed the plan, citing concerns over its scale and impact on the community.

The comments came after 911 people reached Britain in small boats over three days. On Monday, 230 arrived aboard a single vessel, the highest number recorded on one boat, according to official figures.

Nearly 100,000 people were receiving asylum support in Britain at the end of March, according to government figures, including more than 20,000 housed in hotels.

Immigration has become an increasingly contentious issue in Britain, with protests erupting in several parts of the country amid public concern over asylum accommodation and a number of high-profile crimes involving migrants.

Europe has faced a migration crisis since 2015, when more than a million people arrived on the continent, many from the Middle East and Africa. Britain has since seen a sharp rise in Channel crossings, which have become a major political issue.

The only response Western nations will understand for seizing Russian commercial vessels is a forceful one, including retaliation in kind, Carl Zha, the host of the Silk and Steel podcast, told RT.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned the seizure of Russia-linked shipping as “piracy” and a gross violation of international maritime laws. Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated the position on Wednesday while attending major drills of the country’s Pacific Fleet, warning that hostile actions will be met with an appropriate response.

“If such a policy is implemented in practice, we will be forced to take mirror responses. And not necessarily in the waters where our ships are being raided. We’ll do it wherever and anywhere we see fit,” Putin stated.

Retaliation in kind for attacks on shipping are long overdue, given that Western nations have been engaging in such acts with impunity for a while, Zha believes. 

Responding in force is actually the only approach that would work with the West, which has been built on the ‘might makes right’ approach in the first place, Zha suggested. 

“The common reframe of Western colonial power is that, you know, there’s only one language the native can understand, and it’s a language of force. Actually, every accusation is a confession. For many in the Western NATO alliance, that force is the only language they can understand. So, if Russia does push back, they will be put in their place,” he said.

Watch the full video below:

The US has called Ukraine to heel for targeting oil tankers in the Black Sea after Kiev began launching drone attacks on vessels sailing to a partly US-owned Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) terminal in Russia, the Financial Times has reported.

Ukrainian drone raids targeting the CPC – which funnels Kazakh crude across southern Russia to a marine terminal near Novorossiysk, from where tankers carry it onward to Europe and Asia – have tested Washington's patience to the limit, prompting US Vice-President J.D. Vance to press Vladimir Zelensky to shut down the attacks during a July 31 phone call, unidentified Ukrainian officials told the FT.

The CPC route incorporates a combination of Russian, Kazakh, and Western interests, with Chevron and ExxonMobil among the heavyweight US shareholders.

Ukraine also reportedly attempted to use the strikes as a bargaining chip in talks with the US. An FT source claimed that Kiev had agreed to Washington’s request because it was seeking a US license to produce desperately needed Patriot interceptor missiles.

While US President Donald Trump promised a license in early July, he later walked back on that pledge, while reportedly declining to send additional air defense missiles due to a shortfall caused by the Iran war.

Russia has denounced Ukraine’s attacks on oil tankers as “terrorist acts,” while accusing Kiev of targeting civilian infrastructure.

Kazakhstan also protested the drone raids, though without directly blaming Ukraine. It called the strikes on civilian vessels moving CPC crude as an “unacceptable infringement” on its economic interests and warned that they risked destabilizing lawful trade, energy markets, and global supply chains.

However, Kiev publicly refused to accept responsibility and urged Kazakhstan and other affected countries to “refrain from making hasty and unfounded accusations.”

British officials and diplomats fear an unintended maritime escalation with Russia and are pressuring senior military leaders to restore direct communication with their Russian counterparts, The Times reported on Tuesday.

According to the newspaper, former British chief of the defense staff Tony Radakin and his successor, Richard Knighton, have repeatedly sought contact with Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov but have been unable to speak with him for four years. Their last reported conversation took place in 2022. There has likewise been no direct contact between the two countries’ defense ministers since October of that year.

Moscow has repeatedly said it does not rule out diplomacy with Western countries despite regarding many of them, including the UK, as “unfriendly.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wrote in a keynote article in June that Russia is “not opposed to contacts with any party.”

The Times cited sources as saying that “senior officials and diplomats are nervous about the lack of communication” and are concerned that “a misunderstanding in the high seas could be the trigger for a wider conflict with Russia.”

A military hotline linking the UK armed forces with the Russian Defense Ministry’s situation center remains operational. Diplomatic communication is also possible through the two countries’ embassies.

Relations between London and Moscow had deteriorated significantly long before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Russia has accused Britain of playing a major role in worsening tensions, including by supporting the 2014 Western-backed change of government in Kiev.

In 2021, the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender sailed through waters off Crimea that Russia considers its territorial sea, with London claiming it was exercising the right of innocent passage through Ukrainian waters.

Then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson discouraged Ukraine from going through with a peace agreement negotiated with Moscow during talks in Istanbul in the early weeks of the conflict.

Alongside France, the UK co-leads the so-called ‘coalition of the willing’, a group of countries supporting Kiev’s terms for resolving the conflict and advocating for deployment of NATO forces in Ukraine in the future.

In an article written for Politico Europe that the outlet ultimately declined to publish, Lavrov accused Britain and other Western European governments of pursuing expansionist policies while portraying Russia as the aggressor. He argued that such an atmosphere was “scarcely the climate for substantive dialogue.”

A rare solar eclipse will sweep across parts of Russia and Europe on Wednesday, with the Moon set to completely block the Sun in some areas and obscure much of it across a wider region.

The event will be livestreamed on RT starting at 19:50 Moscow time (16:50 GMT). The broadcast will take place from the Lakhta Center in St. Petersburg, the tallest building in Russia and Europe.

Where and when can the solar eclipse be seen?

The event will be the first total solar eclipse visible from mainland Europe since 1999. Totality will pass through Greenland, Iceland, and parts of Spain, where the Moon will completely cover the Sun, briefly darkening the sky and revealing its outer atmosphere, known as the corona.

What else is happening?

Several other notable astronomical events are also taking place around the same time, including the peak of the Perseid meteor shower and a planetary alignment, although they will be best observed at different times.

Where to watch the eclipse in Russia?

In Russia, some of the best views are expected in St. Petersburg. The Moon will begin moving across the Sun at around 20:00 Moscow time and will obscure roughly 80% of the solar disk at the peak at about 20:50. The Sun will set only minutes later, putting the eclipse low over the northwestern horizon.

Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and Kaliningrad are also expected to see a substantial partial eclipse, while the effect will weaken sharply farther southeast. In Moscow, only a tiny portion of the Sun is expected to be covered shortly before sunset.

What will the eclipse look like in Europe?

Elsewhere in Europe, the eclipse will range from total to deep partial depending on location. It will unfold through the late afternoon and evening, with the greatest eclipse occurring at around 17:46 GMT. Britain is expected to see most of the Sun obscured, with the anticipated drop in solar generation even prompting the country’s largest household energy supplier, Octopus Energy, to ask customers to reduce electricity use during the evening peak.

Wear special glasses to see it in person

Experts warn that the Sun should not be viewed with the naked eye or through binoculars, telescopes, or other optics without proper protection, as even very dark sunglasses cannot prevent retinal damage.

Viewers are advised to use dedicated eclipse glasses and solar filters, or use smoked glass, a welding mask, or old floppy disks or CDs. Optical instruments should only be used with filters designed specifically for solar observation. Smartphone cameras also require protection, as photographing the Sun directly can damage the sensor.

Britain’s biggest household power supplier, Octopus Energy, has asked customers to cut electricity use for two hours on Wednesday to cope with a solar eclipse during peak demand.

A total eclipse of the Sun – the first visible from mainland Europe since 1999 – will occur on August 12 from 15:00 to 19:00 GMT (4-8 PM London time). The UK is expected to experience a deep partial eclipse, with around 90% to 96% of the Sun obscured.

The National Energy System Operator (NESO), which runs Britain’s grid, estimates solar generation could fall by up to 1.3 gigawatts – equivalent to the power used by around 1 million homes.

With the eclipse partly coinciding with peak evening demand, Octopus Energy asked its roughly 8 million UK customers on Monday to avoid using appliances and devices such as dishwashers, games consoles, and washing machines from 6-8 PM.

Direct imports of Russian coal, crude oil, and refined petroleum products fell to zero by mid-2022, forcing British suppliers to accelerate the shift to renewables and secure alternative imports. Growing reliance on costly liquefied natural gas (LNG) has left Britain paying premiums on the global market and more exposed to price volatility.

London issued a trade license allowing imports of jet fuel and diesel refined from Russian crude in third countries, while another waived restrictions on shipping LNG from two Russian terminals. Former Bank of England Deputy Governor Howard Davies recently warned that Britain could be heading toward an energy crisis comparable to the 1970s, when oil prices quadrupled following the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and an embargo by Arab producers on Western nations.

Moscow has warned that sanctions, particularly those targeting energy, are illegal and self-defeating, and will backfire on the countries that impose them. Russia has also signaled that it is prepared to fill oil supply gaps caused by the Middle East conflict and resume deliveries to European countries, but says it has received no response.

Sailors on a US aircraft carrier operating near Iran attempted to jump overboard amid exhaustion and low morale caused by extended operations, several news outlets have reported, citing crew members’ families.

Families have expressed concern over living conditions and mental health on the USS Abraham Lincoln, whose deployment began in late November and was expected to end in May but has since been extended indefinitely. The ship reportedly went long periods without regular port visits for replenishment, maintenance, and rest.

Annabelle Loma told Military Times on Tuesday that the ship’s ombudsman had informed her that her husband had tried to jump off the carrier. “He thinks he’ll get a dishonorable discharge, and just because he was burnt out,” she said.

Maria Rodriguez, the wife of another sailor, said her husband had intervened in a separate incident, preventing a shipmate from going overboard.

According to Stars and Stripes, active-duty sailors and family members described a bleak atmosphere aboard the ship, detailing reports of suicidal thoughts and at least one case in which a crew member was prevented from jumping overboard.

“We’ve just been turning and burning the whole time we’ve deployed,” a sailor told the publication, noting that morale, which was high at the beginning of the deployment, had declined.

The US Navy said in a statement on Monday that it was “continuously conducting assessments to monitor and sustain the psychological readiness of every sailor.”

Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group was preparing to relieve the Lincoln but did not provide a timeline, citing operational security.

The US and Israel launched their war against Iran with a wave of airstrikes on February 28. Iran, however, withstood the bombardment, while peace talks have largely stalled as the vital Strait of Hormuz remains closed to most shipping.

Polls show that US President Donald Trump’s war has been consistently unpopular among Americans. According to an Economist/YouGov survey released on Tuesday, the president’s approval rating dropped to 33%, its lowest level recorded by YouGov since he returned to office in 2025.

A major US produce supplier has recalled jalapeno products sold through major grocery store and restaurant chains amid a Salmonella outbreak, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Taylor Farms has also been linked to a separate multistate outbreak of another foodborne illness.

The recalled products contained jalapenos grown in the Mexican state of Sinaloa and distributed by Coast Citrus Distributors, according to the FDA.
A number of retailers, including Hannaford, Kroger, Stop & Shop, Target, Trader Joe’s, Walmart, and Whole Foods, received recalled products across 26 states. An investigation into the outbreak is still underway.

At least 345 people have contracted Salmonella since mid-June, according to health authorities, with dozens of hospitalizations reported.

People usually contract Salmonella infections after consuming food contaminated with the bacteria. Symptoms commonly include diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps. Young children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems are at greater risk of developing serious complications.

The outbreak, which began in May, has sickened at least 6,358 people across 15 states, according to the CDC. In total, 278 people have been hospitalized and two deaths reported. Health officials have warned that the true number of infections is likely higher, as some people recover without medical care and are never tested for Cyclospora.

Cyclosporiasis can cause prolonged diarrhea, as well as bloating, gas, stomach cramps, nausea, fatigue, and other gastrointestinal symptoms.

Taylor Farms was also the supplier of yellow onions implicated in a 2024 E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.

Several major news outlets have claimed that US President Donald Trump effectively used journalists covering his travels as decoys last month when he secretly switched planes due to a suspected Iranian assassination plot.

Initial media reports said Trump abruptly switched from his Qatari-gifted Boeing 747-8 to an older Air Force One while returning to the UK from a NATO summit in Türkiye after receiving intelligence about a potential plot to assassinate him. The switch was reportedly made because the older aircraft has more advanced life-support and security systems.

On Monday, several outlets reported new details, alleging that Trump had boarded the older Air Force One before being secretly transferred in an airport catering truck to a smaller military aircraft, which flew him to the UK. Once there, he reportedly re-boarded the older Air Force One, creating the impression that he had traveled aboard it the entire time.

News organizations including Reuters, CNN, the Washington Post, and the New York Times argued that the move potentially put the lives of journalists and administration staffers traveling aboard the presidential plane at risk. According to CNN senior reporter Aaron Blake, journalists felt they had been treated like “unwitting and unknowing decoys very much in the line of fire.”

Trump, who has often accused journalists of spreading lies about him, said on Tuesday that he had acted on the advice of the Secret Service and the military. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said last month that although the new Air Force One was “perfectly safe for the president’s travels,” it was slated for additional enhancements.

The Department of Justice attempted to subpoena New York Times journalists over their reporting on the new Air Force One, while the Pentagon recently revoked the security clearance of former Air Force chief Frank Kendall, whom it accused of leaking classified information about the aircraft to the media.

The US and Israel killed dozens of Iranian political and military leaders in targeted strikes, including the country’s longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Iranian officials vowed to avenge their deaths, while protesters in Tehran and other cities called for Trump to be killed.

Canada’s University of Alberta has won a legal battle to dissolve a research trust named after Ukrainian SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka, whose standing ovation in the Canadian parliament from lawmakers, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky sparked an international scandal.

The controversy erupted during Zelensky’s 2023 visit to Ottawa, when then-House Speaker Anthony Rota introduced Hunka, who served in the Waffen-SS Galicia Division during World War II, as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero” to rapturous applause from the packed parliamentary chamber.

Hunka’s division was formed by Nazi Germany in 1943 largely from Ukrainian volunteers and has been linked to brutal anti-guerrilla operations in Poland and Soviet Ukraine and massacres of civilians. Nevertheless, the assembled Canadian lawmakers gave Hunka two standing ovations, joined by visiting German Ambassador Sabine Sparwasser.

After Hunka’s past came to light, the incident became an international embarrassment for Ottawa, drawing condemnation from multiple countries, Jewish rights groups, and the UN. Rota eventually resigned, while Trudeau issued a public apology.

Shortly after the scandal erupted, the University of Alberta acknowledged that it administered a research fund named after Hunka, a CAD30,000 ($21,500) endowment established with a donation from his son to support research into the history of the Ukrainian Catholic Church. It had remained largely obscure until the scandal, with no known beneficiaries.

The university argued that public reaction to Hunka’s Waffen-SS service meant continued association with his name could damage its reputation and public trust. The dispute went to court this spring.

In a ruling on Friday, Court of King’s Bench Justice Debra Yungwirth sided with the university, finding that the controversy had created sufficient reputational concerns to justify terminating the trust.

In an email to the Edmonton Journal, Hunka’s lawyer Julian Savaryn said his client is “disappointed” and considering an appeal.

