Spain has deployed just 60 troops to its North African exclave of Ceuta after thousands of migrants overwhelmed security forces and stormed across the border from Morocco, with up to 30,000 more people reportedly swarming the frontier.

The Spanish Interior Ministry said the military contingent consisted of three platoons of 20 soldiers each, sent to reinforce the Guardia Civil after officers admitted that the border had “totally collapsed.” Madrid also dispatched specialized police units, bringing their total number to around 200, as well as 30 additional Guardia Civil officers.

The small military deployment came after Ceuta’s regional government pleaded with Madrid to take “decisive” action, close the border and declare a national emergency, warning that local police, hospitals and migrant reception facilities had been overwhelmed.

The Spanish Army is moving toward the Ceuta border with Morocco. pic.twitter.com/UV5swszyU2

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) July 30, 2026

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government rejected the emergency request, arguing that migration does not qualify under legislation covering natural disasters, major accidents and other national catastrophes.

Migrants continue to flood into Spain pic.twitter.com/Dluot7MRUR

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) July 30, 2026

The soldiers were ordered to support the Guardia Civil “in the exercise of its powers” and perform any additional tasks deemed necessary to maintain security. However, Madrid announced no expanded rules of engagement or independent authority for the troops to seal the frontier, detain migrants or carry out expulsions. Their publicly defined role therefore remains one of supporting the police rather than taking control of the border.

🔴 #URGENTE | INVASIÓN EN CEUTA

Avalanchas de marroquíes saltan la valla de Ceuta y entran ilegalmente en territorio español sin ningún control. pic.twitter.com/KQQYrnCKSO

— Vito Quiles 🇪🇸 (@vitoquiles) July 30, 2026

Footage showed large groups swimming around the Tarajal breakwater using inflatable tubes, climbing border structures and rushing through an opened gate as overwhelmed officers struggled to contain the flow. Moroccan forces later deployed reinforcements and used water cannon to disperse crowds gathering near the Bab Ceuta crossing.

Die spanische Exklave Ceuta wird derzeit überrannt: Bereits mehr als 1.500 Migranten, vorwiegend aus Marokko und Algerien, gelangten in kürzester Zeit in die EU. Ihr Ziel dürfte mutmaßlich Deutschland sein. Grenzen müssen jetzt geschlossen und Abweisungen rigoros durchgesetzt… pic.twitter.com/hW7RtKi2OE

— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) July 30, 2026

The scale of the influx remains disputed. Spanish state television initially reported that between 2,000 and 3,000 people had crossed the border, while local outlet Ceuta al Día claimed that around 20,000 had arrived. Antena 3 cited Guardia Civil sources as estimating that almost 40,000 people had swarmed the frontier, although it acknowledged that the figure was approximate. Thousands more were reportedly traveling toward the border from Tangier, Tetouan, Fez, Rabat, Casablanca and other Moroccan cities.

Sanchez and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska are scheduled to visit Ceuta on Friday. Spain and Morocco have meanwhile promised closer coordination and the rapid return of migrants who entered illegally, although Madrid has not explained how that pledge will be reconciled with a recent Supreme Court ruling restricting the summary expulsion of people arriving by sea.

The French police have admitted that they have orders to let illegal migrants get on small boats and head across the English Channel for the UK, according to a video released by British Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp.

In a video posted on X on Wednesday, Philp speaks to members of the French police on a beach in northern France and confronts them about a group of migrants piling onto a small boat just a few yards away.

“Our order is to let them go like that… We just have to say to them, ‘don’t do that, it’s dangerous’,” one officer says.

Just leaving this here for you @ShabanaMahmood….. https://t.co/n4HtXdLL9m pic.twitter.com/otYzGwhaah

— Chris Philp MP (@CPhilpOfficial) July 29, 2026

“Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, is paying the French government over half a billion pounds, £660 million of our money to the French government to stop these boats,” he said.

The £661 million ($889 million) migration agreement, inked in April, is intended to boost French enforcement action, build up police presence on beaches and increase surveillance with new helicopter units, cameras and drones, according to the Home Office.

Successive UK governments have repeatedly promised and failed to reduce the arrivals, despite escalating tensions following a number of attacks and high-profile murder and rape cases involving migrants in recent years.

Just last week, Keir Starmer was replaced by Andy Burnham as prime minister. Starmer lost support following his deeply unpopular handling of anti-immigration protests and his crackdown on internet speech.

Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov has claimed he was dismissed because reforms to overhaul military procurement and tackle entrenched interests within the ministry triggered a backlash.
 
Fedorov was removed by Vladimir Zelensky earlier this month after just six months in office as part of a sweeping government reshuffle. At the time, Zelensky cited tensions between the defense minister and commander-in-chief Aleksandr Syrsky, while Ukrainian media reported that disagreements over military reform lay behind the rift.
 
In an interview with Ukrainskaya Pravda published on Wednesday, Fedorov suggested the broader government reshuffle may have served as cover for his dismissal. He said changes to procurement rules and defense tenders had angered vested interests.

The co-founder of Palestine Action has been granted permission to challenge the group’s prohibition at the British Supreme Court, as police arrested hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists in London.

The court ruled on Thursday that Huda Ammori, who co-founded Palestine Action in 2020, could appeal the proscription later this year. Palestine Action was listed as a terrorist organization last July, and although Britain’s High Court ruled the ban unlawful earlier this year, an appeals court later reinstated it, citing the group’s “support for violence.”

“We will continue to fight this proscription all the way to the Supreme Court and, if necessary, to the European Court of Human Rights to overturn what has become one of the most extreme attacks on free speech and the right to protest in modern British history,” Ammori said in a statement.

The ban placed Palestine Action in the same legal category as Al Qaeda and the IRA, and criminalized public displays of support for the organization. More than 3,500 Palestine Action sympathizers have since been arrested for displaying t-shirts, flags, and placards supporting the group at protests.

Palestine Action was proscribed by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who served under former Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmer led a nationwide crackdown on pro-Palestine activism, following the ban with calls for the “policing of language” and banning of anti-Israel protests.

Starmer’s replacement, Andy Burnham, has said that the Labour Party “didn’t get it right” on the war on Gaza and “needs to do better.” However, Burnham’s home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has left the prohibition in place.

It is unfathomable that Andy Burnham's new Government is continuing with the proscription of Palestine Action meaning huge numbers of police resources are being redeployed and used to police and arrest pensioners peacefully protesting a genocide. pic.twitter.com/JvyYXHcD0l

— Cllr Martin Abrams (@Martin_Abrams) July 30, 2026

Last month, four Palestine Action members were sentenced as terrorists for vandalizing an Israeli arms plant near Bristol in 2024. After ramming their way into the Elbit Systems factory with a decommissioned prison van, they destroyed computers, drones, and other equipment inside, causing around £1.2 million ($1.6 million) in damage.

Joint US-Saudi strikes on alleged Iran-aligned militia positions across Iraq have sparked political backlash, with Baghdad condemning the attacks as a violation of the country’s sovereignty. RT’s Ali Rida Sbeity reported on the ground.

The strikes targeted positions of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) in seven provinces, according to Iraqi officials, with the group saying at least 20 of its members were killed and 32 wounded. Washington and Riyadh said they had targeted Iran-linked militants in response to a drone attack on Saudi oil facilities, a claim denied by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.

The PMF is formally part of Iraq’s security structure, meaning the strikes are being treated “not as simple attacks on armed factions, but as attacks on institutions belonging to the Iraqi state,” Sbeity said.

Tensions deepened after US President Donald Trump claimed the strikes had been coordinated with Baghdad. “That stands in sharp contrast to the public Iraqi position, which describes the strike as a violation of sovereignty,” Sbeity added.

The current escalation comes after a brief pause in direct US attacks on Iran-linked targets. Earlier this week, Tehran launched missiles at US military installations in Jordan in its first regional attack since fighting subsided.

Ahmed Al-Shahri, head of the Saudi Experience Forum, described the attacks on Saudi Arabia’s strategic infrastructure as crossing a “red line.”

The US-Saudi strikes have “once again” placed Iraq at the center of a wider regional confrontation that Baghdad has “repeatedly tried to avoid,” Sbeity said.

The first patient to receive Russia’s personalized melanoma vaccine is feeling well and has developed the immune response needed to fight the disease, said Aleksandr Ginzburg, the scientific director of the Gamaleya Research Institute, which helped develop the treatment.

Last year, the Russian Health Ministry approved two domestically developed personalized cancer treatments: an mRNA-based vaccine for advanced melanoma named Neooncovac and a peptide medicine targeting colorectal cancer dubbed Oncopept.

Neooncovac was administered to its first patient in April. The recipient is a 60-year-old man with stage-three melanoma and metastases, who is being treated at the Herzen Moscow Oncology Research Institute.

According to Ginzburg, the patient is “feeling completely normal” and continuing treatment. Tests have shown “very positive” immunological responses, with the body producing the active compounds needed for the immune system to fight the tumor and its metastases, he told RIA Novosti on Thursday.

The patient is expected to receive two further doses of the medicine. His immune response will continue to be monitored throughout the treatment, Ginzburg said.

Beijing has lodged an official protest with New Zealand’s Foreign Ministry over controversial remarks made by the country’s top diplomat, Winston Peters, to a Chinese-born MP during a heated parliamentary exchange.

The Chinese Embassy in Wellington made the announcement on Thursday, a day after the event, citing “negative China-related remarks.”

On Wednesday, during debate on the country’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, Peters, founder and leader of the right-wing populist NZ First party, was asked by China-born Green Party MP Lawrence Xu-Nan whether he had been vaccinated.

In response, Peters alleged that the lawmaker, who was born in the Chinese city of Tianjin but grew up in New Zealand, had “come here five minutes ago.”

The incident also prompted a rare public intervention by China’s ambassador to New Zealand, Wang Xiaolong, who said on X that while he generally avoided commenting on domestic politics, “sometimes, a statement says more about the person that makes it than anything or anybody else.”

On the ambassador's comments, Peters said that his remarks were a defense of democracy and free speech. In a post on X, he argued that the envoy had “proven the point” he made in parliament, contrasting New Zealand’s democratic freedoms with what he described as “communist and dictatorship countries.” Peters added that he would “not resile from that point.”

Commenting on Peters’ attack, Xu-Nan said: “It’s a little bit unbelievable to have a Minister for Foreign Affairs, I guess, scapegoating the migrant communities as a distraction to shift the blame away from all of the harm that this government is doing.”

NZ First has previously faced criticism over similar remarks. Last year, deputy leader Shane Jones shouted “send the Mexicans home” at Philippines-born MP Francisco Hernandez, prompting a diplomatic protest from Mexico. Peters later said the comments “may have been expressed differently” in the heat of the moment.

Thousands of north African migrants have broken into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta from Morocco. Regional authorities have pleaded with Spain’s socialist government to send in the military, but Madrid has refused.

Groups of migrants began swimming around the border fence separating Ceuta from Morocco earlier this week, but the trickle became a surge on Thursday when a large group overwhelmed border guards and broke through the fence.

The head of Ceuta’s regional government estimated that up to 2,000 people had arrived by midday on Thursday, overcrowding reception centers and creating “a humanitarian and social emergency.” The majority of the arrivals are young men, the Associated Press reported.

Video footage shared on social media showed hordes of migrants cheering as they poured into the Spanish territory by land and sea.

IN CRE I BLE #Ceuta cientos de marroquíes a la carrera tras llegar a nado al espigón del Tarajal#FronteraSur #Haraga #Inmigracion pic.twitter.com/qVA6MwDuxU

— KARIM PRIM (@KARIMPRIM) July 30, 2026

Ceuta’s mayor-president, Juan Jesus Vivas, called on the Spanish government to declare a national emergency and deploy police officers and soldiers at the border. The Spanish Interior Ministry, however, said that it does not consider migration to be an emergency.

No es una crisis migratoria en Ceuta, es una declaración de guerra de Marruecos. pic.twitter.com/FaqS2z0u6E

— David Santos (@davidsantosvlog) July 30, 2026

🔴 Miles de inmigrantes ilegales asaltan la frontera y entran en la ciudad autónoma: "Es una invasión sin precedentes".https://t.co/FwIknSSM8p pic.twitter.com/l99I8lH7sI

— Bipartidismo Stream (@Bipartidismo_) July 30, 2026

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez – who legalized 500,000 illegal immigrants earlier this year – offered an ambiguous response. “We are mobilizing all necessary resources… and preparing the necessary measures to restore normalcy as soon as possible,” he wrote on social media. “This is the moment to build solutions, with responsibility and cooperation.”

Russia has reportedly proposed a mechanism for settling trade with Bangladesh in Indian rupees to bypass US sanctions and facilitate payments for the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant, local media has reported.

Dhaka has been unable to make the loan repayments for the Russian-financed plant due to US sanctions on Russian banks.

Moscow’s proposals to overcome the disruption in payment are likely to be discussed at bilateral talks to be held later this year, Bangladesh media reported, citing unnamed officials in Dhaka’s Economic Relations Division (ERD).

RT sources have not confirmed the reports, but they acknowledged that the issue of making payments for the Rooppur nuclear power project remains unresolved.

Bangladesh media also reported that Moscow has proposed establishing a bilateral payment infrastructure and renewed its proposal to open a local branch of a Russian bank.

However, RT sources pointed out that, excluding the nuclear power plant, trade between Moscow and Dhaka is too limited to justify building a mechanism for making national-currency payments from scratch.

The estimated cost of the two-reactor 2,400 MW-plant is about $13 billion, with Russia providing a government loan covering 90% of the amount. Russia has also taken on long‑term obligations to supply nuclear fuel, perform technical maintenance, and manage spent nuclear fuel.

The plant’s first reactor is expected to begin commercial operation next month, with an initial supply of about 300 megawatts. 

Part of India and Russia’s bilateral trade is settled in Indian rupees. Dhaka also reportedly trades with New Delhi in Indian rupees, along with the US dollar and other foreign currencies.

Dhaka exported goods worth $245 million to Russia during the July-May period of the current fiscal year, data provided by the Export Promotion Bureau of Bangladesh showed.

Since the start of Russia's military operation in Ukraine, the West has consistently sought to draw Türkiye into its policy of confrontation with Moscow. This was particularly evident at the this month’s NATO summit in Ankara when the West attempted to pressure the Turkish leadership into adopting a clear anti-Russia stance.

For Washington and Europe, Türkiye is particularly valuable. It is not just a member of the North Atlantic Alliance, but a country with the second-largest army in NATO, a developed defense industry, a strategic location in the Black Sea region, and significant influence in the Middle East and parts of Eurasia. Therefore, for the West, it is crucial to not just secure Ankara’s formal loyalty (which is already ensured by its NATO membership), but to make it part of the unified anti-Russia front. 

Ankara, however, continues to pursue a policy that significantly differs from the course of most NATO states. Calling Türkiye completely neutral would be a mistake. It supports Ukraine’s narrative concerning territorial integrity, maintains military-technical ties with Kiev, participates in meetings of the NATO-Ukraine Council, and occasionally makes political statements in support of Ukraine. However, Türkiye has not joined EU sanctions against Russia or curtailed Russian-Turkish economic cooperation; moreover, it has maintained direct channels of communication with Moscow. The European Commission’s 2025 report noted that Türkiye has consistently refrained from joining EU restrictive measures against Russia, although it has taken steps to prevent sanctions from being circumvented through its territory. The trade turnover between Russia and Türkiye also remains high, despite external pressure.