Canada has a sizable ethnic Ukrainian community, partly due to post-World War II migration that included members of anti-Soviet forces, some of whom had collaborated with or served Nazi Germany. Among the Canadian lawmakers who gave Hunka a standing ovation was Chrystia Freeland, one of the country’s most prominent political figures of the past decade and a descendant of a known Ukrainian Nazi collaborator.

Moscow has also repeatedly condemned Kiev for honoring Ukrainian nationalist figures who collaborated with Nazi Germany and accused its Western backers of turning a blind eye. Ukraine has named streets and erected monuments to World War II-era nationalist figures such as Stepan Bandera, leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), whose factions were implicated in mass killings of Poles and Jews. Russia has cited “denazification” as one of the stated goals of its military operation against the Kiev regime.

The EU is pumping €90 billion ($105 billion) into Ukraine without knowing how the burden of the interest-free loan will be distributed among member states, German MEP Fabio De Masi told the Berliner Zeitung, warning that the money will enrich “corrupt oligarchs” in Ukraine.

Member states gave the green light to the scheme in April, with Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia securing exemptions.

On Monday, German MEP Fabio De Masi, who co-chairs the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance party, told the Berliner Zeitung that the “European Commission apparently doesn’t even know the extent to which EU member states will have to guarantee the Ukraine loan.” 

He cited the commission’s response to his inquiry, which said that a “breakdown [of the financial burden] by member state” could not be provided.

De Masi said the funds, which are being backed by joint EU borrowing on the capital market, would end up enriching “corrupt oligarchs” in Ukraine.

Since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the EU has given more than €216 billion to Kiev. Germany has spent over €43.3 billion, while earmarking an additional €57.6 billion in military aid for the coming years, thus emerging as Ukraine’s top backer within the bloc.

In late June, the European Commission began disbursing the first €3.2 billion tranche as part of the scheme, under which Ukraine is due to receive €30 billion in budgetary aid and €60 billion for its military needs in 2026 and 2027. The installment was soon followed by another 3.9 billion earmarked for drone procurement.

European Council head Antonio Costa previously said Ukraine would only need to pay back the money after it receives reparations from Russia following the conclusion of the conflict. Moscow has dismissed the notion as “detached from reality.”

Commenting on the EU loan scheme, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the bloc of “digging into the pockets of its own taxpayers” to prolong the conflict.

In an article for Politico Europe in June which the Brussels-based media outlet eventually rejected, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov argued that EU leaders view the Kiev regime as a battering ram against Russia, with no regard for the lives of ordinary Ukrainians.

A US healthcare company has come under fire after a manager at its Colombian operation was filmed warning employees that they could face consequences for leaving work during the deadly earthquake.

The 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing more than 200 people and leaving thousands missing. Buildings collapsed and infrastructure was damaged across several cities, prompting the government to declare a national disaster.

A video from the Medellin operation of Florida-based Blackstone Medical Services went viral after showing a manager identified by local media as Jack Munoz addressing employees shortly after the earthquake.

“I’m not going to give you the order to leave: whoever wants to leave can leave, but if nothing happens today, you will have to answer for abandoning your post,” Munoz is heard saying.

🇨🇴🚨 INDIGNANTE: ¡No los dejaron evacuar tras el terremoto!

La empresa Blackstone Medical Services Colombia ha generado polémica luego de que se viralizara la respuesta de un jefe a sus empleados.

Trabajadores denuncian que fueron amenazados con ser despedidos por “abandono… pic.twitter.com/rzHDnbmjji

— Alerta Mundial (@AlertaMundoNews) August 11, 2026

The footage prompted criticism online, with users accusing the company of mistreating staff and flooding its Google profile with negative reviews, La Razon reported.

The row also drew the attention of Colombian political figures. Former Labor Minister Antonio Sanguino called for an immediate intervention by the Labor Ministry, claiming that employees who spoke out about the incident face possible disciplinary action.

“This cannot go unpunished,” Sanguino wrote on X, urging the authorities to provide assistance to the workers.

According to Tipnes, the employees who were present were evacuated and the building was inspected before staff returned to work.

Blackstone Medical Services is a US healthcare company headquartered in Tampa, Florida. Founded in 2012, it specializes in home testing for obstructive sleep apnea. Its Colombian operation provides clinical and administrative support to the company’s US business, including customer service, sales, logistics, medical authorizations, and collections.

Moderate Democrats are damaging their brand by campaigning alongside crazy leftist radicals who openly call for the destruction of the West, White people, and the United States.

Democrats are quietly expressing concern that the entire Democratic Party is about to go up in flames as increasingly radical voices are going mainstream. As ZeroHedge put it: “Radical leftists and Islamist activists are increasingly converging inside the Democratic Party as Democratic Socialists of America, forming what can only be described as a ‘red-green alliance.’”

The face of the Democratic Socialists of America radicalization belongs to unofficial spokesperson Turkish-American Hasan Piker, 35, who has called on his followers to “kill capitalists.”

“Yeah kill them! Kill those motherf**kers and murder those motherf**kers in the streets. Let the streets soak in their f**king red capitalist blood, dude,” Piker said in a recent live podcast.

On another occasion, the revolutionary socialist called for the opening of the border and the extermination of the White race.

“We want more immigrants to come into your countries and then they’re gonna f**k your sisters and then your daughters. We’re here to destroy the White Race, b**ch.”

This is the same guy who socialists Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and newly nominated Democrat Senator Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed want fronting the Democrat Party. Scary stuff. Shockingly, instead of denouncing his crude message, Democrats are taking to the campaign trail with this young man. Needless to say, that is a political strategy that only promises disaster.

“The Republican messaging is communist, socialist,” Clinton said. “It’s going to be a VERY effective attack... All I know is that is the attack that Trump is leading with... They are trying to bring back scare tactics about our followers and candidates.”

With individuals like Piker, whose favorite flag is not the American flag but the flag of Hezbollah (with a clenched fist hoisting an AK-47 in the air), it won’t be necessary for the Republicans to employ scare tactics. Individuals like Piker are political gifts from heaven that keep on giving. All they need to do is replay his heinous comments for average Americans to hear. Even the Democrats will start to ask themselves if this is really the sort of person they want to associate with. It could be enough to make thousands of Democrats switch their political allegiance to the Republicans.

At this point, in order to help end the confusion over terms, it might be helpful to define the various arms of the Democratic Party, which can be roughly divided into five groupings. On the Neoliberal left you have three such groups.

• 1. The democrats. These are the establishment, focused on incremental reform within capitalism. Mostly corporate-aligned.
• 2. The liberals. They think the government should solve inequality through policy, not systemic overhaul. Morally driven.
• 3. The progressives. Want structural reform: Medicare for all, Green New Deal, debt cancellation. They flirt with socialism but don’t want to overthrow capitalism.

Now on the Far Left you have two more.

• 4. The reformist socialists. These want to overthrow capitalism through electoral politics by getting into the system and making small changes over time. Their goal is post-capitalist society.
• 5. The revolutionary socialists. They believe capitalism must be overthrown entirely. They reject elections and reformism, advocates for revolution, abolition, and radical restructuring of society.

In addition to Mr. Piker, there is another individual on the left, the progressive Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, who is the Democratic nominee in the 2026 US Senate election in Michigan. On April 7, 2026, El-Sayed held campaign events on several university campuses in Michigan with Piker sharing the stage with him. El Sayed has drawn scrutiny for his questionable affiliations.

“I look at the connections that his father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, and he has affiliations with two brotherhood-linked groups,” Shideler told the hushed assembly.

Socialists have been in the Democratic Party for years, but it is only now that violent radicals are entering the mainstream spotlight. Coming on the heels of Bernie Sanders, a self-described Democratic Socialist, was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), a member of the Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialists of America. AOC, who is the face of ‘The Squad,’ an informal group of progressive Democratic members in the US House of Representatives, brought to the United States a tame version of socialism that many Americans could readily relate to. At least she was not calling for the destruction of the country.

She advocates a peaceful progressive platform that includes support for worker cooperatives, Medicare for All, tuition-free public colleges, a jobs guarantee, and a Green New Deal. These are initiatives that do not send shivers down the voters’ spines.

Her political program is a vast difference from the deranged world of Mr. Piker and others, who literally want to destroy the United States as we know it. The Democratic Party must be far more selective in who it chooses to align itself with. Their hard-fought for reputation is on the line.

The leader of the center-right European People’s Party has called on the EU to set up migrant return hubs in Africa to enable swift deportations. However, similar schemes have failed before.

“Just as a village policeman has no chance against organized crime, no single member state will defeat the internationally operating people smuggling mafia alone,” he wrote. “Only a united Europe can put an end to their activities.”

The EU, he continued, should set up migrant hubs in Africa, where illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers could be sent once ordered to leave the bloc’s member states. Governments in Africa could be enticed with “offers of strong trade relations, economic cooperation, and [pathways to] legal migration,” he suggested.

Weber is not a fringe MEP. The EPP is the largest umbrella party in the European Parliament, and counts European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and Parliament President Roberta Metsola among its members.

The EPP’s stance on immigration has never been considered ‘hardline’, and the group’s manifesto once described housing refugees as the EU’s “responsibility.” However, with right-wing parties surging in popularity across the bloc – 27% of sitting MEPs now belong to the so-called ‘far right’ – the group has finally hardened its positions. Yet even if the EU elite now has the political will to deport migrants to Africa, Weber’s scheme faces some significant obstacles – from other EU institutions.

Are migrant return hubs legal?

Until recently, the EU’s common rules on deportation were set out in the 2008 Return Directive, with enforcement left up to individual member states. The directive explicitly banned ‘return hubs’ in third countries, specifying that migrants could only be sent back to their home countries or countries they had transited on their way to the EU – with these countries’ consent.

This directive was overruled in June with the passage of the Return Regulation. The regulation allows for the establishment of return hubs and the detention of illegal immigrants pending removal, and forces individual member states to recognize deportation orders issued in other states.

We’ve just concluded the final negotiations on the Return Regulation - and we have a deal.

We now have longer detention, real entry bans, and return hubs in third countries.

The era of deportations has begun.

If you try to enter Europe illegally — you will never make Europe… pic.twitter.com/tncWDVt6Wu

— Charlie Weimers MEP 🇸🇪 (@weimers) June 1, 2026

Could migrants cheat the system?

However, while the regulation allows for the use of return hubs, their use will be optional. “It should be noted that the establishment of return hubs under the regulation is not mandatory and that it will be up to individual member states to determine whether they will seek to establish such an arrangement with a third country,” Irish Justice Minister Jim O'Callaghan said during a parliamentary debate on the issue in July.

As such, the EU’s returns policy will likely remain fragmented. Even if a member state negotiates a return hub arrangement with a third country, as Italy de-facto did with its establishment of processing centers in Albania in 2024, a migrant would be able to evade capture and deportation by entering the EU via a country with more lax immigration policies, such as Ireland or Spain.

“Independent, unannounced checks at Europe's border crossings to verify compliance with EU border protection law must become standard practice,” he wrote. “And it's also clear: if national authorities are unwilling to protect our borders, then Frontex must be given command authority. European laws must be upheld, if necessary, by the European border protection service. “

“At the next regular European Council meeting, we therefore need a binding implementation plan – with clear responsibilities, fixed deadlines, and verifiable targets.”

What do EU courts say about deportation?

If Weber gets his way and the EU’s 27 members synchronize their deportation policies, one major obstacle remains: the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). This Strasbourg-based court is tasked with interpreting the European Convention on Human Rights, which explicitly states that “no one may be removed, expelled or extradited to a state where there is a serious risk that he or she would be subjected to the death penalty, torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

In 2018, the court ruled that member states may not deport migrants to a third country where they would be at risk of deportation to a fourth country that may be unsafe, a practice known as “refoulement.” The 2018 case involved two Bangladeshi migrants who had entered Hungary via Serbia. The ECHR ruled that Hungary had broken the law by deporting the migrants back to Serbia, as the Hungarian authorities could not adequately prove that Serbia would not send them somewhere else afterwards.

Under Weber’s proposed system, the EU would still have to prove that migrants sent to African hubs would be “guaranteed access to reception facilities adapted to their specific vulnerabilities,” and would not be at risk of refoulement, a tall order in some of the states floated as potential hub locations: Ghana, Senegal, and Uganda. The EU does not consider these countries “safe,” meaning any effort to transfer migrants there could instantly be stricken down by the ECHR.

Have migrant return hubs been tried before?

As mentioned above, Italy signed a bilateral agreement with Albania in 2023, and two Italian-run detention centers opened on Albanian soil the following year. However, these were offshore processing centers rather than return hubs, and were intended as temporary facilities where adult males intercepted in international waters en route to Italy would have their asylum claims processed. Single adult males made up 74% of migrants arriving on Italian shores at the time.

The legality of the centers was immediately challenged in Italian courts, and at the Court of Justice of the European Union. Out of just 24 migrants transferred to the centers since October 2024, all have since been taken to Italy after Italian judges refused to validate their detention.

However, the UK Supreme Court declared the scheme unlawful in 2023, ruling that Rwanda could wrongfully reject claims and transfer migrants to unsafe countries. The ruling explicitly cited ECHR guidance on the subject. Although the UK is no longer a member of the EU, it is still a party to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Britain’s Conservative government challenged this ruling, signing an agreement with Rwanda in which the latter vowed to bring its asylum system up to British standards. Ultimately, the scheme was ended when Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer took power in 2024. The UK paid the Rwandan government £290 million ($391 million) in total before the scheme was scrapped, and not a single deportation flight departed for Rwanda.

Has anyone asked the Africans?

EU officials have not commented on negotiations with officials in Africa, although the idea of placing return hubs on the continent has been opposed by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Union, and officials in individual African nations.

Speaking to AFP in April, a European diplomat said that some African leaders have expressed contempt at the idea of being treated as a “geographical dump area” for people rejected by the EU.

In an era defined by fierce geopolitical competition, FBI Director Kash Patel has charted a course that prioritizes pragmatism and results.

By building selective yet substantive law-enforcement partnerships with China and Russia, the bureau is demonstrating that great powers can set aside deeper differences to confront transnational crime that endangers citizens everywhere. This development deserves recognition as a mature, interest-based approach, showing that effective governance in a multipolar world requires the capacity to cooperate wherever it delivers concrete gains.

Breaking the ice with Beijing

Patel’s engagement with his Chinese counterparts marks a clear departure from years of a near-total freeze in high-level law-enforcement contacts. In November 2025, he became the first FBI director to visit China since 2016, meeting Vice Minister of Public Security Xu Datong. He returned in July 2026 for discussions with State Councillor and Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong.

Chinese officials have called for deepening constructive dialogue grounded in mutual respect. According to Patel, the results were made possible by direct engagement under the Trump administration’s leadership. The relationship did not emerge overnight; it followed President Donald Trump’s May 2025 visit to China and subsequent high-level understandings on fentanyl precursors. What matters is that both sides chose to institutionalize the opening rather than allow it to remain a one-off diplomatic gesture.

Four dedicated working groups now operate on cyber fraud, violent crimes against children, counternarcotics, and a fugitive task force. Chinese Ministry of Public Security officers travel to FBI facilities in the US on a monthly rotating basis; FBI personnel make reciprocal trips to China. Officials on both sides report near-daily communication – an intensity of contact that had not existed for years.