This was clearly demonstrated by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan’s three-day visit to Russia on June 15-17. The packed agenda demonstrated Ankara’s desire to develop relations with Moscow. Fidan met with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Secretary of the Security Council Sergey Shoigu, representatives of the Russian leadership and the business community, and Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin. Fidan was also received by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The discussed topics included bilateral cooperation, energy, transport, regional security, and prospects for resuming Russia-Ukraine negotiations. 

Such active diplomacy demonstrates that Türkiye is unlikely to be drawn into an anti-Russia bloc. Russian-Turkish relations are based not only on personal dialogue between Erdogan and Putin. Major energy, trade, investment, and infrastructure projects exist between the two countries. Russia is currently constructing Türkiye’s first nuclear power plant, the Akkuyu NPP. At the end of 2025, Türkiye  announced that Russia would provide an additional $9 billion in funding for the project. For Ankara, severing such ties wouldn’t just be a symbolic demonstration of solidarity with the West; it would bring concrete economic losses and additional risks to energy security.

The situation in the Black and Azov seas is especially important for Türkiye. The escalating attacks on vessels directly affect Turkish interests. In June, Fidan noted that Kiev must avoid actions that could undermine security in the Black Sea and Türkiye’s interests. At that time, tankers near the Turkish coast, including a Turkish vessel, had been attacked. Ankara lodged formal protests to Ukraine in regard to these incidents.

Ankara fears more than just economic damage. Turkish leaders understand that the expanding geography of the strikes could directly affect Türkiye’s borders. Drones and naval drones are not always able to accurately determine a vessel’s nationality, crew composition, beneficial owner, or the nature of the cargo being transported. Any error could result in the deaths of Turkish citizens, damage to Turkish property, or an environmental disaster off the country’s coast. This is precisely why Türkiye is interested in limiting the scale of the war. 

Moreover, Erdogan continues to assert his role as a mediator. For him, this is an opportunity to strengthen Türkiye’s international status. Ankara has already hosted Russia-Ukraine talks, brokered grain deals, facilitated prisoner exchanges, and repeatedly offered to host new contacts on its territory. Although the Turkish platform ultimately collapsed, as Kiev failed to comply with the terms of the agreements and Ankara lacked the political will to pressure Zelensky and his entourage, Türkiye believes it may still be a mediator in the future. During his June visit to Moscow, Fidan reiterated Türkiye’s readiness to host another round of talks and help make them more productive.

Fidan’s position on the agreements discussed between Russia and the US during the summit in Anchorage is also notable. Fidan urged the Ukrainian side to heed the understandings reached in Alaska, noting that Moscow’s unilateral commitment is insufficient and that “it takes two to tango.” This formulation fundamentally differs from the approach of most European politicians, who place the blame for the failure to reach an agreement solely on Russia. Ankara has made it clear that a diplomatic settlement requires reciprocal action from Kiev and its Western backers. 

Naturally, Türkiye  will continue to make certain overtures to Ukraine and partners within NATO. It will not publicly renounce its support for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity,” will not cease cooperation with Kiev, and will participate in Western meetings on Ukraine. For example, on July 13, Fidan represented Erdogan at the Paris summit of the so-called Coalition of the Willing. However, Türkiye’s participation in such formats does not necessarily mean that it is ready to break ties with Russia. Turkish diplomacy traditionally strives to maintain ties with various players, preventing any single power center from gaining a monopoly on relations with it.

The West could offer Türkiye several concessions such as the lifting of sanctions, a return to the F-35 program, access to European defense funds, investments, and political concessions. But even these incentives are unlikely to force Erdogan to completely reconsider relations with Moscow. The Turkish leader understands that without Russia’s involvement, it is impossible to resolve issues concerning Syria, the Middle East, the South Caucasus, the Black Sea region, as well as energy and Eurasian policy issues. Furthermore, demonstratively joining the anti-Russia front would deprive Türkiye of its mediator status and transform it from an independent player in international relations into just another tool used by the West to implement its strategy. 

Therefore, Western attempts to draw Türkiye into an open confrontation with Russia are not likely to yield the desired result. Ankara may make certain concessions, bargain with Washington, expand cooperation with NATO, and strengthen ties with Ukraine; but it will probably avoid crossing the line that would directly damage relations with Russia. Türkiye will not choose between Russia and the West: its goal is to force Moscow, Washington, and Brussels to consider Turkish interests.

This is the essence of Erdogan’s policy. It’s neither neutrality in the classical sense, nor equidistance. Rather, it is strategic autonomy based on pragmatism, balance, and the desire to extract political and economic advantages from the competition among major powers. The West would like to see Türkiye as part of a united anti-Russia front. However, Türkiye prefers to see itself as a separate center of power. And as long as Erdogan retains control over the country’s foreign policy, the likelihood that Ankara will fully submit to the West’s anti-Russia strategy remains low. 

The US Senate has unanimously urged President Donald Trump not to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker who helped Jeffrey Epstein recruit and abuse underage girls.

Maxwell, the daughter of disgraced British newspaper tycoon and former MP Robert Maxwell, who had suspected ties to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency, is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence after being convicted in 2021 of sex trafficking and related offenses.

The resolution, introduced by Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen and approved without objection from either party on Wednesday, states that Maxwell should not receive “a pardon, commutation, or any other form of executive clemency.”

Rosen stated that it was “horrifying” that Trump had even entertained the possibility of clemency, arguing that Maxwell should never receive a pardon for helping Epstein abuse underage girls.

Trump has repeatedly declined to categorically rule out pardoning Maxwell. When asked about the possibility last year, he stressed that he had the authority to do so but said nobody had approached him with a request. He later also said he would consult the US Justice Department following the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear Maxwell’s appeal in October 2025.

Speculation over possible clemency further intensified after Todd Blanche, then deputy attorney general and now Trump’s nominee for attorney general, interviewed Maxwell for around nine hours over two days as part of the Justice Department’s Epstein investigation.

The Senate move comes amid continued anger over the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files. The disclosure process has faced criticism over delays, extensive redactions and the absence of major new prosecutions, disappointing supporters who had expected the records to expose powerful figures connected to Epstein.

Trump and Maxwell moved in the same social circles in New York and Florida during the 1990s and early 2000s, when the president was also acquainted with Epstein. After Maxwell’s arrest in 2020, Trump drew criticism for saying, “I just wish her well, frankly.”

The US president has denied any wrongdoing connected to Epstein and says he ended his relationship with the financier years before his 2019 arrest. Maxwell later told Justice Department officials that she had never witnessed Trump behaving inappropriately.

RT has opened submissions for the 2026 Khaled Alkhateb International Memorial Awards, which honor outstanding war reporters working in conflict zones around the world.

This year’s contest will accept news reports or series of reports from conflict zones, with a maximum running time of ten minutes. Submissions are accepted in Russian, Arabic, and English, or with subtitles in any of the three for reports in other languages. Qualifying videos must have been published between October 1, 2025, and September 30, 2026.

The competition is open to reporters from major media organizations, independent journalists, freelancers, and bloggers.

“This is the ninth year we’ve honored the best war correspondents with the Khaled Alkhateb Award, and each year we see the job getting harder and harder for our people – especially in the Special Military Operation zone, and especially in our region, because Israel and Ukraine are deliberately targeting journalists,” RT Arabic chief Maya Manna said.

Sometimes journalists are killed live on air, and the West says nothing at all – it just stays silent. So we feel compelled, and duty-bound, to make sure people know that a war correspondent’s work can get you killed. And every year we show the heroes who go to the front regardless, and bring us the truth.