This steady exchange has already produced operational results. One notable joint action, Operation Sand Dollar, brought together the FBI, China’s Ministry of Public Security, and Dubai police against a major cyber-scam center. The effort yielded roughly 300 arrests, the seizure of approximately $300 million, and the liberation of thousands of trafficked workers. Such outcomes illustrate the practical value of treating certain criminal networks as shared problems rather than exclusive domains of competition.

Patel has been explicit about the philosophy guiding this work. He has noted that the decision to pursue cooperation with China despite widespread advice against it proves what is possible with almost any counterpart: “The fact that we did it with China when everyone said, ‘Don’t do it,’ and, ‘You can’t do it,’ shows what we can do with almost anyone.” The partnerships are deliberately limited to specific categories of transnational crime; they do not pretend to resolve broader strategic disagreements. That clarity of scope makes them sustainable under the current circumstances.

Opening a channel to Moscow

The same pragmatic approach is being applied to Russia. Patel is preparing a visit to Moscow and St. Peterburg, tentatively scheduled for mid-October, with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) expected to serve as host. The last sitting FBI director known to have traveled to Russia was Robert Mueller in 2013. Patel’s planned trip builds on quieter collaboration already underway for more than a year against violent criminal networks.

This outreach occurs against the backdrop of Trump’s broader effort to reduce tensions with Moscow. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have made repeated visits, including meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and further contacts are anticipated. Putin’s special envoy on foreign investment and economic cooperation, Kirill Dmitriev, has publicly welcomed the emerging China-Russia-US intelligence and law-enforcement cooperation, signaling that Moscow sees value in the channel.

Patel’s initiative does not stand alone. Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, long regarded as a China hardliner, has expressed clear interest in visiting China and revitalizing professional military-to-military ties. Colby’s willingness to explore direct engagement signals an important evolution: Even those most focused on strategic competition now recognize that sustained channels of communication and cooperation on discrete issues can reduce miscalculation risks and open space for practical problem-solving.

US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has likewise signaled openness to restoring reliable military communication channels with Beijing. Hegseth has publicly emphasized the need to reboot US-China military hotlines and crisis-management mechanisms that had atrophied in recent years. These steps are framed not as concessions but as tools for managing competition responsibly – ensuring that routine incidents at sea or in the air do not spiral into larger confrontations.

Together, Colby’s interest in revitalizing professional ties and Hegseth’s push to restore functional hotlines illustrate that selective engagement is gaining traction across key national-security institutions. These parallel moves suggest a wider recognition that treating every interaction as zero-sum is neither realistic nor in the interest of American, Chinese, or Russian security.

Other recent examples reinforce the point. The US and China have coordinated on precursor chemical controls and fugitive repatriations even without an extradition treaty. Quiet work with Russian counterparts against organized crime has continued despite the larger geopolitical climate. In each case, the governing principle is the same: Identify overlapping interests, establish disciplined mechanisms, and measure success by results rather than by empty moralism.

Looking ahead, the Patel approach offers a template for how great powers can manage coexistence. It rejects both naive engagement and reflexive isolation. Instead, it practices disciplined pragmatism: Cooperate where interests align, and compete where they do not. In a world no longer organized around a single dominant power, the ability to work with ‘non-traditional’ partners on concrete problems is a strategic asset, not a liability.

The emerging US-China-Russia law-enforcement architecture will hardly dissolve deeper disagreements over Iran, Taiwan, Ukraine, or technological rivalry. It does not need to. Its value lies in demonstrating that even adversaries can still protect their interests from common threats. That demonstration strengthens, rather than weakens, national security. By proving that such cooperation is possible, Patel has expanded the toolkit available to American policymakers. In an unpredictable international environment, that expansion is both necessary and overdue.

Western Europe hasn’t stopped fearing Russia. In fact, it fears it so much that it is prepared to accept the very idea of a major war. Why is the West no longer united? Why is the US distancing itself from the Ukraine crisis? And why can Moscow not wait for the EU’s internal contradictions to resolve its problems?

Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy and editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Politics, spoke about these issues in an interview with Ukraina.ru.

Bloomberg recently reported on a closed-door meeting in Vienna involving former senior officials from the UK, France, Germany, and Russia, held in July to discuss the terms of a potential settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. These weren’t official government negotiations, but informal track-two consultations.

Anna Cherkasova: Mr. Lukyanov, what does the concept of the collective West mean to you?

Fyodor Lukyanov: For me, it means exactly what we mean by it today, because it’s our term. In foreign sources, English-speaking political scientists tend to use other concept, such as Atlanticism and the political West.

The collective West, as we understand it today, didn’t exist before 1945, and for centuries, there was debate over what the West actually was in terms of geography, civilization, religion, a political system or a set of values.

The French and Anglo-Americans saw themselves as the West, while Germany only came to be regarded as part of it after the Second World War, as before that it had been seen as the embodiment of barbarism. In this narrative, Russia alternately disappears and reappears as the key adversary against which the West constructs its own identity.

Cherkasova: So the collective West we are talking about today emerged after the Second World War?

Lukyanov: Yes, the modern collective West emerged after the Second World War for two main reasons.

First, Germany was defeated in the form in which it had existed before the war, or at least that was how the victors saw it, and the part of Germany that came under the control of the Western Allies was integrated into the new Western system on prescribed terms.

The second factor was the Soviet Union and the Soviet threat. In a certain sense, you could say that Stalin was the godfather of European unity, given Western European integration was shaped by fears that the Soviet Union wouldn’t stop after the war and would embark on further expansion.

Today, we realize that these fears were largely unfounded as the Soviet Union had been ravaged by the war and needed time to recover, and Stalin didn’t harbor some delusional notion that he would become the ruler of Europe. He understood the realities of the geopolitical balance and abided by the agreements reached at Yalta and Potsdam.

In the West, however, the prevailing view was that the Russian barbarian would deceive them anyway, and he would lie in wait and then pounce, so it was precisely these fears that gave rise to the collective Western system as we know it.

Cherkasova: The Cold War ended, yet the Western system endured. Why?

Lukyanov: Because it survived the Cold War and demonstrated its resilience and effectiveness. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, it seemed that the Western order had finally proved itself right and since it had triumphed, it followed that it should be expanded.

But a question arose asking if the former threat had disappeared, what still united the US and Western Europe? Apart from big money, mutual ties, a new tradition of educating the European elite and the assumption that things simply couldn’t be otherwise, was there still the same objective necessity to remain together?

The Europeans wanted to expand their own sphere of freedom but were unwilling to give up American guarantees and this continued until Trump came along and asked, “who are you, anyway?”

Today, the West as a whole is going through an interesting phase. On the one hand, having spent 30 years after the Cold War searching for an enemy, it’s once again found an old adversary in us, so it would seem that everything has become simple again as there’s a common enemy, so we must unite. But the world has changed.

Western Europeans are genuinely afraid of Russia because it’s a large neighboring country, a military power, a state situated right on their doorstep. For the US, however, Russia is primarily a European and Eurasian problem. It’s important, but it doesn’t pose a direct threat to America, for which China, the Pacific region, Islamic terrorism and the Muslim world are of greater concern.

And here lies the main question: why does Western Europe need the US today, and what can it demand of it? It used to be taken for granted that, in the event of a serious crisis, the US would automatically step in to assist with European affairs, but now the question is: why should it do so automatically, so there’s no certainty that it will,  hence all the current anxiety.

On the one hand, Western Europe expects complete loyalty from the Americans, but on the other, when it disapproves of US policy, it believes it has the right to deviate from it. But bloc discipline doesn’t work that way.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. In 2003, during the Iraq War, one of the first serious rifts within NATO emerged. Germany and France refused to support President George W. Bush’s actions. This came as a shock to the Americans, while these two European powers appealed to the liberal world order and insisted that a war couldn’t be started without the authorization of the UN Security Council.

The Americans reacted sharply and there was talk of trade restrictions, boycotts of French wine and other goods, plus there was even a dispute over the name French fries. But it then became clear that the US needed Western Europe’s support to extricate itself from the situation in Iraq, and the conflict gradually eased.

The question now is different: it is does the US still need Western Europe in its previous capacity?

But we should not delude ourselves because this doesn’t mean that transatlantic ties will immediately begin to unravel. We’re talking about deep economic and financial integration, vast amounts of American money at work in Europe, companies, institutions, and military and political structures and there are also decades of conditioning Western Europeans to believe that things cannot be any other way.

We are still dealing with a single conglomerate, but its collective nature is becoming something entirely different.

Cherkasova: Is Ukraine driving a wedge between the collective West?

Lukyanov: Yes, Ukraine is driving a wedge between the West, but in a specific way.

The Western Europeans can broadly be divided into two groups: some consider the Ukraine issue important for reasons of security, geopolitics or their own identity; others believe that, for them, it’s not all that important.

Southern Europe is far from Russia and does not perceive it as an immediate threat. There Ukraine is known primarily for the large number of Ukrainian workers, nannies, caretakers and others who have come to work. In Portugal, Spain and Italy, this is a significant factor in everyday perceptions.

Of course, they say: we must stand together and support Ukraine, but if that support starts to cause economic damage, it quickly becomes a problem, so should there be even a slight change in the situation in the leading Western European countries, this stance could end up working against active support for Ukraine.

The situation with the US is different. Following active involvement under Biden, Washington adopted a position under Trump which, if we set aside our own interests, appears entirely reasonable from an American perspective in that they’re effectively telling the Europeans: “this is your business.”

That doesn’t mean the Americans are withdrawing from Europe. The scale of mutual economic and political interests is simply too great, but the former grandstanding has disappeared.

Cherkasova: Western Europe has stopped fearing Russia’s red lines and is prepared to go almost as far as waging war against Russia, if not directly, then by other means.

Lukyanov: Yes, they have stopped fearing red lines, but it would be more accurate to say that Western Europe fears Russia, and that’s precisely why it believes there is no need to fear red lines. Its logic goes something like this: now is the time for everyone to pull together, finally corner Russia and then stop fearing it.

All the groundwork for normalizing the very idea of war with Russia is already underway, with hysteria whipped up and the appropriate psychological atmosphere being created. It’s difficult to say at this stage how effective this is in shaping public opinion, but propaganda can sometimes be very effective.

As far as the Ukraine crisis and Ukraine are concerned, there’s no solution for us other than to achieve an acceptable military outcome. However, we must closely monitor what is happening within the West, like how the balance of power between America and the EU is shifting, how Britain is trying to find its place, how the composition of the elites is changing and how demographic processes are reshaping political systems.

These changes will not happen overnight, but it’s already clear that the old model, which took shape in the second half of the 20th century, no longer functions to its full extent.

That means every important election, in Germany, France, Poland, and the United States, will reveal just how far this process has progressed.

This interview was first published by Ukraina.ru, translated and edited by RT.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson has broken ranks with the EU’s push for solidarity with Spain after the Ceuta crisis, calling Madrid’s migrant amnesty a “very bad idea” that risks a repeat of Europe’s 2015 influx. He warned that Spain’s potential legalization of more than a million people creates a loophole for migrants to push north across the EU’s open borders.

His comments come after tens of thousands of migrants crossed into the Spanish enclave from Morocco within days in late July, completely overwhelming the local authorities. More than 100 people died in the crisis and the city plunged into chaos.

The surge drew criticism from other EU leaders, several of whom linked it to Spain’s migrant regularization program targeting 500,000, though it is feared that the figure could double. Subsequently, 22 member states, including Sweden, signed a joint letter demanding that Spain introduce tighter external border controls.

“It symbolizes that we still have to be very, very careful not to act in a way that could even come close to what happened in 2015,” he said. “I think Spain got the message… but it shows the vulnerability.” 

“It is not the time to get relaxed on this… there is a huge majority in Sweden saying they cannot go back to an uncontrolled situation,” Kristersson said. “Doing things that could jeopardize a stable situation would be a very bad idea.”

Last week, European Commissioner for Home Affairs Magnus Brunner said there is “full solidarity with Spain around the table,” framing the Ceuta crisis as a test that the bloc passed. Regarding amnesty, Brunner said the commission does not see “a direct link… between regularizations and the incidents in Ceuta.”

After the crisis began, he called out Spain, saying: “We warned of the risks of this. When you make such large amnesties for people who do not have grounds for asylum, it creates an incentive… to come to Europe.” 

He drew parallels to Sweden’s own experience a decade earlier, when “250,000 people came in two years.” 

“We have learned from that,” Forssell said. “That is why we have changed the policy. But Spain has gone in a completely different direction.”

Spain has rejected the criticism. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the joint EU letter “selfish, polarizing and unlawful,” claiming that the Ceuta episode was “a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity” rather than a consequence of its migration policy.

The death toll from the devastating earthquake that struck western Colombia has risen to at least 169, according to the Colombian Association of Capital Cities (Asocapitales).

The association said on Tuesday that 165 of the fatalities had been recorded in four regional capitals, accounting for more than 97% of the nationwide death toll.

At least 668 people have been injured and 165 buildings have collapsed in the cities, Asocapitales said, adding that search and rescue operations are ongoing in the affected areas.

The magnitude-7.4 earthquake struck on Monday, with its epicenter in western Colombia, affecting the departments of Valle del Cauca, Caldas, Choco, and Risaralda.

Harrowing footage shows people fleeing shaking and collapsing buildings. A disturbing video filmed in Cali appears to show four people being crushed by a falling balcony as they fled a clinic.

🇨🇴🚨 Captan momento en el que cuatro personas lograron salir de clínica Cayre en Cali, Colombia; sin embargo, fueron aplastadas por un balcón que se derrumbó #Internacional #Colombia #Sismo #Cali #EnTransversal 👈🏼 pic.twitter.com/qnzs4ufA94

— Transversal (@Transversal_hgo) August 10, 2026

Other videos show parts of buildings breaking away during the tremors.

El centro administrativo municipal de Cali tambien se vio afectado por el terremoto pic.twitter.com/ZVXvKhOgdg

— infomedia 🚀 (@infomediaiw) August 10, 2026

Edificio colapso en Pereira pic.twitter.com/LRHoyM2n18

— infomedia 🚀 (@infomediaiw) August 10, 2026

Cali Mayor Alejandro Eder imposed a curfew from 8 PM to 6 AM to maintain order, saying that police and military personnel would patrol the city and help search for survivors.

Colapso de estructuras en Manizales pic.twitter.com/EHYRnoCvYA

— infomedia 🚀 (@infomediaiw) August 10, 2026

The US State Department pledged $15.5 million in emergency aid to Colombia for “shelter, food, protection, and earthquake assessments.”

Twin earthquakes struck neighboring Venezuela in June, killing more than 6,300 people.

US President Donald Trump has demanded compensation from Iran for Americans and others he says were killed or wounded by Tehran and its allies.

The demand comes after Tehran called on Washington to pay for damage caused during the US-Israeli war launched against Iran on February 28. Reparations are among the conditions Iran has set for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, alongside the withdrawal of American troops from the region, the lifting of sanctions and the naval blockade, the release of frozen assets, and an end to military threats.

Trump responded on Monday, saying that compensation had not previously been discussed in negotiations but that he had now instructed US representatives to include it in all future talks.

“I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Trump said the payments should cover US troops killed in regional conflicts, the families of Iranian protesters, and people affected by wars in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza.

The US has lost 18 service members during the current conflict, while around 500 have been injured. The US military is also believed to have lost dozens of aircraft, including an F-15 fighter jet, several helicopters, drones, and refueling planes.