The jury for this year’s competition will include journalists from leading news organizations, each with firsthand experience covering conflict zones around the globe. The members will be announced at a later date on the award’s official website. Submissions will be accepted via a form on the site.

Ukraine’s deadly attack on an Iranian cargo ship named Anna in the Caspian Sea was Vladimir Zenensky’s “gift” to Israel and the US, the former senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Kanani Moghaddam, told RT.

The strike, which killed one Iranian sailor and injured another on Saturday, came three days before Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Washington for talks with US President Donald Trump.

Zelensky acknowledged the operation shortly after it occurred, hailing the “very strong results” of strikes on vessels that he claimed “were involved in the transportation of military cargo” linked to Iran.

The former commander also warned that if Ukraine continues to attack Iranian ships in the Caspian Sea, Tehran will retaliate using medium-range missiles. Iran possesses missiles with ranges of around 2,000km, which, according to publicly available estimates, could reach parts of eastern Ukraine.

Watch the full statement below.

Five children from Russia and Ukraine are about to be reunited with their loved ones under an international humanitarian initiative, Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova reported. According to Moscow, the process is being coordinated by US First Lady Melania Trump and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, praised Melania Trump for what he called “a vital global humanitarian and peacemaking role” in helping Russian and Ukrainian children separated from their families reunite with their relatives. “Under her coordination, 33 children have already been reunited with their families,” he wrote in a post on X on Thursday, adding that “more reunifications” are ahead.

According to the White House, this is the fifth group of children the US first lady has helped reunite. “This milestone marks another step toward ensuring that innocent kids can safely return to their homes, communities, and the people who care for them,” it said in a statement.

“While diplomacy and peacebuilding are important to this effort, they are surpassed by our collective ability to place children above international disputes,” Melania said, commenting on the reunition.

A Ukrainian woman also came to Russia from Germany for her daughter on Thursday, according to the commissioner. The girl had been living with her grandmother since 2023.

Three more children are about to reunite with their relatives in Ukraine and Germany.

Another six-year-old boy is about to be reunited with his Ukrainian mother, who has been living in Russia with his grandmother since 2022. A 15-year-old teen, who has been living with relatives in Russia, will also soon go to his mother, who is living in Ukraine, according Lvova-Belova. One more 15-year-old will travel to Germany to live with his older sister, who has requested custody of him.

All the humanitarian efforts are being carried out upon the orders of President Vladimir Putin on the basis of requests of parents or close relatives of the affected children, the commissioner said, maintaining that the child’s interests are taken into account in each particular case. “Soon, all the children will be reunited with their loved ones!” she added.

A total of 31 children have been returned to Russia, and 145 children returned to Ukraine or other countries as part of the humanitarian initiative backed by the Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner’s Office, according to Moscow’s data.

The Italian mafia is seeking to buy up some of the 800,000 firearms reportedly missing or stolen from Ukraine since 2022, including drones and other advanced arms, senior prosecutors have warned.

Some 780,465 items sent to Ukraine have reportedly disappeared since the escalation of the conflict, including around 149,000 during the first five months of 2026. The Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper reported on Wednesday that much of the arsenal consisted of European military supplies intended for Kiev.

The outlet noted that European law enforcement authorities have struggled to track the flow of these arms, given that Western governments conceal the details of their extensive military shipments to Ukraine.

The weapons have since reportedly ended up on the European black market and are now said to have attracted the attention of Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, which would like to upgrade its arsenal with military-grade systems.

Palermo chief prosecutor Maurizio de Lucia told Italy’s parliamentary Anti-Mafia Commission this week that the criminal organization was trying to build a “quality arsenal” and has already obtained access to AK-47 rifles and powerful explosives.

De Lucia said that the mafia is also trying to obtain more advanced weaponry, such as mine-dropping drones, warning that Italian security services are not prepared to deal with such weapons systems.

The latest report comes amid repeated corruption scandals involving Ukraine’s military and state institutions. Recent investigations have uncovered millions of dollars in illicit sales of military equipment and theft from military repair contracts and drone funds, alongside wider schemes involving defense procurement and foreign donations.

Commenting on the Italian prosecutor’s warning, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow had long warned that Western weapons sent to Kiev would spread through illicit markets and eventually threaten Ukraine’s European sponsors.

Zakharova explained that some of the weapons supplied to Kiev never actually reach their stated destination because of corruption, while those that do arrive are divided between the front, black-market buyers, and armed groups in other regions.

Russian officials have also accused Ukraine of supplying weapons and drone expertise to militants in Africa, while Mali has alleged that Kiev provided kamikaze drones to terrorist organizations operating in the Sahel.

Statehood Day in Kiev. Very important. Very historical. “So how can I make it all about me?” the EU said. Here comes Brussels to put the “hood” in “statehood” day, and bring some muscle to Kiev’s mobilization hustle.

What a great opportunity for the EU to come back into town for another photo op, another summit, and another round of butt- and back-slapping.

‘Queen’ Ursula von der Leyen set the tone: “It’s a special moment. Ukraine has built a strong military momentum. The tide is turning. I will announce new initiatives to integrate our defense industries. So we can produce more, and faster. We will also discuss accession and preparations for this winter.”

At this point, all those same talking points have had more comebacks than Madonna. The tide’s been turning for so long that you’d expect it to have actually arrived somewhere by now. So what’s the occasion this time, beyond pretending that you actually had Statehood Day on your calendar in Brussels? Because let’s pretend that an excuse to drop by is actually necessary, and that you’re not just the Karen of the northern hemisphere block watch.

Stop me if you know this one: support, integration, EU accession somewhere down the road. Ukraine’s promised path to the EU seems to consist primarily of summits announcing that the path exists. Then there’s the “Coalition of the Willing.” Which is basically the European version of the Avengers. Except that instead of superheroes assembling, it’s the EU clown posse assembling to celebrate their assembling superpower.

They also assembled in Paris, promised coordination, and produced the usual result: another round of commitments to future commitments. But hey, they’re planning some military exercises for September. Poland says that they’ll go ahead on that, with British and French troops involved. Except that Germany reportedly isn’t joining, with Berlin noting that the drills are limited and mainly staff-focused. Which is like RSVPing ‘yes’ to a wedding because you like the idea of the marriage, but in reality you just can’t be bothered. Hopefully they’ll at least have enough tact to send an Amazon gift card.
And while France is stepping up as the new lead war drummer, Bulgaria seems to be looking to exit stage left. “We have exhausted our capabilities to provide military support. I mean weapons and commissions from the warehouses of the Bulgarian Armed Forces. We have provided 13 packages. We don’t have anything else to supply to Ukraine,” said Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev.

Then there’s the EU’s latest move on Ukrainian refugee arrivals. Europe has entered a new phase of messaging. The kind where they say the quiet part a lot less quietly.

Specifically, the part about Ukrainians not being able to defend Ukraine while also kicking back on a patio somewhere in the EU. So unless you’ve already got a reservation for that patio and have been hanging out there for a while now, you can forget it.

They need to first satisfy their military obligations in Ukraine amid full mobilization, the EU says. And if they happen to survive that, then they can give asylum a shot, I guess.

So while leaders continue to promise Ukrainians support, anyone actually taking them up on their offer had better make a point of keeping up with the fine print. Because they’re using tactics normally associated with the guy who sells you a lemon at the used car lot. Come for the shiny asylum offer – and get a swift kick to the behind back to Kiev.

There are also reports that Ukraine itself has asked EU countries to tighten access for its citizens under temporary protection rules. Which is a unique and novel dynamic. Because usually when people leave a country during a war, the government of the country they’re leaving doesn’t get to call ahead and ask if maybe fewer of them could be let in.

“It is necessary to see the interests and values ​​of the nation and the allies. We are closing the door in the face of the Russians,” said Hungarian Defense Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi.

So dramatic. You can almost hear the door slam in the background. But when you actually take a closer look under the blustery rhetoric, it turns out they don’t seem all that interested in actually locking that door. It’s more of a swinging pet door. Because for all the public tough talk, Hungary recently refused to send weapons to be used against Russia. Like Slovakia, the US, and the Czech Republic with the recent NATO package. Poland and the Netherlands say that they’ve already given what they can. So this united front is starting to look like a group project where everyone says that they’re psyched but then discreetly bails.

So where does that leave the grand coalition? A lot of countries are still saying the ‘right’ things, but fewer of them are willing to reach into their pockets for anything that isn’t self-serving involving their own military industrial complexes. And everyone is trying very hard not to stare at the glaring gap between those two things.

Meanwhile, over in Kiev, the EU’s collective message is that momentum is building. And it seems that they figure that if they keep saying that often and loudly enough, then eventually they might stop getting pestered by Kiev about when exactly the momentum-powered ride is supposed to end in an EU fairytale. At this rate, it’s all starting to look like Disneyland’s hellish It’s a Small World ride: an endless refrain with no obvious final stop.

Europe isn’t positioning itself for a resolution to this conflict anytime soon, but rather a marathon. Like an endless relay for Ukraine. One that they’re willing to sponsor as long as they don’t have to personally do the sweating. And now they seem to be aligning policy to make sure that it has the people to keep going. Whether those people had other plans or not.

Boeing is reluctant to share the technology used in the warheads it manufactures for the Patriot PAC-3 interceptor missiles which Ukraine and its Western supporters want to manufacture in Europe, German media outlet Die Welt has reported, citing sources.

US President Donald Trump announced earlier this month that Ukraine would receive a license to produce the coveted Patriot systems. Manufacturing is expected to be based in a European NATO country, potentially Germany, where the facilities would be considered safe from potential Russian attacks.

In a report on Wednesday, Die Welt correspondent Christoph Wanner outlined several obstacles facing the initiative, including what he described as Boeing Defense’s unwillingness to transfer sensitive technology to foreign partners.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has said Kiev needs an additional 300 interceptor missiles to sustain its air defenses through the coming winter.

Media reports have pointed to a worldwide shortage of Patriot interceptors and other costly US-made munitions. The supply crunch has reportedly intensified as a result of Washington’s ongoing conflict with Iran.

Germany remains one of the Ukrainian government’s main military donors as it is also seeking to expand its own armed forces, citing what officials describe as a growing threat from Russia. Berlin’s rearmament plans have faced financial pressures and a widespread public reluctance to volunteer for military service.

Moscow maintains that the Ukraine conflict was engineered by NATO as a proxy war against Russia. Russian officials have accused the bloc of using Ukrainians as “cannon fodder” while supplying Kiev with weapons, funding and intelligence.

Former US Coronavirus czar Dr. Anthony Fauci is facing a state investigation after declining to answer questions during a US Senate hearing on the origins of Covid-19 and the government’s handling of the pandemic.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced the probe after Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination 111 times on Wednesday.

“Fauci’s lack of candor to Congress is unbelievable. My office is launching an investigation into Dr. Fauci. It’s past time we get the truth of what happened during COVID,” Uthmeier wrote on X.

Senator Rand Paul, who led the hearing, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis argued that Fauci had no legal basis to invoke the Fifth Amendment because former President Joe Biden had granted him a blanket pardon covering potential federal offenses.

Fauci justified his actions by citing what he described as Paul’s “obvious obsession” with his “prosecution.”

Both Paul and DeSantis called for Fauci to be held in contempt of Congress – a formal finding that a witness has obstructed a congressional investigation.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz called for Fauci to face criminal charges following the hearing. Speaking to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, the Texas lawmaker called the former White House medical adviser “the most damaging bureaucrat in the history of America” and said he “should go to jail.”

The investigation comes after years of clashes between Florida officials and Fauci over the federal Covid response. Under DeSantis, the Republican-run state became one of the leading critics of lockdowns, mask mandates, and vaccine policies promoted during the pandemic.

Australia has taken legal action against Telegram over alleged failures to tackle terrorism-related content. Just the day before, Russia launched its own case against the messaging platform and its founder, Russian-born entrepreneur Pavel Durov.

The Australian eSafety commissioner announced on Thursday that it had started civil proceedings in federal court for Telegram’s “alleged failure to detect and remove pro-terror material from the platform including videos of terrorist executions and mass shootings,” despite complaints from users.

The regulator said videos of the 2019 Christchurch mosque massacre and the 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting remained accessible on the platform for around three months before being taken down. The regulator is seeking penalties of up to A$54.6 million ($38 million).

Telegram’s CEO responded to the charges by posting a picture of himself raising a middle finger on X. He has previously claimed Moscow’s attempts to restrict Telegram were an attack on freedom of expression.

Durov is also under criminal investigation in France, where prosecutors accuse Telegram of failing to curb criminal activity on the platform, including child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking, and organized fraud. French investigators questioned him for a fourth time earlier this month.

British energy regulator Ofgem on Wednesday proposed fees and stricter rules for AI data center developers to cull “unviable, stalled or speculative projects” that are taking up scarce grid capacity amid skyrocketing electricity demand.

It comes as the UK moves to grow its cloud computing and artificial intelligence industries but grapples with a sharp spike in grid connection requests – which Ofgem says have more than tripled in less than a year.

The amount of electricity capacity being sought by firms wanting to plug into the UK’s grid spiked from 41 gigawatts to 125 gigawatts between November 2024 and June 2025, driven largely by demand from data center projects, the regulator said in a press release on Wednesday.

The figure is nearly triple the UK’s 2025 peak electricity demand of around 46 gigawatts.

The measure is expected to “tackle unviable, stalled and speculative projects,” according to the regulator.

In March, the UK government announced reforms aimed at clearing speculative grid connection requests, which it said more than quadrupled in the six months prior.

While the Western restrictions had a detrimental impact on the Russian economy, it has adapted to them and learned to “minimize their effects,” according to Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has warned that “sanctions are a double-edged sword” and hurt both Russia and the countries that impose them.

The US military has warned troops in the Middle East against filming the aftermath of Iranian drone and missile attacks, with some personnel in Jordan reportedly told that their mobile phones could soon be confiscated to strengthen “operational security.”

The head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), Admiral Brad Cooper, claimed in a July 28 letter obtained by Reuters that photos and videos published by American service members were helping Tehran improve the accuracy of its strikes.

Cooper complained that journalists and online “open-source intelligence” researchers were effectively conducting battle-damage assessments for Tehran.

“Iran knows the weapons were fired; however, their forces do not know if they missed by 50 meters, hit an empty tarmac, or successfully struck a crowded facility,” Cooper wrote. “Detailed lists, descriptions, and analyses of what was hit, openly published by news outlets, are essentially performing Iran’s Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) for them, free of charge.”

One video cited by Cooper was recorded using Meta smart glasses during a deadly Iranian missile and drone attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan on July 17. The footage showed US troops running for shelter and entering a bunker as warning sirens blared.

Video captures the moment that several Iranian medium to intermediate-range ballistic missiles struck Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan overnight, killing at least two and injuring several other American Servicemembers. pic.twitter.com/cJz39E1LvP

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) July 18, 2026

Separate close-range footage from the same night appeared to capture multiple ballistic missiles directly striking the Jordanian facility. The Pentagon later confirmed that three American service members had been killed in the attack.

While the Pentagon’s stated concern is that Iran may take advantage of the footage, the restrictions would also make it considerably harder for the public to independently assess the true impact of Iranian attacks.

The possible phone seizures would give Washington greater control over the flow of information. CENTCOM routinely publishes short, curated clips of American aircraft taking off, missiles being launched and Iranian targets being struck.