Iran has reported more than 3,300 people killed in US-Israeli strikes, nearly half of them civilians. More than 200 children are among the dead, including over 120 girls killed in a strike on an elementary school in Minab. US strikes have also hit civilian infrastructure, including bridges and water facilities.

Dozens of Iranian political and military leaders have been killed in targeted strikes, including the country’s longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

More than 125,000 civilian buildings have been damaged or destroyed in Iran, including around 100,100 homes and hundreds of schools and medical facilities, according to the Iranian Red Crescent.

The US and Israel have reached a deal with Damascus to remove nuclear material from a secret site in Syria, Axios reported on Monday, citing US and Israeli officials.

According to the publication, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will be given access to the area, labeled ‘Site 99’, to recover material described as remnants from Syria’s Al-Kibar reactor, which Israel bombed in 2007.

The site reportedly contains yellowcake, a concentrated uranium powder that can eventually be processed into nuclear fuel. While the material cannot be used directly to make a nuclear bomb, it could potentially be dispersed using conventional explosives, causing radiological contamination in what is commonly known as a dirty bomb.

Israel reportedly bombed the entrances to the site shortly after a coalition of US-backed rebel groups captured Damascus in December 2024, toppling Syria’s longtime president, Bashar Assad. An Israeli official told Axios that Israel had threatened to bomb the site again if the nuclear material was not removed or if there were signs that Syria was attempting to access it.

Al-Sharaa’s government has also sought to normalize relations with Russia, which militarily supported Assad. Earlier this month, Moscow and Damascus agreed to reorganize Russia’s Khmeimim Airbase and naval facility in Tartus into joint training centers. The deal allows Russia to maintain a military presence in Syria following Assad’s fall.

Ukraine must compensate Iran for a deadly attack on one of its cargo vessels in the Caspian Sea, as Kiev has failed to convince Tehran that the strike was unintentional, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has said.

The ship was hit in a Ukrainian strike last month, killing one sailor. Tehran condemned the attack as “reckless.” Kiev initially defended its actions, saying Iran has “no standing to pretend to be a victim,” but later described the attack as a mistake and said it did not seek an escalation with Tehran.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday that Tehran heard Kiev’s account of the strike but did not consider the matter resolved.

Following the attack, Zelensky praised the “very strong results” of strikes on vessels he claimed were involved in transporting military cargo. He said Ukraine does not want to open a “new front” with Iran, but accused it of attacking his country by supplying Russia with Shahed drones and related technology.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel also claimed that the vessel, Anna, was carrying components for drones and missiles. Tehran said the ship and its cargo were entirely civilian.

Kiev has actively sought to become involved in the Middle East conflict triggered by the US-Israeli attack against Iran earlier this year. The Ukrainian leadership claimed that it secured agreements with Gulf states to provide specialists and technology to counter Iranian drones, and said it hopes to obtain additional air defense systems and munitions in return.

On August 7, in the Al-Safa Palace in Mecca, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in signing an agreement whose consequences may prove far greater than its deliberately restrained language suggests.

The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement commits the three countries to regard an armed attack against one of them as an attack against all, placing collective defense at the heart of a relationship previously built through bilateral military cooperation, arms sales, training and political coordination. For Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, the pact extends a defense relationship already formalized in 2025. For Türkiye, however, Mecca represents something more ambitious. Ankara is not searching for another protector. It is seeking a larger table at which it can help decide what the next Middle Eastern order will look like.

Türkiye enters this arrangement from a position unlike that of almost any other regional state. It already commands NATO’s second-largest military, has built an increasingly sophisticated defense industry and occupies a geography connecting Europe, the Black Sea, the Caucasus, the Mediterranean and the Middle East. What Ankara lacks is not military weight but an architecture capable of turning that weight into durable regional influence. Mecca provides this opportunity by linking Turkish military-industrial capabilities with Saudi financial power and Pakistan’s strategic depth. Even if the agreement remains operationally loose for some time, its political direction is already visible. Türkiye wants to make certain that the Middle East emerging from the present era of war is not designed exclusively in Washington, West Jerusalem or Tehran.

For years, Erdogan’s foreign policy has been described as aimed at strategic autonomy. Ankara does not want to abandon its alliances, but neither does it want those alliances to determine the limits of Turkish action. Türkiye can remain inside NATO while maintaining dialogue with Moscow, deepen ties with the Gulf while pursuing its own interests in Syria and Libya, and cooperate with Western institutions without accepting that every regional dispute must be understood through Western priorities. What occasionally appears from the outside as inconsistency is, from Ankara’s perspective, an attempt to preserve maximum room for maneuver in an international system that is becoming less hierarchical and more transactional.

The Mecca agreement fits naturally into this worldview because it gives Ankara another layer of strategic freedom without demanding that it sacrifice the advantages of NATO. The logic is accumulation rather than substitution. NATO remains indispensable in Türkiye’s relationship with the wider Euro-Atlantic security system, while a Saudi-Turkish-Pakistani framework offers something NATO cannot easily provide. It creates a space where regional security can be discussed primarily by regional powers and where Ankara does not first need to reconcile its threat perceptions with Washington or Brussels.

The experience of the past decade has made that freedom increasingly valuable. Differences with the US over Syria, particularly Washington’s cooperation with Kurdish formations that Ankara links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (designated by Türkiye as a terrorist organization), showed that even formal allies can see the same battlefield in fundamentally different ways.

The American and Israeli attack on Iran and Tehran’s subsequent strikes across the Gulf showed that countries deeply embedded in the US security system can still find themselves exposed once a conflict escalates beyond its original boundaries. Ankara’s conclusion is not that American power has ceased to matter, but that no serious regional power can afford to outsource its security entirely to a state whose priorities will never fully coincide with its own.

Saudi Arabia is arriving at a similar conclusion, which helps explain why Ankara now finds a much more receptive partner in Riyadh than it would have only several years ago. The kingdom increasingly wants several layers of security rather than one exclusive American umbrella, while Pakistan has long operated between competing centers of power. The three countries meet at a moment when each, for different reasons, is seeking greater freedom from rigid geopolitical dependence.

Turkish weapons become political capital

Türkiye also enters the agreement with an instrument of influence it did not possess in anything like the same form twenty years ago. Its defense industry has become one of the principal vehicles through which Turkish power travels abroad. Bayraktar drones may be its most recognizable symbol, but the transformation now encompasses missiles, warships, armored vehicles, electronic warfare and aerospace technologies. Turkish companies increasingly combine weapons sales with training, technology transfer, local production and long-term industrial cooperation, creating relationships that survive well beyond an individual contract.

Saudi Arabia is one of the most promising markets and sources of capital for the next stage of Turkish defense expansion. The major Baykar agreement signed with Riyadh in 2023 included technology transfer and localization, reflecting the complementary ambitions of both states. Saudi Arabia wants to reduce its dependence on Western suppliers and develop its own defense-industrial base, while Türkiye needs investment, scale and wealthy export markets if it is to evolve from a successful emerging producer into one of the permanent centers of the global arms industry. Pakistan adds another component through decades of military experience, its developed defense establishment and long-standing cooperation with both Ankara and Riyadh.

The potential division of labor is already apparent. Saudi financing can support programs that Turkish industry has the technological capacity to develop, while Pakistan can contribute military experience, personnel and industrial expertise. This does not mean that a unified military-industrial complex will suddenly appear, nor does Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal automatically become a shared deterrent. Alliances become consequential more gradually, when procurement systems, military training, intelligence exchanges, and defense industries begin to intertwine. For Ankara, every step in that direction brings both revenue and political leverage.

Israel becomes the harder question

Officially, the Mecca pact identifies no enemy, and neither Türkiye nor its partners have presented it as an anti-Israeli coalition. Yet Turkish-Israeli relations have deteriorated so sharply that excluding Israel from the strategic calculation would make little sense. Their dispute increasingly concerns the future territorial and security order of the region, particularly Syria, where Turkish and Israeli interests have begun to collide directly.

Post-Assad Syria lies at the heart of Ankara’s regional ambitions. Türkiye wants a Syrian state capable of exercising authority across its territory, limiting the autonomous military power of Kurdish formations, securing the Turkish border and becoming increasingly integrated with its northern neighbor. A stable Damascus relying heavily on Turkish political, military and economic support would give Ankara strategic reach across the Levant. Israel views much of the same process from the opposite direction. A consolidated Syrian state containing a significant Turkish military presence could reduce Israel’s freedom of action to the north and create a strategic continuum extending from Turkish territory toward southern Syria.

Israeli concern also predates the Mecca agreement. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett went so far as to call Türkiye a new Iran and warned of a hostile Sunni axis involving nuclear-armed Pakistan. The statements were deliberately provocative, yet they reflected a real anxiety about Ankara’s growing ability to organize regional power. Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has responded far more cautiously to the actual agreement, declining immediate comment, but a regional environment in which Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan coordinate their security is fundamentally different from one in which each deals with Israel separately.

Ankara does not need Mecca to become an openly anti-Israeli bloc in order to benefit from it. Türkiye’s interest lies in restoring a balance that it believes has been eroded by Israel’s increasingly expansive use of force. Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and the campaigns against Iran have strengthened a perception across the region that Israeli military superiority, reinforced by American support, has given West Jerusalem extraordinary freedom to act without an effective regional counterweight. Ankara is unlikely to seek a direct war with Israel, which would be enormously costly and unpredictable. It does, however, want to increase the political and strategic price of unilateral Israeli action.

Türkiye acting alone is a formidable regional power whose rivalry with Israel can still be managed bilaterally. A framework involving Saudi Arabia and Pakistan raises the possibility that future Israeli escalation could provoke a coordinated reaction from states whose combined financial, military and technological resources far exceed those available to any of them individually.

Iran and Ankara’s balancing game

None of this turns Iran into Türkiye’s natural partner against Israel, nor would Ankara welcome a Middle East dominated by Tehran. Turkish and Iranian interests have overlapped and collided for centuries, while their modern relationship continues to combine economic pragmatism with rivalry in Iraq, Syria and the Caucasus. The present conflict has also demonstrated Iran’s ability to impose serious costs on Gulf states, giving Riyadh every reason to seek an additional counterweight. Yet Ankara has generally resisted strategies based on Iran’s permanent isolation, preferring a Tehran that can be contained and negotiated with to one whose destruction or collapse destabilizes Türkiye’s eastern neighborhood.

That ambition explains the broader logic behind Türkiye’s participation. Ankara is attempting to position itself close enough to the West to remain anchored in NATO, close enough to Russia and Iran to negotiate with them, increasingly connected to the Gulf and capable of extending its reach through Pakistan toward South Asia. Every additional relationship creates contradictions, but it also gives Erdogan the commodity Turkish foreign policy values most. It gives Ankara room.

Ankara wants to write the rules

For Türkiye, the deeper meaning of the Mecca framework lies in the opportunity to become one of the region’s principal centers of power through partnership rather than domination. Ankara is not trying to recreate an Ottoman hierarchy with itself at the center, nor does it need another bloc built around the supremacy of a single capital. What it appears to be seeking instead is a network of mutually dependent partners whose military, financial and political resources reinforce one another. For a country whose strategic ambitions have often exceeded the strength of its economy, closer integration with the Gulf also opens access to capital, investment and markets that could help finance Türkiye’s defense-industrial expansion and broader economic development. At the same time, deeper security ties with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan give Ankara something equally important as tensions with Israel continue to grow. If rivalry with Israel ever develops into a more serious confrontation, Türkiye would be far less isolated than it might otherwise have been.

Seen in this light, Mecca is part of a wider Turkish attempt to restore a degree of regional sovereignty, not by replacing Western influence with Turkish hegemony, but by creating a system in which regional powers are strong enough to negotiate, deter and prosper together. Washington may well view such a trajectory with growing unease, particularly if an increasingly autonomous regional security architecture begins to challenge the longstanding military predominance of the US in the Middle East. Yet this is unlikely to mean a sudden rupture with America or the West. The change will be gradual, uneven and full of contradictions. What is already becoming clear, however, is that the international order is shifting, and regions that once relied heavily on outside powers for their security are increasingly looking for ways to strengthen themselves through their own resources, partnerships and institutions. Türkiye’s wager is that in this emerging world, influence will belong not simply to the strongest state, but to those capable of building the strongest network around them.

An American oil company backed by powerful associates of US President Donald Trump has shipped drilling equipment to Greenland without permission from the Danish territory’s government. Is Trump trying to annex Greenland one bite at a time?

Less than two weeks ago, a Danish tugboat towed a cargo ship into port at Nerlerit Inaat, 450 kilometers above the Arctic circle on Greenland’s east coast. The cargo ship, operated by a company called Permagreen, unloaded an excavator and 15 containers of equipment, before leaving the following day, according to Danwatch, a Danish investigative journalism outlet.

A Permagreen spokesperson told Danwatch that the company was hired by the Texas-based Greenland Energy Company to deliver “some machinery and equipment that will support their oil exploration” in the region of Jameson Land. 

The Greenland Energy Company had no permission to deliver the equipment, Greenland’s Energy Ministry said in a press release, adding that the company has still not been granted the necessary permits to drill in Jameson Land, a wetland area protected by the international Ramsar Convention.

Is the Greenland Energy Company allowed to drill?

Despite the lack of approval by Greenland itself, the Greenland Energy Company is treating drilling as a foregone conclusion. The company posted a series of updates on social media as Permagreen’s tugboat left Denmark and docked at Greenland’s capital city, Nuuk. On LinkedIn, oilfield machinery company Stampede Drilling posted a picture of a drilling rig bearing Greenland Energy’s logo, declaring that it was “Greenland bound.”

The company has claimed that another ship carrying 300 containers of drilling equipment is ready to set sail from Canada to Greenland on September 12. Exploratory drilling will begin in October, a spokesperson told The Guardian.

The logistics dance has begun! Tug leaving Denmark ultimately going to Nuuk then our project $GLND. pic.twitter.com/1kzeINN65G

— Greenland Energy Company (@GL_Energy_Co) May 26, 2026

However, Greenland stopped issuing new oil drilling licenses in 2021. No significant deposits had been found in the preceding 50 years, and the government in Nuuk concluded that the environmental impact was not worth the meager returns. A handful of licenses remain active, including one covering Jameson Land, held by a UK-based company called 80 Mile. Greenland Energy has said that it will fund exploration on 80 Mile’s land, in exchange for 70% of revenue generated by the project. 

Despite operating under 80 Mile’s license, Greenland Energy must still obtain the necessary permits. “The project is still in the exploration phase,” Greenland’s energy ministry stated in a press release in early August. Even if the permits are granted with no delays, no drilling will take place this year, a ministry spokesperson told Danwatch.

On August 8, Greenland Energy described “recent high-level meetings with Greenlandic authorities” as “constructive.”

How much oil is under Jameson Land?

Greenland Energy believes that $1 trillion worth of crude oil may lie beneath the Jameson Land Basin. The company plans to spend $60 million on an exploratory well, with the project to be expanded “once the results of the first have been analysed.”

“I believe it’s there,” Greenland Energy CEO Robert Price told residents of a Jameson Land village in June. “The scientists believe that it’s there. But until we drill these wells, we don’t know.”

Is the project connected to Trump’s Greenland annexation plans?