Concerns about transparency have grown since the US Department of War quietly updated its database over the weekend to show that 18 service members had been killed and 624 wounded since the war began on February 28. Lawmakers have demanded more information about damage to radar systems, aircraft hangars, barracks and other infrastructure at US bases.

The US has launched a “powerful” bombing raid against Iran after US President Donald Trump warned that it was “our turn to hit them,” following Tehran’s ballistic missile attack on American forces in Jordan the previous night.

US Central Command said the new strikes began at 8 PM Eastern Time on Wednesday.

“The strikes are a powerful response to yesterday’s attempted Iranian attacks on US forces based in the Middle East,” CENTCOM announced.

The command did not immediately identify the targets, disclose how many aircraft or missiles were involved, or say how long the operation was expected to continue.

Trump had warned earlier on Wednesday that Iran was about to face a harsh response, reportedly telling Fox News: “We’re going to beat the f***ing s**t out of them.”

Speaking later at the White House, Trump said Iran had fired five missiles at American forces and credited US Patriot air-defense systems with intercepting all of them. “We’re going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn to hit them,” he added.

CENTCOM described Tuesday’s missile launch as an attempted “surprise attack,” claiming that all the incoming projectiles had been intercepted. The command did not initially mention Jordan, saying only that the missiles had targeted US forces “based in the Middle East.”

The renewed US bombing ended a brief pause that began after Trump suspended a 13-night campaign of strikes last Friday to allow negotiations with Tehran to proceed. He had warned, however, that military action would resume if diplomacy failed.

German auto giant BMW is planning to slash some 8,000 jobs globally by the end of 2027, according to several news media outlets, including Reuters and Bloomberg. German workers are expected to be particularly affected as the manufacturer is dealing with high production costs in Europe, as well as plunging sales in China, according to the reports.

The company allegedly offered buyouts to those in research, development, planning and other corporate departments as part of a deal aimed at pushing through with the plan. Factory workers would not be eligible for the deal, Bloomberg reported, citing sources familiar with the matter.

BMW CEO Milan Nedeljkovic is expected to announce a voluntary reduction program at a staff meeting this week, the sources said, adding that the scheme would be launched in October and run through 2027. The company will reportedly slash around 5% of its total workforce.

It comes just a day after another German carmaker, Porsche, announced plans to eliminate another 5,000 jobs by 2035, bringing its total planned reduction to around 9,400 positions. Its parent company, Volkswagen, is considering slashing up to 100,000 jobs amid a protracted industrial slump caused by high energy prices.

The crisis has been repeatedly linked by officials and business representatives to high energy costs resulting from Berlin’s decision to abandon cheap Russian oil and gas imports. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz admitted earlier this month that Germany’s “ongoing energy crisis [was] due to the lack of Russian gas.”

Before Germany’s decision to join the EU’s sanctions and de facto impose a Russian energy embargo upon itself, Russia supplied 55% of the country’s natural gas imports. Last week, the newspaper Berliner Zeitung reported that the nation had been paying five times as much for imported gas as it did before abandoning long-term Russian supply contracts.

A suspected drone has struck an American-owned floating liquefied natural gas facility at Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta, setting two vessels ablaze and prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten retaliation against Iran.

British maritime security firm Ambrey assessed that at least one drone had hit the Energos Winter, a floating storage and regasification unit moored at the port on Wednesday. The maritime risk group Vanguard separately said an unidentified projectile had struck the vessel’s starboard side.

The resulting fire reportedly spread to the nearby LNG carrier GasLog Salem. Crew members were evacuated, both vessels were moved outside the port as a precaution, and firefighters brought the blaze under control. No casualties were reported.

BREAKING: Footage shows crews working to put out a fire on the US-owned floating platform in Egypt following a drone attack, with initial reports Iran struck it. pic.twitter.com/sFpRt2nfSD

— The Hormuz Letter (@HormuzLetter) July 29, 2026

The Energos Winter can store 138,250 cubic meters of LNG and deliver up to 650 million cubic feet of gas per day into Egypt’s energy network. Its US-based owner, Energos Infrastructure, operates four floating LNG facilities in the country that collectively supply around 35% of Egypt’s natural-gas demand.

No group has claimed responsibility for the incident, and neither Egyptian authorities nor the maritime-security firms have publicly attributed it to Iran.

President Trump, however, told reporters that he had been briefed on the incident, describing it as “a little more of the same,” before signaling that US retaliation against Tehran was imminent.

2/2 While no one claimed responsibility, Iran is the prime suspect. Meanwhile, the IRGC launched ballistic missiles at merchant ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Watch emergency crews racing to cool down the burning LNG tanker in Egypt 👇 pic.twitter.com/FdIiL4M9np

— Predictivemoney (@Predictivemoney) July 29, 2026

“We’re going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn to hit them,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday. “They know it’s coming. They’re asking us not to do it.”

"We're going to hit them very hard."

President Trump warns adversaries that the U.S. is prepared to respond forcefully following a drone attack on an LNG tanker off the coast of Egypt.

Trump signaled that retaliation is imminent despite requests from adversaries to hold back.… pic.twitter.com/SMOUuj5qGT

— Fox News (@FoxNews) July 29, 2026

Trump had issued an even more explicit threat earlier in the day after Iran launched several ballistic missiles at US forces in Jordan.

“We’re going to beat the f***ing s**t out of them,” Trump reportedly told Fox News, adding: “We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating.”

Trump said Iran had fired five missiles and credited US Patriot systems with destroying them. “It’s our turn,” he said, while suggesting that diplomatic negotiations could eventually resume after the threatened retaliation.

The renewed hostilities came days after Trump suspended a 13-night US bombing campaign to allow negotiations with Tehran to proceed.

The fragile pause has since unraveled, with the US tightening its blockade of Iranian ports and threatening to seize Iranian funds frozen abroad – moves that Tehran considers clear violations of the agreements reached so far.

Former US Coronavirus czar Dr. Anthony Fauci was hauled before Congress on Wednesday to testify on the origins of Covid-19. Fauci repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to silence, but RT kept the receipts.

Fauci appeared before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in a hearing orchestrated by Senator Rand Paul. A Kentucky Republican and vocal critic of Fauci’s handling of the pandemic, Paul released thousands of pages from Fauci’s personal diaries over the weekend, which suggested that the Covid chief knew the virus did not originate in a ‘wet market’ in Wuhan, China, but insisted in public that it did.

Former US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has also released documents suggesting that Fauci pushed the wet market theory in meetings with the intelligence community, before denying under oath that he ever held such discussions.

“I hope today Dr. Fauci will come clean, admit it was a mistake to fund dangerous research in China, admit that the risk of this dangerous research exceeded any possible benefits, ask forgiveness, and pledge to help our government devise safeguards so a manmade epidemic never happens again,” Paul said in his opening statement at Wednesday’s hearing.

My full opening remarks: pic.twitter.com/QZSn437FfF

— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) July 29, 2026

Any hopes that Paul would get answers, however, were dashed when Fauci pleaded the Fifth more than 100 times during questioning from Paul and other Republicans on the committee.

Here’s what Fauci was asked, and what the record shows.

Did Covid-19 come from a laboratory?

Fauci was asked multiple times whether Covid-19 originated in a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology; whether he was aware that the virus bore the hallmarks of gene editing; and whether he knew that the lab had more than 100 man-made viruses in storage that could have been precursors to Covid-19.

Based on Fauci’s own diary, he believed in January 2020 that “the market was not the source, it was the amplifier.” After a call with a dozen government scientists on February 1, Fauci remarked that the group was split, with only two believing the wet market theory, and the rest believing that a lab leak was more likely. Fauci insisted on the wet market theory, and on April 17 publicly declared that the virus was “totally consistent” with a natural species jump. He reiterated this point in a National Geographic interview in May, stating “everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that it evolved in nature and then jumped species.”

It has not been conclusively proven that Covid-19 was created at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but the lab leak theory is now the official position of the White House.

Did Fauci fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan?

Fauci shot down any questions concerning his own role in coronavirus research in Wuhan. He has previously testified under oath that the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the parent organization of Fauci’s NIAID, did not conduct “gain-of-function” research into bat-borne coronaviruses at the Wuhan lab.

However, documents released in 2021 and 2022 prove that the NIH paid a private firm, EcoHealth Alliance, to conduct this research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that some of this money was doled out even after the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) rejected the proposal as overly risky.

In a 2020 email, Fauci stated that he knew gain-of-function research was being carried out at the lab. The NIH’s role in funding research on bat-borne coronaviruses specifically is described in publicly available grant information, although the words “gain-of-function” are not used in the grant proposal.

🚨BREAKING🚨

New emails reveal that Dr. Fauci was aware of risky gain-of-function research occurring in Wuhan, China prior to the emergence of COVID-19.

Why didn’t he tell the American people?@COVIDSelect is demanding answers👇 pic.twitter.com/pvxtaCRB5s

— Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic (@COVIDSelect) July 13, 2023

Gain-of-function research refers to the process of modifying animal viruses to make them more likely to infect humans, in order to weaponize them or develop vaccines against them.

Was Fauci involved in the Pentagon’s monkeypox research?

Paul asked Fauci whether he was aware of gain-of-function research on the monkeypox virus at the NIAID’s ‘Integrated Research Facility’ in Fort Detrick, Maryland. Fauci stayed silent, but monkeypox has been studied at the facility for years.

In 2015, the facility – which also experiments with highly lethal pathogens like ebola – conducted research that boosted the transmissibility and virulence of monkeypox, although the NIAID never referred to this research as ‘gain-of-function’. After a worldwide outbreak of monkeypox in 2022 – which primarily affected gay men – research on the virus continued at Fort Detrick under the supervision of the US Army until the facility was shut down last April over repeated safety violations.

One week later, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order banning “dangerous gain-of-function research” in foreign labs, and pausing funding for such projects on US soil. In guidance released on Tuesday, the White House made the funding pause permanent, and issued new reporting requirements for all “projects that may increase the harmful consequences of biological agents.”

Did Fauci work with the CIA?

The CIA funded bioweapons research at Fort Detrick, under ‘Project MKNAOMI’, although the project was shut down in 1976, a decade before Fauci took over leadership of the NIAID. While the extent of the CIA’s subsequent involvement in gain-of-function research is unclear, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) – often characterized as a CIA cutout – did fund such research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In testimony to Congress in 2024, however, former USAID Administrator Samantha Power refused to label the research ‘gain-of-function’.

Paul claimed on Wednesday that “the CIA transferred funds to NIAID through interagency agreement,” and submitted documents purportedly proving this claim. The documents have not been made public.

What’s next for Fauci?

Fauci received a pardon from former President Joe Biden last January, shielding the former NIAID chief from prosecution over any offense committed between January 1, 2014 and January 20, 2025. Given the pardon, Republicans argued that Fauci had no grounds to plead the Fifth and shield himself from self-incrimination.

However, as the hearing took place after January 20, 2025, Fauci could have opened himself up to obstruction or contempt charges by giving false answers.

Throughout today's hearing, Anthony Fauci repeated the following script 111 times.

And yes, his refusal to testify is grounds for contempt. pic.twitter.com/mu1wkN6iLN

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) July 29, 2026

“It’s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions for your refusal to testify,” Paul told Fauci as the two-hour hearing wrapped up. Afterwards, Paul told reporters that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee will vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.

“We believe that with his… immunity from criminal liability, that he didn’t need to hide behind the Fifth Amendment and that maybe the Fifth Amendment doesn’t attach when you have a pardon in place,” Paul explained.

Russia can only preserve itself by achieving victory in the Ukraine conflict because the West is seeking to destroy the country through Kiev, former President Dmitry Medvedev has said.

Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, made the remarks on Wednesday while addressing young politicians and representatives of parliamentary parties at the ‘Territory of Meanings’ youth forum. He said Russia was facing an unprecedented challenge, citing Western sanctions and political pressure.

“Our common task is to preserve our country,” Medvedev said. “The only way to preserve our country is victory in the special military operation,” he added.

Medvedev stated that Russia has long endured Western efforts to undermine its sovereignty, asserting that its adversaries harbor disdain for “our country – large, strong, proud and self-sufficient, one that cannot be commanded.” He claimed that Western nations are now employing Ukraine as a “battering ram” to bring about Russia’s downfall.

While political parties may disagree on economic and social issues ahead of the upcoming State Duma election, Medvedev said they must remain united on issues affecting the country’s survival, expressing confidence that Russia will ultimately prevail.

On Monday, President Vladimir Putin told State Duma lawmakers that no one would ever succeed in breaking the Russian people, saying “This has not happened and will not happen in the future.” He added that the country’s political system and state institutions are prepared to repel any hostile actions.

Putin also said that Russia’s opponents have failed on the battlefield and are now resorting to terrorist attacks. He argued that the Western sanctions have failed to damage Russia as intended and have instead inflicted the greatest harm on the European and other states that introduced them.

Russia’s Federal Security Service has brought terrorism-related charges against Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire behind popular messaging app Telegram, once again placing the entrepreneur at the center of a dispute over whether technology platforms should be held responsible for crimes organized through their services.

The case stems from an alleged Ukrainian recruitment operation targeting young Russians through a Telegram dating chatbot. According to the FSB, victims were manipulated or coerced into committing arson, sabotage and other crimes.

On Thursday, Russia’s financial watchdog, Rosfinmonitoring, added Durov to its register of extremists and terrorists. Under Russian law, those on the register face a range of legal and financial restrictions.

FSB argues that as the owner of Telegram, Durov should be held accountable for failing to stop Ukrainian activities. The agency has said he is being placed on an international wanted list, although the process has not yet been completed.

What is the link between Durov and Ukrainian spies?

The FSB does not allege that the two cooperate in any nefarious way. The statement it released on Wednesday focuses on Ukrainian recruitment efforts through a dating chat bot popular among Russian youths.

The service, which investigators named as ‘Daivinchik / Leo – match and meet new friends,’ claims to serve over 13 million users per month.

According to the FSB, Ukrainian agents are using it for multistage scam and coercion operations and have successfully recruited at least 46 Russian citizens, aged between 12 and 22, since July 2025. The agency claims that Telegram has failed to block Daivinchik / Leo, along with several other services that are similarly exploited by Ukrainian special services.

The FSB said it considers placing Durov on an international wanted list, but Russia’s ability to secure his extradition remains in question.

Telegram’s long dispute with Moscow

The latest case marks a sharp escalation in Telegram’s long and complicated relationship with the Russian state.

Russian authorities previously demanded that the company provide encryption keys needed to access messages linked to terrorism investigations. Durov refused, arguing that Telegram could not compromise private communications without undermining the security of all its users.

Tensions have resurfaced as Moscow has tightened regulation of foreign-owned and privately controlled communications platforms. Telegram experienced access disruptions in Russia earlier this year, while authorities have also restricted or blocked a range of Western services.

At the same time, the government has promoted Max, a domestically developed messenger presented as part of Russia’s push for technological sovereignty. Telegram, however, remains deeply embedded in Russian public life and is widely used by officials, media organizations, and businesses.

The statement suggests that Moscow has not abandoned negotiations with the company, even as the FSB pursues a criminal case against its founder.

Durov’s battle with France

Russia is not the only country seeking to hold Durov responsible for activity conducted through Telegram.