Trump has repeatedly threatened to annex Greenland throughout his second term in office, 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 directly that he wants “Greenland for its rare-earth minerals.”

While Trump has not publicly expressed interest in Greenland’s potential oil wealth, the Greenland Energy project is backed by multiple close associates of the US president, including his special envoy to Greenland, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry.

Landry made an uninvited visit to Nuuk in May, declaring upon arrival that it was “time for the US to put its footprint back on Greenland.” Oil exploration is a key part of this footprint, he told Fox News after the trip. “We need a deal,” he said. “Greenland needs a deal. We could be – Greenland could be – exporting two million barrels of oil a day right now.”

“We could have those barrels on production within 10 months or so,” Landry added.

Carol Craig, a US Navy veteran, joined Greenland Energy’s board in April. Craig is the founder and CEO of Sidus Space, a defense contractor that won part of a $151 billion contract to build the ‘Golden Dome’ last December. Craig’s “background in aerospace, defense, and engineering will be invaluable as we advance our exploration program in Greenland’s Jameson Land Basin,” Greenland Energy said when it announced her appointment to the board.

Wrapping up the list of Trump associates tied in to the project is Phil McGraw, better known as TV host Dr. Phil. McGraw campaigned with Trump in 2024, leads the president’s religious liberty commission, and was hired by Greenland Energy in June to produce a documentary series following its drillers into the Jameson Land Basin. 

"Just a man who believes there is one of the largest untapped oil fields on the planet sitting under the ice in Greenland, and he is the only person on the planet with the legal right to see if it's truly there." @GL_Energy_Co

WATCHING: GLND.

Educational content only. Not… pic.twitter.com/SDGbgjz6kl

— GateWatch (@GatewatchHQ) June 30, 2026

“That’s an oilman who drills when nobody else has the guts to do it,” McGraw said in an interview with Price. “This is exploration under the Northern Lights, how exciting can it get!

Nobody involved with the project has publicly discussed the annexation of Greenland, but drilling and territorial acquisition are seemingly connected in Trump’s mind: On August 1, two days after the first equipment was dropped off at Nerlerit Inaat, the president posted an image of himself looming over Greenland on his Truth Social platform, along with the caption “Hello, Greenland!”

How has Denmark responded?

Frederiksen has given the same response when Trump attempted to purchase Greenland from Denmark, and when he warned that seizing the territory by military force “is always an option.” 

With neither approach swaying officials in Copenhagen and Nuuk, the president may now be attempting to expand the US foothold in Greenland in order to present occupation as a fait accompli. If such a plan exists, it all hinges on Greenland Energy discovering oil where five decades of exploration failed.

The Strait of Hormuz cannot be reopened through diplomacy while Washington continues to use military pressure against Tehran, the Iranian Foreign Ministry has said.

Iran closed Hormuz in response to a US-Israeli military campaign launched in late February. Washington subsequently imposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports, escalating a standoff over a strategic waterway that has historically carried around a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei said on Monday that diplomacy is “certainly” part of the “struggle to safeguard our national interests,” but added that “when dealing with a side that insists on the use of force, a maritime blockade is not a diplomatic action that we can lift through diplomacy.” 

“Certainly, you have to use authority and military power, along with diplomacy, to prevent the United States’ aggression, and that is what is being done,” Baghaei told a press briefing.

Tehran has set out a series of conditions for reopening the strait, including compensation for war damage, the lifting of sanctions, and the release of frozen Iranian funds, as well as a permanent end to hostilities against Iran and its regional allies.

The IRGC has also said that reopening Hormuz will depend on Washington fully accepting Tehran’s conditions.

“We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money,” Trump said, adding “It’s like a chess game.” 

The talks follow weeks of disagreement over a 14-point memorandum of understanding that established a temporary ceasefire and provided for the gradual lifting of the US blockade of Iranian ports and the restoration of commercial traffic through Hormuz. Fighting resumed last month after the sides failed to agree on how the deal should be implemented.

Iran and Oman, meanwhile, are discussing arrangements for future shipping through the strait, although Tehran has stressed that any agreement with Muscat would not in itself mean the waterway would reopen.

The disruption to traffic through Hormuz has put sustained pressure on global energy markets. Oil prices rose nearly 3% on Monday amid uncertainty over negotiations, with international benchmark Brent reaching $85 a barrel and US WTI hitting $80.

A German journalist’s question to Vladimir Zelensky about how Europe could help Kiev “kill more Russians” amounted to a “glorification of war” and was “against humanity,” former Hamburg MP Martin Dolzer has told RT.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) correspondent Michael Martens put the question to the Ukrainian leader during a joint press conference following Zelensky’s talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on Saturday.

“Can you tell us Europeans what can we concretely do to help you to kill more Russians?” Martens asked, before clarifying that he meant “more Russian soldiers, of course.”

Vucic visibly raised his eyebrows as he heard the question.

Germany has become “one of the most aggressive actors who tried to keep Ukraine in that war against Russia,” Dolzer said.

After some social media users accused Martens of “incitement to hatred,” the FAZ correspondent doubled down on X, insisting that there was nothing “scandalous” or “shocking” about his wording.

Reacting to Martens’ remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote on Telegram on Sunday that the journalist’s grandfather had served as an officer on a Wehrmacht command staff under Alfred Jodl during World War II.

Jodl was found guilty of committing war crimes during the Nuremberg trials and executed in 1946. “It’s not hard to imagine what atrocities Martens the elder was perpetrating under the command of this Nazi criminal,” the Russian diplomat added.

Zakharova also noted that the German reporter cited his family history when explaining his decision to refrain from any criticism of Israel back in 2024, but had no qualms about later making “xenophobic statements” regarding Russians.

She accused Martens of “dehumanizing Russians [and] legitimizing hate speech toward Russia.” Zakharova also pointed out that professed Western human rights defenders have failed to call out the “hereditary Nazi.”

Responding to the backlash, FAZ expressed regret over Martens’ choice of words, telling the German Press Agency (dpa) that his question had been “ambiguously phrased.” The newspaper insisted that calls for the maximization of Russian casualties are not part of its editorial policy.

US President Donald Trump knows he can neither sustain nor win a protracted war against Iran, political scientist and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer has said.

In an interview with Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi broadcast on RT on Sunday, Mearsheimer suggested that recent reports of dwindling US munitions stocks were based on leaks from officials in Trump’s own circle who want the war to end sooner.

The war on Iran has faced opposition from both US lawmakers and the public. A $1.15 trillion defense spending bill on which military contracts hinge remains deadlocked in the Senate, while multiple polls have shown broad opposition to war spending.

Media reports have meanwhile questioned how the Trump administration plans to replenish weapons stocks after months of fighting. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) estimated last month that Patriot interceptor stocks had fallen at least 65% from pre-war levels, while THAAD inventories were down around 38%.

Mearsheimer said that the before the war started, General Daniel Caine was warning Trump that the US had limited stocks of munitions and could not fight a protracted conflict. Yet the US is now doing exactly that, he stated, adding that “it’s amazing the extent to which we have depleted our stockpile of sophisticated weaponry.”

Mearsheimer argued that the situation is dire enough for Trump to recognize there is no clear path forward, noting he has still neither ordered new attacks nor accepted Iran’s demands to end the war.

“I would imagine at this point in time that President Trump has come to recognize that there’s no way he can win this war. And that’s why I like to argue that he’s flailing around,” Mearsheimer said.

Watch the interview below.

Multiple explosions have been heard at a Bulgarian munitions storage facility after a delivery truck serving a military plant caught fire, local media have reported.

The incident occurred around midday on Monday near the village of Belitsa in Gabrovo Province, according to the BGNES news agency, which published footage showing a large white cloud rising in the distance, accompanied by loud bangs.

No casualties were reported. Officials attributed the fire to the accidental ignition of the vehicle. The facility was cordoned off and around 300 employees of Bulgarian arms manufacturer EMCO were evacuated, while residents of nearby settlements were advised to remain indoors, Gabrovo Governor Kristina Sidorova said.

Bulgaria, a NATO member and formerly a major supplier of military aid to Ukraine, has distanced itself from the conflict under Prime Minister Rumen Radev’s government. In June, Sofia said it would send no further weapons packages to Kiev. Last month it withdrew from the so-called “coalition of the willing,” a UK- and France-led group of European countries funding Ukraine.

EMCO is one of Bulgaria’s major ammunition manufacturers and has supplied Ukraine since at least 2014. Publicly available records do not specify which products are manufactured or stored at the Belitsa facility.

Ukraine has clashed with governments in Eastern Europe that it accuses of undermining its war effort. Earlier this year, deliveries of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline were suspended shortly before a key parliamentary election in Hungary, which resulted in the ouster of the government in Budapest. Supplies through the pipeline resumed in April.

A powerful earthquake hit Colombia on Monday, killing more than 110 people, according to President Abelardo de la Espriella. Tremors were felt in several major cities across the country, as well as neighboring Ecuador and Panama.

Speaking at a press conference in Bogota on Moinday afternoon, de la Espriella said that 111 people had been killed and 87 injured. De la Espriella, who took office on Friday, declared a national emergency, and pledged to travel to the affected city of Periera "to support those affected and verify the government’s response."

Colombia’s National Unit for Disaster Risk Management said the epicenter was located near the town of San Jose del Palmar in the Pacific department of Choco, at a depth of around 79 km, and measured 6.6 in magnitude. Other monitors put the magnitude higher. The US Geological Survey estimated it at 7.4 magnitude and the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center put it at 7.2.

The governor of Choco, Nubia Carolina Cordoba-Curi, confirmed that the earthquake caused significant damage in the provincial capital and beyond, warning of potential aftershocks. “There are injuries and significant damage to ‌buildings ⁠in the capital, Quibdo. We are already carrying out a damage assessment and will issue the first official report shortly,” she ⁠wrote on X.

Footage circulating online shows widespread destruction in the Pereira, the capital of the neighboring Risaralda department. Crowds of people were seen rushing into the streets covered in dust from the collapsing buildings. At least 40 people were killed across the department, according to the local authorities.

Similar scenes were filmed in the city of Manizales, Caldas department, where the historic Metropolitan Cathedral Basilica apparently partially collapsed, and one of the spires crashed into the dome. At least 12 people were killed in the city, the mayor said.

A further 27 people have been killed across the Valle de Cauca department, according to local officials.

The earthquake damaged airports in the cities of Pereira, Manizales, Quibdo, Armenia, Cartago, and Buenaventura. All operations at the facilities have been suspended “pending an assessment of structural damage,” Colombia’s civil aviation authority said. Chaotic footage from the airports suggests at least some of them sustained extensive damage and partially collapsed.

This comes a month and a half after a devastating earthquake hit neighboring Venezuela. At the time, two back-to-back 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude earthquakes destroyed hundreds of buildings across the country, hitting the capital, Caracas, and killing more than 5,000 people.

German news coverage of Russia is becoming increasingly radical as the media grooms the public for war, correspondent Thomas Roeper told RT.

Roeper made the remarks on Monday after Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung correspondent Michael Martens asked Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky how Europe could help Kiev “kill more Russians.” The journalist hastily clarified that he meant “more Russian soldiers.”

“I’m following the German media and the propaganda they are doing, and they increased the anti-Russian narrative really, well, radical. I can’t use another word,” Roeper said.

He pointed to media coverage of last week’s incident at Leipzig Airport, where an unidentified explosive-laden drone was found, as another example.

The German government refrained from directly accusing Russia, but some lawmakers suggested that the country was behind the operation. Moscow has denied having any connection to drone sightings across the EU.

Asked whether the sentiment behind Martens’ question reflects the views of the people, Roeper said he doubts it. He described Germany as split, with eastern regions more sympathetic to Russia and the west more trusting of the media – though he said even these audiences don’t want war.

“The propaganda makes them wanting to weaken Russia, but they don’t want to pay for it,” he said, calling it an “absurd situation.” He added, however, that talk of “killing Russians” has become possible to an extent that it was not a decade ago.

Germany has been Ukraine’s largest European backer, providing nearly €100 billion ($115 billion) since 2022, with more than half accounting for military assistance. The country, like many other EU nations, has also embarked on a militarization drive.

Moscow has sounded the alarm about the EU’s military buildup, saying it echoes the years before World War II. “The process of militarizing Europe and the process of turning us into the enemy is… worrying to us,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, warning that Russia will take appropriate measures to safeguard its interests and security.

Responding to the backlash, FAZ expressed regret over Martens’ choice of words, telling the German Press Agency (dpa) that his question had been “ambiguously phrased.” The newspaper insisted that calls for the maximization of Russian casualties are not part of its editorial policy.

At least four girls under 14 have been treated for alleged sexual assaults in the Spanish North African exclave of Ceuta, after a massive migrant influx overwhelmed reception facilities in the area and left minors sleeping on the streets, Euronews has reported.

The victims are reportedly Moroccan minors who entered Ceuta during the unprecedented migration surge in late July, the outlet said on Sunday, citing medical officials.

A boy is also believed to be among the victims, while medical sources warned that the true number could be higher as cases remain unreported. A total of more than a dozen patients with injuries consistent with sexual assault have reportedly been treated so far at Ceuta University Hospital.

Susana Ascaso, an accident and emergency doctor at the hospital, confirmed to the outlet that her department has treated multiple suspected rape cases involving underage migrants. She said many are girls under 14 forced to live on the streets because reception centers are full.

El Pais earlier reported that police are investigating at least five alleged rapes of minors. The victims reportedly have injuries consistent with sexual assault. No arrests have been announced, and the authorities have not disclosed the circumstances of the alleged attacks.

Abdellah Mustafa, head of the Sidi Embarek district Residents’ Association in southern Ceuta, told the outlet that locals have turned a futsal court into a makeshift refuge specifically for migrant girls. At least 50 arrived on the first day, with the number reaching 200 within two days and overwhelming the facility. Mustafa said some girls arrive in shock after presumably being assaulted, which prompted residents to bring in a psychologist and lawyer to assist them.

An unprecedented influx

More than 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta on July 30-31, many by swimming or crossing coastal breakwaters – a figure equivalent to roughly 70% of the exclave’s regular population. The influx overwhelmed reception centers, hospitals, and law enforcement. At least 100 people reportedly died, many while attempting the crossing by sea, while Madrid deployed troops and accelerated returns. Most of those who entered have since been sent back, but between 3,000 and 5,000 remain on Spanish territory, according to local officials.

The crisis has fueled tensions within the EU, where migration has long been a contentious issue. Twenty-two EU leaders signed a letter accusing Spain of undermining the bloc’s border security, while several called for the country to be removed from the Schengen borderless travel zone. Italy introduced temporary checks on travelers arriving from Spain on August 1, and France tightened border security. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hit back, calling the actions of his European neighbors “selfish.”

Germany has seen a spike in UFO sighting reports, according to the Central Research Network for Extraordinary Celestial Phenomena (CENAP), the country’s largest private UFO reporting and investigation network. The surge comes alongside the Pentagon’s release of declassified files on phenomena believed to be potentially linked to extraterrestrial activity.

According to director Hansjuergen Koehler, CENAP has never received as many reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena – the official term for UFOs – as it does now.

“We receive between three and six reports a day,” he told Euronews in an interview released on Sunday. By August 2026, he and his team had investigated some 14,000 sighting reports, he said, though he did not specify over what period.

Koehler did not rule out that “there is life out there,” but said he remains skeptical about most sightings, noting that the vast majority turn out to be aircraft, rocket stages, satellites, meteors, planets, balloons, or even event lasers visible from kilometers away. Some remain unresolved because investigators lack key information, such as high-resolution videos.

Pentagon reignites UFO frenzy

Debates over extraterrestrial phenomena have gathered momentum following Pentagon releases of previously classified material on supposed alien sightings. US President Donald Trump ordered the release in February after former President Barack Obama said in a podcast interview that aliens were “real.” Trump accused Obama of improperly revealing classified information and pledged to declassify the files. The disclosure initiative began in May with around 160 documents, followed by four more batches of footage and witness testimony.

The Pentagon released its fifth batch on Friday. The 41 files include more than a dozen videos, three images, and around 20 PDF documents detailing sightings from the Middle East to the Pacific Ocean. The records come from the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, State Department, and Executive Office of the President, dating from 1953 to this year.

Much of the release consists of grainy footage of unidentified objects, including apparent orbs and lights, captured by military sensors and cameras. Six videos show a September 2021 encounter involving Special Operations forces aboard an AC-130J gunship over the Gulf of Oman.

Another, recorded by a “US Government Special Agent” in the western US this year, shows two slow-moving “black-hot” areas in infrared imagery. The batch also includes eight FBI 302 witness-interview forms accompanied by artist renderings of reported objects.

Finland will not hand over more of its air defense missiles to Ukraine, Defense Minister Antti Hakkanen has said, insisting that Helsinki cannot risk its combat readiness amid tensions with Russia.

Speaking to Finnish newspaper Ilta-Sanomat on Saturday, Hakkanen suggested that the upcoming winter will be difficult both for NATO and Ukraine, predicting that Moscow will once again target Ukrainian energy infrastructure with new missile and drone strikes. 

Ukraine has already intensified pleas for more air defense missiles, particularly US-made Patriot interceptors, as Russia continues its strikes on military-related facilities and logistics. Earlier this month, Vladimir Zelensky admitted that Ukraine is struggling to down Russian ballistic missiles “simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot system.”

The minister said that while Finland has “a certain level of capability in certain anti-aircraft missiles,” he “will not disclose any further details about the mechanisms by which we support Ukraine.” 

Hakkanen also argued that “the biggest factor that would help Ukraine at the moment would also be some kind of solution and end to the Iran war,” which has been burning the US stockpile of various missiles.

Finland has previously adopted numerous aid packages for Ukraine, including air defense assets, though it withheld the specifics, citing operational security.

While Ukraine has struggled with Patriot stockpiles, the Financial Times reported last week that US President Donald Trump rejected Zelensky’s request for hundreds more Patriot interceptors, citing depleted US stocks needed for the Middle East. Despite an initial pledge to grant Ukraine a Patriot production license, he soon walked back the promise, citing the sensitivity of the move.

Several NATO members that own Patriots, including Romania, the Netherlands, and Poland, have also signaled that their capacity to help Kiev is exhausted.

Moscow has consistently denounced weapons deliveries to Ukraine, warning they only prolong the conflict without changing its outcome. It has also cast such shipments as “direct participation” in the hostilities.

French police have detained 420 people for allegedly starting fires deliberately or through serious negligence during a devastating wildfire season that has burned nearly 120,000 hectares across the country, according to the Interior Ministry.

France has experienced successive heatwaves this summer as exceptionally high temperatures have affected much of Europe. President Emmanuel Macron has described the wildfire crisis as potentially the country’s worst since World War II.

Prolonged heat and drought have dried vegetation, allowing small ignition sources to develop into fast-moving fires. More than 224,000 people were evacuated at the height of the crisis.

Officials said human activity caused nine out of ten wildfires in France. The cases include suspected arson as well as blazes attributed to discarded cigarettes, barbecues, campfires, and other reckless behavior.

Among those detained are 166 minors. An initial review of 80 suspects found that 97.5% were male, with an average age of 32.5. The group included students, repeat offenders, and volunteer firefighters.

The alleged motives vary widely, with some suspects reportedly acting out of revenge, for financial gain, to attract attention, or to challenge the authorities. Clinical pyromaniacs account for fewer than 5% of fire starters, according to experts cited by Le Figaro.

Other cases include a young volunteer firefighter who confessed to “setting fire to twigs with a lighter and gasoline” before retracting the statement, and a man who claimed that he had “accidentally started the fire by throwing away his cigarette.” Both were indicted and placed in pretrial detention.

“The conditions for a charge of endangering lives are met for those who throw a cigarette butt or light a barbecue in wooded areas. It only takes a tiny spark for it to start,” Bordeaux prosecutor Renaud Gaudeul told Le Monde.

“In periods of drought such as this one, all you need is a simple lighter,” fire investigator Eric Dufayet explained.

Iran will release footage of its new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, appearing in public, a senior paramilitary commander said on Sunday, in an apparent effort to dispel rumors about his health.

Khamenei has not been seen in public since March, when he was chosen to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed on February 28 during the first wave of US-Israeli strikes on Tehran. His prolonged absence has fueled speculation that he was disfigured or incapacitated by the same strike that killed his father, or that he too had been killed.

Iranian authorities, however, have insisted that Khamenei is actively participating in political and military decision-making.

“The images and documentary evidence that will be released in the future showing the esteemed leader and commander-in-chief, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, among the people, in the streets and neighborhoods, and in meetings with commanders of the Armed Forces, will once again disgrace the enemies and ill-wishers of the Iranian nation,” he said.

Qoraishi urged the public to remain vigilant, warning that “the enemy seeks to sow discord among revolutionary forces and the religious faithful.”

On Sunday, Iranian media released a rare, undated 12-second video showing Khamenei sitting in a circle with officials. However, some media outlets outside Iran suggested that it had been recorded before the war.

Iran releases video of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei. pic.twitter.com/52kmfbmbjU

— Globe Eye News (@GlobeEyeNews) August 9, 2026

The US and Israel carried out targeted strikes against multiple Iranian political and military leaders during the war, including powerful security chief Ali Larijani, who was killed on March 17. Tehran may be limiting Khamenei’s public appearances for security reasons. US President Donald Trump has labeled Iran’s leaders “scumbags” and suggested that he may target more officials if Tehran does not accept his terms.

Former US President Joe Biden’s cancer has worsened, spreading to his bones, his son Hunter said in a wide-ranging interview with BBC Newsnight aired on Saturday.

Biden’s team revealed in May 2025, four months after he left office following Donald Trump’s election victory over his handpicked successor, Kamala Harris, that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. His spokesperson said at the time that the disease appeared to be “hormone-sensitive,” offering hope that it could be effectively treated. Biden celebrated his 83rd birthday in November.

Speaking to the BBC’s Paddy O’Donnell, an emotional Hunter Biden said it was “tough” for him to hear the news about his father’s condition.

“Cancer has spread, metastasized into his bones and further,” Biden said. “It’s very painful and it’s very debilitating, in many respects.”

Joe Biden’s wife, Jill, told SiriusXM’s Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa podcast on Wednesday that the former president was undergoing difficult treatment. “Unfortunately for Joe, it metastasized to his bones, which means that he will forever live with cancer,” she said.

Biden’s physical and mental health became one of the central issues of the 2024 reelection campaign, as opponents and some allies argued that he was unfit to serve a second four-year term. Biden appeared frail at public events and struggled to formulate his thoughts during speeches and interviews.

He eventually dropped out of the race and endorsed Harris, his vice president, to replace him. Biden made the decision to suspend his campaign shortly after a disastrous televised debate with Trump.

Hunter Biden has been making the rounds in the media in recent months in an apparent effort to repair his public image following a series of scandals involving his personal life that also damaged his father’s reputation.

Shortly before leaving office, Joe Biden pardoned Hunter, a former drug addict, for any federal offenses he committed or may have committed between January 1, 2014 and December 1, 2024. The younger Biden had previously been convicted on three federal gun charges and pleaded guilty to nine federal tax charges. The president argued at the time that his son had been politically targeted.

Speaking to the BBC, Hunter Biden acknowledged that the pardon was “not good” for his father’s legacy.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi-backed government forces in the Yemeni port city of Mokha on Sunday, describing the attack as a tit-for-tat response to the kingdom’s “aggression.”

Fighting in civil war-torn Yemen intensified last week, prompting fears of further disruptions to global energy supplies in the wake of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the US war with Iran.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the latest barrage came in response to the “mobilization” of government troops in Mokha and what he described as the continuing “unjust siege” of Yemen by the Saudis. Yemeni government-aligned media reported that at least seven civilians were killed and around 35 injured.

مشاهد إطلاق عدد من الصواريخ الباليستية والطائرات المسيرة على تحشيدات العدو السعودي ومخازن أسلحته في المخا pic.twitter.com/L3aYNsPvhj

— الإعلام الحربي اليمني (@MMY1444) August 9, 2026

The Houthis launched coordinated attacks on government troops on Thursday, killing or wounding up to 60 soldiers, according to AFP. The group also declared a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia and targeted ships in and around the Red Sea.

Additional footage showing smoke rising from weapons depots belonging to Saudi-backed Presidential Leadership Council (PLC) forces at Mokha (Mukha) Port following missile and drone strikes by Ansar Allah (Houthis). https://t.co/jJP5cpYhpA pic.twitter.com/Jp6worWSHb

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) August 9, 2026

Additional footage showing plumes of smoke rising from Yemen’s Mukha Port after a shipment of military equipment was struck. https://t.co/jJP5cpYhpA pic.twitter.com/tOv3hMM1OS

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) August 9, 2026

The Saudi Energy Ministry confirmed on Sunday that a fire broke out following a strike on a facility belonging to state oil company Aramco in the kingdom’s southern Jazan province. In a statement to RT, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Al-Bukhaiti demanded that Riyadh end “the occupation and blockade” of Yemen.

“Unfortunately, Saudi Arabia continues to act arrogantly and insists on occupying Yemen and maintaining the blockade. Therefore, we have established the equation of aggression for aggression, and blockade for blockade,” he added.

The Houthis control much of western Yemen, including the country’s capital, Sanaa. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has led a military intervention in support of the internationally recognized government. Fighting decreased significantly after a UN-mediated truce took effect in April 2022, although the formal agreement expired that October.

The current round of hostilities erupted on July 13, when government forces bombed a runway at Sanaa airport to prevent an Iranian plane carrying a Houthi delegation from landing. The delegation was returning from the funeral of Iran’s longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, who was killed during US-Israeli strikes on Tehran.

The UN Security Council has condemned Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and commercial ships in the region, as well as “unauthorized landings of aircraft” in territory not under government control.

Twitch has banned top US streamer Zack ‘Asmongold’ Hoyt after he suggested that migrants crossing into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta – including children – should be shot to stop the flow and avoid unrest in the area.

The controversy erupted on Monday when Asmongold reacted to a video about the crisis in Ceuta, a Spanish territory bordering Morocco. Around 50,000-60,000 people, mostly young Moroccan men, stormed the enclave’s perimeter in around a day in late July.

The influx – which amounted to around 70% of the enclave’s regular population – completely overwhelmed the authorities, leading to scenes of utter chaos. The death toll exceeded 100 people, with many drowning in the Mediterranean Sea during the crossing.

🚨BREAKING: Asmongold has been BANNED from Twitch

The ban came shortly after comments he made about the situation in Ceuta

Twitch hasn't given an official reason yet

The clip below is what allegedly got him banned.

Judge for yourself if it's ban worthy.

Source: Dexerto /… pic.twitter.com/dG42eofcVe

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) August 7, 2026

Commenting on the crisis, Asmongold dismissed as “emotional blackmail” the argument that harsh treatment of migrants entering with children is unacceptable.

“Well then, don’t bring your kids. If you don’t want to get shot, then don’t bring your f**king kids. It’s really simple,” he said. “I’d shoot whoever… I mean, if it’s kids, women, men, anybody – just shoot them. They’re gonna stop coming over.”

He also claimed that migrants will likely take advantage of any lax policies and use women and children as human shields. “That’s the way an animal thinks, and these people are animals. It’s just the way it is. They’re savages. Absolute f**king savages. Terrorists,” he said.

On Saturday, Asmongold released a video on YouTube explaining the controversy, in which he doubled down on his stance rather than apologizing. He argued that the scale of the crossings amounts to “a military invasion,” and that Spain has every right to “use lethal military force to repel” it. He also claimed that sparing migrants who travel with children only incentivizes traffickers to use them as “political capital.”

“I don’t think that any country has an obligation to take in migrants,” he said, adding, “I’m not sorry for saying that.”

Critics, including fellow streamer Hasan Piker, accused Asmongold of urging violence against migrant children, while supporters pointed to what they called Twitch’s inconsistent moderation record depending on the political affiliation of the speaker.

Twitch banned Asmongold in October 2024 after he suggested that Palestinians in Gaza belong to an “inferior culture,” and said he is not sympathetic to Palestinians who died during the war with Israel, though he subsequently apologized.

Asmongold, 36, rose to prominence streaming World of Warcraft before becoming one of gaming’s most-watched personalities and an outspoken commentator on politics and the culture war. He leans right, though he has not cast himself as a supporter of any particular party.

Israel has rejected US President Donald Trump’s 15-point peace plan for Gaza and will not withdraw troops from the Palestinian enclave until Hamas is completely disarmed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.

The roadmap was published last month as part of efforts by the Trump-led Board of Peace to end the Gaza conflict. It calls for Hamas to relinquish control of Gaza and for its weapons to come under the authority of a Palestinian administration. The process would be linked to a phased Israeli withdrawal and independently verified before each new stage begins.

“I want to be clear: Israel rejects the 15-point document,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with cabinet members.

“The IDF will not withdraw in any way until Hamas is disarmed… We are talking about complete disarmament, not a fictitious disarmament,” he said. Israel is discussing the issue with the US and will “stand firm” against provisions it finds unacceptable, Netanyahu added.

Netanyahu also reiterated that he would not allow the establishment of a Palestinian state, “neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank.”

“Gaza will finally be in the hands of a new Palestinian government that serves its PEOPLE,” he wrote on Truth Social.

Hamas said it had agreed in principle but insisted that it would not disarm until the IDF had completely withdrawn from the enclave.

The 15-point roadmap seeks to advance the unresolved elements of Trump’s original 20-point peace plan, which produced the October Israel-Hamas ceasefire but later stalled over issues including the group’s disarmament and further Israeli withdrawals.

However, continued Israeli attacks have killed at least 1,258 people in Gaza and wounded more than 4,100 since the ceasefire was announced, according to local health authorities.

Russia has maintained that the only viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the creation of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel.

The signing of the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan may eventually be remembered as one of the more consequential geopolitical developments to emerge from the current Middle Eastern crisis.

Signed in Mecca by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the agreement establishes a remarkably clear principle of collective defense, under which an armed attack against any one of the three states is to be regarded as an attack against all. The parties have not yet disclosed how this commitment would operate in practice, what level of military assistance it would automatically trigger, or whether common command and planning mechanisms will eventually follow, but these uncertainties do little to diminish the political significance of the arrangement. For the first time, three of the most influential states of the broader Muslim world have formally connected their national security in a framework that potentially combines Saudi financial and political weight, Turkish military-industrial power, and Pakistan’s enormous armed forces and nuclear status.

Officials from the three countries have been careful to avoid portraying the agreement as the birth of an aggressive military bloc. Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz stressed that it was not directed against any particular country, while Turkish officials described the pact as purely defensive and underlined that it did not cancel Ankara’s existing obligations to other partners. Saudi Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy Rayed Krimly went even further, rejecting the idea that Mecca represented either a sectarian military axis or the beginning of a nuclear arms race. Such statements are understandable, particularly at a moment when the region is already struggling with a war involving Iran, Israel, and the United States, yet the significance of the agreement lies less in what its signatories formally say it is directed against than in the profound transformation of the security environment that made such a treaty necessary in the first place.

There is little surprise about the emergence of this alliance. The military confrontation that followed the US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28 changed not only the balance of military power in the Middle East but, importantly, the perception of security among America’s traditional partners. Iranian missiles striking Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, attacks threatening regional infrastructure, and the blockade of energy shipments exposed a basic weakness in the security model on which much of the Gulf had relied for decades. Enormous purchases of American weapons, the presence of US military bases, and long-standing political alignment with Washington had been treated almost as an insurance policy against precisely this sort of strategic vulnerability, yet when the region descended into a wider confrontation, membership in the American security system did not prevent Gulf countries from becoming direct targets or protect their economies from the consequences.

This does not mean that Riyadh is preparing to abandon Washington, nor does Turkish participation in the agreement imply an attempt to replace NATO. What is changing is the belief that one external security guarantor can remain sufficient in an increasingly unpredictable international system. The Mecca agreement represents less a break with the US than a hedge against excessive dependence upon it, and in that sense it forms part of a broader process of strategic ‘sovereignization’ in which regional states are trying to diversify their defense relationships, strengthen domestic military industries, and create arrangements that can function even when Washington’s interests do not fully coincide with their own. For the Gulf monarchies in particular, the conclusion is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid – American power remains indispensable, but American protection can no longer be regarded as unconditional or absolute.

The institutional groundwork had already been laid. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan concluded a mutual defense pact last year, while their military relationship has subsequently acquired a much more tangible character through Pakistani deployments, fighter aircraft, drones, and air-defence capabilities in the kingdom. At the same time, Saudi-Turkish defense ties have expanded rapidly, Riyadh has become an important purchaser of Turkish drones, and Ankara and Islamabad have spent years developing military cooperation through training, naval exchanges, and defence-industrial projects. What happened in Mecca is the political consolidation of relationships that were already developing beneath the surface.

This is also why Egypt should be watched closely. Over the past year, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Pakistan, and Egypt have increasingly coordinated their positions on regional security, while the gradual reconciliation between Ankara and Cairo has removed one of the principal political obstacles to a broader alignment among the major Sunni powers. Egyptian accession is by no means inevitable, but strategically it would make considerable sense, since Cairo would add the largest Arab population, one of the region’s most substantial armed forces, and control over the Suez Canal to an already formidable combination of Saudi capital, Turkish military technology, and Pakistani strategic capabilities. If that happened, the expression ‘Middle Eastern NATO’, often used rather loosely in previous decades, would begin to describe something much more concrete.

The most important question, however, concerns the state against which this emerging system of deterrence may actually matter most. The immediate context is obviously the confrontation with Iran, yet treating the Mecca agreement primarily as an anti-Iranian coalition would miss a deeper transformation taking place across the region. Israel’s wars and military operations since October 2023 have extended from Gaza into Lebanon, Syria and Iran, while the repeated expansion of the geographical boundaries within which Israel has been prepared to employ force has created a growing concern among regional capitals that the previous system of restraints has effectively collapsed. The problem from Riyadh’s or Ankara’s perspective is not simply one particular Israeli operation but the environment in which a single regional power increasingly appears willing and able to strike across multiple neighboring states without facing an organized regional counterweight.

The Mecca framework may be more significant for Israel than for Iran. As RUSI researcher Burcu Ozcelik noted in comments cited by Reuters, the agreement can be understood as an attempt to create deterrence against Israel while simultaneously counterbalancing Iranian influence, rather than as preparation for a military confrontation with Tehran. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan have no obvious interest in beginning another war with Israel, but they do have an interest in restoring limits to unilateral military action. A bloc that combines Turkish military capabilities and defense production, Saudi financial resources, and Pakistani strategic depth would not need to fight Israel in order to alter its calculations; its political value would lie in making the potential consequences of further regional escalation less predictable and therefore more costly.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office declined to comment on the agreement, but silence should not be confused with indifference, since Israeli planners can hardly ignore the emerging collective-defence structure linking Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and nuclear-armed Pakistan. Israel has long benefited from a fragmented strategic environment in which Arab and Muslim states possessed substantial military capabilities but remained divided by rivalries, incompatible alliances, and competing relationships with Washington. A gradual reduction of those divisions changes the strategic equation even before any common military headquarters, integrated air-defence network, or joint planning system appears.

Iran occupies a more ambiguous position in this architecture and may ultimately become either one of its objects of deterrence or one of its participants. Tehran’s ability to inflict serious costs on US forces and partners has undoubtedly strengthened its regional standing, and Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan would have little interest in replacing excessive dependence on Washington with acquiescence to Iranian regional predominance. Should Iranian confidence evolve into an attempt to establish a more explicit hegemony over the Gulf or the wider Middle East, the Mecca framework could become a natural balancing mechanism. Yet the opposite scenario is equally possible, because an increasingly inclusive regional security structure might eventually offer Iran a place within a broader system of mutual guarantees, thereby transforming the alliance from a bloc designed to contain particular adversaries into the foundation of a regional balance in which no single power – Israeli, Iranian, or otherwise – could dominate the others.

There is another dimension to this process that may become increasingly important, particularly if the Mecca framework expands. Israel already participates in I2U2 alongside India, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States, and although I2U2 itself is not a military alliance and has concentrated primarily on investment, technology, energy, food security, and infrastructure, it exists alongside increasingly dense strategic and defense relationships connecting the same states. India has built an exceptionally close defense partnership with Israel, while New Delhi and Abu Dhabi have also deepened military and technological cooperation, creating the outline of another network whose strategic importance could grow as the Middle Eastern order becomes more fragmented.

It would nevertheless be premature to draw a neat dividing line with Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan on one side and Israel, India, and the UAE on the other. The UAE illustrates why the emerging order is unlikely to resemble the rigid bloc politics of the twentieth century, since Abu Dhabi maintains close relations with Israel and India while simultaneously coordinating with Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Egypt, and Pakistan on a range of regional questions and repeatedly expressing positions critical of Israeli actions. India presents a similar case, as its strategic relationship with Israel coexists with increasingly important economic, energy, and political ties with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the wider Gulf. Rather than two mutually exclusive military camps, the region may therefore be moving toward a much more complicated structure of overlapping alignments in which states cooperate in one sphere, compete in another, and deliberately avoid placing all their strategic dependence on a single partner.

That very ambiguity is one of the defining features of the emerging multipolar order. Saudi Arabia can maintain extensive security links with the US while purchasing Turkish military technology and building a defense pact with Pakistan; Türkiye can remain inside NATO while creating independent security mechanisms with non-NATO states; India can deepen its strategic partnership with Israel without treating Saudi Arabia as an adversary; and the UAE can cooperate with Israel while simultaneously trying to preserve stable relations with Iran. The significance of Mecca lies not in creating a new binary confrontation but in accelerating the erosion of an older system in which regional states were expected to organize themselves primarily around the geopolitical preferences of outside powers.

For Russia and China, such a transformation naturally creates opportunities. Countries pursuing greater strategic autonomy are likely to diversify military procurement, technological partnerships, investment flows, and diplomatic relationships, and Moscow retains competitive capabilities in fields such as air defense, aviation, missile technologies, and electronic warfare that remain highly relevant to the security concerns of the new grouping. Beijing, meanwhile, possesses the economic resources and political influence to support regional arrangements that reduce the dependence of Middle Eastern states on any single Western center. Neither Russia nor China needs these countries to ‘change sides’; the essential feature of the new environment is precisely that increasingly powerful states no longer believe they should have to choose only one.

For decades, successive American administrations entertained various versions of a ‘Middle Eastern NATO’, imagining a network of US partners capable of pooling military resources, containing Iran, defending strategic infrastructure, and ultimately reinforcing an American-led regional order. The concept repeatedly failed because the states expected to participate in it disagreed over threats, distrusted one another, and remained comfortable relying on Washington as the ultimate guarantor of their security.

Now something remarkably similar is beginning to emerge, but under completely different political conditions and for very different reasons. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan are not acting because Washington has successfully integrated them into a new American architecture, but because the instability of recent years has persuaded them that no external power, including the US, should remain the sole foundation of their security. The alliance is therefore a product not of American strategic dominance but of its declining exclusivity, and its future expansion could produce a system in which Washington remains important without retaining the ability to define automatically who the region’s enemies and partners must be.

For the Middle East itself, this development could ultimately prove stabilizing if it evolves toward an inclusive balance rather than another hostile bloc. The region has spent decades trapped between external interventions, unresolved interstate disputes, ideological confrontation, and security arrangements designed largely outside it, while genuine stability can only emerge when the principal regional powers develop mechanisms that make escalation costly for everyone and compromise preferable to permanent confrontation. A system capable of constraining Israeli unilateralism without seeking Israel’s destruction, limiting Iranian ambitions without attempting to isolate Iran permanently, and reducing Arab and Turkish dependence on outside military patrons would represent something the Middle East has rarely possessed – a security order produced primarily by the region itself.

The American umbrella has not gone away, nor will US power vanish from the Middle East, but the assumption that every meaningful regional security structure must ultimately be built around Washington is beginning to disappear. The ‘Middle Eastern NATO’ that American strategists once imagined may indeed be taking shape, only now it is being designed by regional powers themselves, according to their own perception of threats and potentially with the capacity to restrain not only Iran but also America’s closest regional ally.

The latest migration crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta offers a revealing glimpse into the European Union’s changing relationship with the world beyond its borders. At the same time, it shows just how different today’s politics are from the future many imagined only a generation ago.

On July 30, around 60,000 illegal migrants crossed from Morocco into Ceuta and, within hours, almost all of them had returned home. Such an episode would have been almost impossible to imagine in any previous era, but it belongs entirely to the political realities of our own time.

Perhaps most apparent is that none of the parties involved emerges with much moral authority and nor do their actions resemble what we traditionally associate with responsible statecraft.

Morocco, meanwhile, demonstrated that migration has become an effective diplomatic tool. By allowing thousands of people to cross into Ceuta, King Mohammed VI sent Madrid a clear political signal over wider disagreements in North Africa while simultaneously strengthening Rabat’s hand in negotiations over European financial support for migration control.

Morocco has long acted as EU’s southern gatekeeper and the latest episode serves as a reminder that this role comes with leverage, so Rabat expects Spain and the European Union to pay generously for acting as a filter against migration from Africa towards what former Eurocrat Josep Borrell once famously described as Europe’s “garden.”

It is equally plausible that Morocco sought to relieve some domestic social pressure by allowing frustrated citizens to leave, even if only temporarily. thus exporting internal discontent has become another instrument of statecraft. The EU response was no less revealing as Spain’s EU partners reacted predictably, with some calling for temporary restrictions on Spain’s participation in the Schengen free movement area while reinforcing their own borders. Brussels, meanwhile, largely left Madrid to deal with the problem itself.

Migration, once regarded as an extraordinary humanitarian emergency, has become an ordinary feature of EU politics and it now shapes domestic debates, bilateral relations, and wider EU policy-making simultaneously. One can only imagine the reaction had Morocco been a BRICS member. The same commentators who rarely expect the EU to solve its own problems would no doubt have demanded to know why BRICS had failed to intervene.

Even in its strongest years, it was hardly a secret that the EU frequently traded access to its market and visa-free travel for political and economic concessions. What’s more obvious today is that migration itself has become an accepted instrument of political bargaining, despite its obvious implications for public security and social cohesion, as questions directly affecting the safety and stability of European societies have become tools of domestic politics and international negotiation.

Second, Ceuta illustrates how dramatically our understanding of statecraft has changed because not so long ago, rulers of countries such as Morocco or Turkey would probably have considered it beneath the dignity of the state to manipulate migration flows for political or financial advantage, particularly when the migrants involved were overwhelmingly their own citizens.

Today, such behavior is increasingly regarded as normal diplomacy, so this inevitably raises broader questions about what distinguishes a genuine state pursuing the public interest from a territory administered primarily for the benefit of its ruling elite.

That stability shouldn’t be taken for granted, given it rests on years of patient diplomacy, mutual respect, and recognition of shared interests and it’s not an accident but an achievement, and one that requires constant attention.

The lesson from Ceuta is clear: stable relations between neighbors cannot rely solely on legal agreements or financial incentives. They require trust and, without it, migration ceases to be a humanitarian issue and becomes simply another instrument of geopolitical leverage. The EU’s southern frontier now offers a vivid demonstration of precisely that reality.

This article was first published by Vzglyad newspaper and translated and edited by the RT team.

The EU cannot fast-track Ukraine’s membership bid as allowing such a large and corrupt country into the bloc would make a “mockery of the entire project,” a senior diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Financial Times for an article published on Friday.

Kiev was granted EU candidate status soon after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, and Vladimir Zelensky has increasingly demanded that that the process be fast-tracked, potentially allowing Ukraine to join as early as 2027. However, multiple EU leaders have ruled out so fast an accession, with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggesting an associate membership for Ukraine – an idea Zelensky has rejected.

“You can’t bring a country of 40 million people that’s at 104 on the global corruption list into the EU. It would make a mockery of the entire project,” the FT cited the EU diplomat as saying.

Ukraine’s “biggest impact on the enlargement debate, by far, is making it clear just how unprepared we are for new members,” the FT cited the diplomat as saying.

Ukraine has seen several major corruption scandals of late. Last November, the country's Western-backed national anti-graft agencies charged Zelensky’s longtime business associate Timur Mindich with embezzling around $100 million from the country’s nuclear operator Energoatom. Two ministers and the Ukrainian leader’s chief of staff were ousted in the aftermath.

“Corruption in Ukraine has become a byword. It permeates the entire Ukrainian power structure, including Zelensky’s inner circle and Zelensky himself,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier this year.

Meanwhile, ordinary Ukrainians are dying in “meat-grinder assaults” for “Mindich’s gold-plated toilets” and “luxury jewelry” for Zelensky’s wife Olena, she said.

The Pentagon is pressing US arms makers to accelerate production as the ongoing war with Iran depletes critical weapons stockpiles, the Washington Post reported on Saturday, citing a Department of War memo to industry leaders.

The memo, written by Deputy Secretary of War Steve Feinberg and reportedly sent earlier this week, gives manufacturers 21 days to propose “significantly faster” and “more aggressive” delivery schedules, expanded production capacity, or both.

“Years-long development cycles are not acceptable,” Feinberg wrote. “We must dramatically accelerate our program schedules and expand our production capacity now.”

The memo identifies several critical programs, including next-generation air-defense equipment, surface-to-air missile systems, satellite communications, and space-based missile tracking. Feinberg also called on industry leaders to propose investments and facility expansions to support “higher volume, sustained orders.”

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed to the media on Saturday that the memo is real and will help shape the fiscal 2028 budget, calling it “consistent with our ongoing push to rebuild the defense industrial base.”

While Parnell said the effort is part of a broader modernization drive predating the Iran war, it comes after months of fighting that have depleted already diminished US munitions stocks.

US President Donald Trump has vehemently denied any shortages, accusing the media of spreading misinformation. Earlier this week, he insisted on Truth Social that the US has “massive amounts” of weaponry. In later comments to reporters, he acknowledged that supplies of some unspecified systems are “a little bit tighter,” but maintained that stockpiles remain “literally massive,” with replacements arriving daily. Nevertheless, Trump reiterated that he would not give Patriots to Ukraine, which has long demanded more of the systems, saying “we want missiles too.”

The Pentagon has spent recent months trying to turn up the production dial. Last week, it announced a framework agreement with Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin to boost output of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) and THAAD missiles. A similar deal has been agreed with RTX’s Raytheon to increase production of Tomahawk and several other missile systems. In May, the Pentagon also struck agreements with Anduril, Castelion, CoAspire, Leidos, and Zone 5 to expand strike capabilities and procure lower-cost missiles.

However, experts say the framework agreements are legally non-binding and hinge on congressional funding, specifically the proposed $1.15 trillion defense bill that remains deadlocked after Senate Democrats blocked it in mid-July, opposing the massive spending increase and Trump’s military action against Iran without congressional approval.

US-Iran peace efforts remain stalled after a Pakistan-brokered interim agreement reached in mid-June quickly unraveled amid renewed skirmishes and tanker attacks, with both sides trading blame for violations.

On Saturday, Iran laid out new conditions for talks, demanding Washington lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports, withdraw forces “from the area surrounding Iran,” remove “unjust and illegal” sanctions, release frozen Iranian assets, and pay compensation before negotiations can resume.

A German journalist asked Vladimir Zelensky at a press conference in Belgrade how Europeans could help Kiev “kill more Russians,” prompting Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to raise his eyebrows in apparent disbelief.

The provocative question came from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung correspondent Michael Martens during a joint press conference following Zelensky’s talks with Vucic on Saturday.

“Can you tell us Europeans what can we concretely do to help you to kill more Russians?” Martens asked. He hastily added he meant “more Russian soldiers, of course,” before asking whether the two leaders had discussed military cooperation.

Footage shows Vucic raising his eyebrows in apparent disbelief as he hears the question.

Clips of the exchange quickly went viral on social media, triggering a wave of angry reactions. Some users denounced the wording as offensive and accused Martens of “incitement to hatred.” Others branded him a “Nazi,” noting that his grandfather served as an officer on a Wehrmacht command staff during World War II – a fact that Martens himself has acknowledged.

Although Martens’ question was directed at Zelensky, Vucic answered first.

“We did not discuss military cooperation today,” the Serbian president said. “What happens when the war ends is another matter. And speaking about killing, I hope all killing will end.”

Zelensky, meanwhile, used the question to reiterate his demands that Kiev’s Western backers send more money and slap more sanctions on Moscow.

Martens’ question comes amid growing Russophobia in the West, ranging from anti-Russian rhetoric by politicians, journalists and other public figures to restrictions on Russian media, culture, and language and the destruction of Soviet memorials.

Just this week, Polish President Karol Nawrocki made his own remarks about killing Russians, telling a rally in Warsaw that helping Ukraine do so was in Poland’s strategic interest. “Wherever the Moskal is being fought, Poland helps,” he said, using a historic derogatory term for Russians.

AI could eventually gain unprecedented insight into people’s lives, internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom has warned. He said the technology could bring together vast amounts of personal information, allowing AI systems to build highly detailed profiles of individuals.

The technology could dramatically expand the reach of US surveillance, according to Dotcom. He added that AI systems could gain access to government databases containing vast amounts of information about citizens.

“AI is very dangerous because it will get access to the US database,” the founder of the Megaupload file sharing service said in an interview with Tucker Carlson released on Friday. “So the AI will know everything about everybody.”

Asked if there is any way to stop this from happening, Dotcom said, “Don’t have AI. Don’t have internet. It’s the only way.”

The comments came during a discussion about online privacy and government surveillance. He went on to say that the US government operates massive surveillance programs capable of capturing phone calls, video calls, and other online activity.

Asked why the US is building so many data centers, Dotcom claimed that the US is already collecting around 10 petabytes of data a day, including communications.

“All communications, everything,” he said.

Dotcom also rejected the idea that the US has an overwhelming lead in the AI sector, saying China is “not far behind” and calling claims to the contrary propaganda.

The development of AI and expansion of data-center infrastructure have fueled debates over the amount of personal information available to governments and tech companies and the potential use of AI to analyze it at scale.

Ukraine’s practice of awarding drone operators points for killing Russian soldiers is “macabre” and disturbing, Britain’s most senior military officer, Richard Knighton, has said.

Knighton, the UK chief of the Defense Staff, made the remarks in an essay for Heywood Quarterly published on Tuesday, after he visited a Ukrainian drone unit operating near the Donbass city of Krasnoarmeysk (known as Pokrovsk in Ukraine), which was liberated by Russia in December 2025.

He described the evolution of modern warfare as “dizzying,” pointing to the Ukrainian military’s use of drone-camera feeds that are analyzed on screens and converted into kill scores.

The scheme, known as the Army of Drone Bonus, was launched in spring 2025 by Mikhail Fedorov, the minister of digital transformation at the time. Under the scheme, drone units submit proof that Russian soldiers were killed or hardware was destroyed. In exchange, they receive points that serve as military currency that can be spent by commanders for equipment on a classified, state-run e-commerce platform called Brave1 Market – which Fedorov called the “Amazon for War.”

The system also features a top kill list, although it registers drone units rather than individual drone operators. In January, Fedorov awarded the top performers in a ceremony resembling an e-sports tournament.

Former Ukrainian prosecutor Gynduz Mamedov warned that the new system could dehumanize drone operators. “We want our people to come back from the war as human beings, not as killing machines,” he said, as cited by Time.

Russian officials have accused Kiev of dehumanizing Russian soldiers and civilians, citing cases of torture and abuse. Senior Ukrainian officials have also made statements calling for Russians to be killed.

A state of emergency was declared in the Canadian province of British Columbia on Saturday as thousands of people were forced to flee a fast-moving wildfire that nearly doubled in size overnight.

The Bald Range wildfire was burning out of control, prompting evacuation orders in Summerland, Peachland and other communities west of Okanagan Lake in southern British Columbia. First reported on Friday west of Summerland, the fire, fanned by strong winds and dry vegetation, raced about 15km toward the lake within hours, growing to more than 100 sq. km.

Local officials said the blaze had triggered the largest evacuation event in British Columbia so far this summer, with more than 20,000 people across the province forced to leave their homes.

Videos circulating online showed flames burning alongside a highway and structures engulfed in fire, while aircraft could be seen circling a towering column of smoke above forests near Summerland as crews battled the blaze from the air. Other footage showed thick smoke billowing over hillsides near residential areas and long lines of traffic as residents fled the area.

British Columbia Premier David Eby has told journalists the fire had caused significant property losses and that some residents had become trapped as the flames advanced rapidly.

Fire behavior specialist Ben Bergin said the area had experienced three days of exceptionally hot and dry weather under a high-pressure system that had also kept smoke close to the ground.

Bergin added that stronger winds were expected to exacerbate fire conditions, with winds shifting to the west and pushing the fire eastward. He added that containment measures and a fuel break were already in place on the eastern side of the blaze.

Ground crews, structural protection units, helicopters, and heavy air-tankers were deployed to battle the fire, with the BC Wildfire Service mounting an aerial and ground response as crews worked to slow its spread, according to local officials.

Hot and dry conditions have raised the risk of further fires spreading across British Columbia. The province has issued 40 evacuation orders and 49 evacuation alerts.

Wildfires have burned about 9.9 million acres (40,000 square kilometers) across the country so far this year, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Plauen in the eastern German state of Saxony on Saturday to protest Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government, demanding its resignation and snap elections.

The demonstration was organized by the nationwide Unity for Germany / Project M1llion initiative. Saxon police put attendance at around 10,000, including activists from the right-wing Free Saxons party, which backed the rally.

“This cartel, this government must go!” a speaker told the crowd, drawing applause. Footage showed demonstrators marching through the city under a heavy police presence, chanting slogans and carrying German flags and placards reading “Merz must go!”

“[Merz] has made it even worse than his predecessors. And if he keeps going like this, then Germany will soon go dark,” one protester said.

The organizers issued an 11-point list of demands, including early elections, lower electricity and gas costs, a nationwide €29 public transport ticket and changes to healthcare policy. They also called for tougher migration policies and criticized Merz’s military spending. The chancellor recently pledged to turn the Bundeswehr into the “strongest conventional army in Europe,” citing the purported Russian threat – a notion Moscow has repeatedly ridiculed. Berlin has also agreed to raise core defense spending to 3.5% of GDP by 2029.

Merz faces plunging approval ratings amid economic stagnation, stalled domestic reforms, and friction within the governing coalition. A July ARD-DeutschlandTrend poll by Infratest Dimap found that 84% of Germans were dissatisfied with the performance of Merz and his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc. His approval rating stood at just 13% – the lowest recorded for a German chancellor since tracking began in 1997. Meanwhile, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) has surged in national polls, with some surveys putting it level with or ahead of Merz’s bloc.

The ruling coalition earlier this summer announced a package of so-called “sweeping reforms” aimed at reviving the struggling economy, including modest tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, pension changes and stricter sick-leave rules.

The polling figures come just weeks before crucial regional elections in the eastern states of Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the AfD leads in the polls and could take control of a regional government for the first time. Amid growing public discontent, Merz’s own party has reportedly begun discussing his political future. Politico reported this week that there is increasingly open talk of a Kanzlertausch, or “chancellor swap,” in the fall, following a widely criticized government reshuffle in June.

Acute ammunition shortages caused by the Iran war have undermined US security guarantees to its allies in Asia, The New York Times reported on Saturday, citing senior officials.

The campaign, launched with a joint US-Israeli attack on Iran on February 28, has drained stockpiles of costly precision-guided missiles and interceptors, delaying deliveries to foreign customers, especially in Asia, where the long-term impact may be greatest, the report said. It added that “hundreds” of interceptors had been pulled out of South Korea and elsewhere in Asia to protect American bases in the Middle East.

During strikes on Iran, the US used many Tomahawks and other missiles initially reserved for a potential conflict with China over Taiwan, the Times said.

More than 1,500 Patriot interceptors have been used in the Iran conflict, leaving fewer than 1,700 in the US inventory, the Times said.

US President Donald Trump and War Secretary Pete Hegseth have strongly denied any shortages, accusing the media of spreading misinformation. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office this week, Trump claimed that the country had “unlimited” stockpiles.

Nevertheless, Trump blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for what he described as giving weapons to Ukraine “free of charge,” implying that the US now needs them for the war with Iran. “We want missiles too,” he said when asked whether he would send more Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine.

Iran’s Supreme National Security Council has laid out new conditions for the US to meet before the Strait of Hormuz can be reopened, amid continuing attacks on shipping.

In a statement carried by Iranian media on Saturday, the council’s secretary, Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, said that the waterway, which handles around a quarter of global seaborne oil and LNG trade, would not be reopened until “the United States changes its behavior.”

He said the US must lift its naval blockade of Iranian ports and withdraw its forces “from the area surrounding Iran,” as well as lift “unjust and illegal” sanctions, release the country’s frozen assets, and pay compensation. He added that the US must end “war and aggression” against Iran and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Yemen.

“The US must never threaten Iran, in any language, or insult the sacred values of the Iranian nation,” Zolqadr said.

Earlier on Saturday, the UAE said an Iranian missile had struck a tanker operated by its state oil company, ADNOC, accusing Tehran of piracy. Iran insists that all vessels transiting the strait must follow its instructions and avoid what it calls the “illegal” route designated by the US Navy.

US President Donald Trump said he called off new strikes last week to allow room for negotiations. Multiple US media outlets, however, have reported that the Pentagon has significantly depleted its missile arsenal and that Admiral Brad Cooper, the top US commander in the Middle East, told Trump that the target pool around Hormuz had largely been exhausted. The president and his war secretary, Pete Hegseth, have denied ammunition shortages.

Iran’s demands came amid fears of wider chaos sweeping the region. This week, Israel renewed its heavy bombardment of Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of violating a ceasefire reached two months ago with the Lebanese government. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthis, a pro-Iranian Shia group, launched a large-scale offensive against Saudi-backed government forces and targeted Saudi ships in the Red Sea.

The war with Iran remains unpopular among the US public, with a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll showing that 50% of Americans believe US strikes would further destabilize the Middle East, while just 17% said the situation would “get better.”

At least 20 people were injured when two trains collided in Croatia on Saturday, the country’s Health Ministry has said.

The incident occurred shortly after 10 am between the Sveti Ivan Zabno and Gradec railway stations, around 60km east of the Croatian capital of Zagreb. A passenger train carrying 27 people collided with a freight train, leaving six people seriously injured and 14 others with minor injuries.

The victims were taken to hospitals in Bjelovar and Koprivnica, with some later transferred to medical facilities in Zagreb. A young woman was placed in intensive care but remained in stable condition.

Videos posted online show the wreckage, with passengers sitting and standing beside the railway. The passenger train appears heavily damaged, with its roof buckled and exterior panels torn away. Red freight wagons and a locomotive can be seen ahead.

🇭🇷Passenger and freight train collide near Zagreb, Croatia. 20 injured. August 8, 2026
📍 Near Skrinjari — 60km east of Zagreb
6 severely injured. 14 minor injuries. 28 people were on board
Several carriages severely damaged, railway line closed.
Cause under investigation. pic.twitter.com/jjUoepcTSS

— freeledger (@thefreeledger) August 8, 2026

One photo shows part of the passenger train bent at a sharp angle near the point of impact, with a shattered cab windscreen and twisted handrails.

On August 8, 2026, at around 10:05 a.m. local time, a freight train and a passenger train collided between the stations of Sveti Ivan Žabno and Gradec, near Križevci, Croatia, on the Zagreb–Bjelovar line.
There were about 20 passengers on the passenger train, which had left… pic.twitter.com/PETp74Hse0

— T_CAS videos (@tecas2000) August 8, 2026

Koprivnica-Krizevci County Prefect Tomislav Golubic expressed gratitude to the 50 firefighters involved in the operation, as well as to a civilian who assisted with the rescue effort.

“I would especially like to thank a local man for arriving first at the scene with his personal forklift, making it easier for emergency services to tend to the injured,” Golubic said.

U Hrvatskoj je juče došlo do sudara putničkog i teretnog voza. Dvadeset ljudi je povređeno, od kojih troje kritično, uključujući i mašinovođu putničkog voza.
Prema nezvaničnim informacijama teretni voz HŽ Karga prošao je kroz signal za zabranu i udario u putnički voz,prenosi HRT. pic.twitter.com/TYyGWoRtNF

— Џyлc (@doprinositelj) August 8, 2026

Damir Loncaric of Croatian Railways said an investigation into the collision was underway.

The accident came five days after a passenger train struck a trailer carrying hay at a level crossing in Tczew County in Poland. Around 500 people were reportedly on board at the time. Polish State Railways said the tractor driver had ignored warning signals and was found to be intoxicated.