The entrepreneur remains under judicial supervision in France following his arrest in 2024, although his travel restrictions were reportedly lifted in November 2025. French investigators have accused Telegram of failing to cooperate adequately in cases involving organized crime, illicit transactions and abusive content.

He sharpened that criticism after French cybercrime police raided the Paris offices of X as part of an investigation into the platform’s algorithms and its Grok artificial intelligence chatbot.

“Don’t be mistaken: this is not a free country,” Durov wrote, describing France as the only nation “criminally persecuting all social networks that give people some degree of freedom.”

He has also accused President Emmanuel Macron of seeking to turn the European Union into a “digital Gulag” and argued that European governments increasingly want citizens to rely on established media rather than social platforms for information.

His claims echo criticism contained in the US national security strategy released in December. The document warned that Europe faced not only economic stagnation but the prospect of “civilizational erasure,” citing immigration, falling birth rates, declining national confidence, and the “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition.”

Why Telegram is becoming a geopolitical issue

The dispute surrounding Telegram is also part of a wider struggle over technological sovereignty. For much of the internet era, US corporations have dominated the global market for social networks, search engines, mobile operating systems and digital communications. Governments outside the United States have become increasingly concerned that essential communications infrastructure is controlled by companies subject to American law and political pressure.

Russia, China, the European Union and other powers have responded in different ways, ranging from data-localization rules and antitrust investigations to platform bans and the development of domestic alternatives.

Telegram occupies an unusual position in this contest. It is neither a conventional US technology company nor a Russian state-controlled platform. Durov was born in Russia, operates Telegram from Dubai, and reportedly holds several citizenships, exposing him to competing legal demands from multiple governments.

His comments came amid a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accusing Meta of misleading users about the extent of WhatsApp’s privacy protections. The complaint alleges that Meta can access or analyze communications it publicly describes as protected by end-to-end encryption.

Meta has denied the allegations. Company spokesman Andy Stone said WhatsApp cannot access users’ encrypted messages and vowed to contest the lawsuit.

Durov’s challenge is that he is attempting to defend Telegram from several directions at once. Russia wants greater cooperation against Ukrainian operations and other security threats. France is pursuing him over alleged criminal misuse of the platform. Other governments want stricter content moderation, data access or compliance with local laws.

In an increasingly fragmented digital world, his multiple passports and Telegram’s lack of a clear national allegiance may provide flexibility. They may also leave him exposed to pressure from every side. Across the world, governments are becoming less willing to tolerate globally operating communications platforms that sit outside their legal and political control.

Former Wall Street lawyer and federal prosecutor Jay Clayton has been confirmed as the next US Director of National Intelligence (DNI) despite having no traditional intelligence background, following his nomination by President Donald Trump.

Following US Senate approval in a 51-47 vote on Tuesday, Clayton will replace acting DNI Bill Pulte, has filled the role since Tulsi Gabbard resigned last month, citing personal family matters.

Trump has welcomed the confirmation, describing Clayton as “outstanding in every way” and saying he would do “a spectacular job” leading the US intelligence community.

Who is Jay Clayton?

Clayton spent more than two decades at Sullivan & Cromwell, an elite Wall Street law firm representing major banks and corporations. He later chaired the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) during Trump’s first term.

He subsequently became US attorney for the Southern District of New York, overseeing cases involving financial crime, terrorism, espionage and public corruption.

Clayton has cited this work as evidence of his national security experience. However, he has never served in an intelligence agency, the military, or a senior foreign-policy role.

Prosecuted Maduro

One of Clayton’s most prominent cases involved Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom US special forces seized alongside his wife, Cilia Flores, during a pre-dawn military assault on Caracas in January.

The operation was widely condemned as a gross violation of international law and the UN Charter, with experts describing it as a “forcible abduction” that could amount to a crime of aggression. 

Clayton’s office took charge of prosecuting the couple on narco-terrorism, cocaine-trafficking and weapons charges. Before Maduro’s capture, Clayton presented the case as part of Washington’s broader pursuit of cartel leaders, corrupt foreign officials and alleged state-sponsored drug trafficking.

Oversaw the Epstein files release

Clayton and his office were also involved in reviewing and preparing thousands of pages of records from the cases against convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell for public release.

That work included identifying sensitive materials, reviewing what could be released without affecting investigations, victim privacy, or sealed records, and helping the Justice Department determine redactions and approve documents for public release.

The release of the Epstein files has been widely criticized for delays, extensive redactions and the absence of major new prosecutions or clear answers about the late financier’s network. It has also become a source of anger within Trump’s own support base, amid accusations that the government was continuing to shield influential people.

Why did Democrats oppose his nomination?

Clayton initially appeared capable of attracting bipartisan support due to his experience leading the SEC and Manhattan US attorney’s office, as well as his reputation as a conventional and competent institutional figure.

However, that support largely disappeared during his confirmation hearing, where Democratic senators repeatedly asked him whether Joe Biden had defeated Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Clayton declined to answer directly, saying only that Biden had been “certified” as the winner, while also denying that he was an election denier.

Mark Warner, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, later said he had “serious reservations” about whether Clayton would stand up to political pressure.

How does he compare with Gabbard?

Clayton’s appointment has drawn comparisons with Gabbard, a military veteran and former congresswoman known for opposing regime-change wars, advocating a less confrontational policy toward Russia and supporting greater intelligence transparency.

As DNI, she released material concerning US-linked biological laboratories in Ukraine, the origins of Covid-19, the 2016 Russia investigation and the intelligence complaint behind Trump’s first impeachment.

Her departure followed reports of tensions within the administration over US military policy. Gabbard had been excluded from planning the operation to seize Maduro and was reportedly marginalized during deliberations over Iran, issues that conflicted with her longstanding anti-interventionist position.

She and Trump nevertheless publicly said she resigned to care for her husband after his cancer diagnosis.

Clayton, by contrast, has not clearly outlined his positions on military intervention, Russia, declassification or other major intelligence or foreign policy issues.

How powerful will Clayton actually be?

Clayton is taking over an office that has been weakened by recent staffing cuts and internal upheaval.

During his brief tenure as acting DNI, Pulte oversaw several rounds of dismissals and claimed the agency’s workforce had been reduced by about 30% within weeks. Current and former officials cited by CNN said morale inside the office had collapsed and key analytical units were badly understaffed.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe has meanwhile reportedly emerged as Trump’s principal intelligence adviser, raising questions over how much influence Clayton will wield.

During his confirmation hearing, Clayton offered few details on whether he intends to rebuild the office, continue shrinking it or adopt a more limited coordinating role.

Turkish politics rarely stands still, but even by local standards, the past week has moved fast. Ozgur Ozel, the leader of the Republican People’s Party, told his parliamentary group that a new party will be formed within days.

On the surface, this looked like a routine reshuffling of parliamentary seats – the kind of maneuver that happens periodically in Ankara without lasting consequence. Underneath, it is nothing of the sort. The announcement was framed as a defensive move, yet its implications reach far beyond the corridors of the CHP. Against the backdrop of Türkiye’s stalling economy, the tense regional environment, and the unresolved Kurdish question, the birth of this new formation looks like the opening move in a broader contest over who controls the timing of the country’s next election. Taken together, the pieces suggest that Ankara is entering a period in which political survival, not policy, will dictate the pace of events.

A party born out of necessity

Ozel did not describe his move as a rupture. He insisted that the CHP’s role as the parliament’s main opposition voice would not be abandoned, only carried forward under a new banner. The language was careful, almost defensive, and for good reason. Splitting a party while claiming continuity is a delicate balancing act, one that requires convincing both loyal voters and international observers that nothing essential has been lost in the transition. In practice, the plan is to bring roughly 85 deputies with him, instantly turning the new party into the second largest bloc in parliament and pushing the CHP itself down to 4th or 5th place. A party that has anchored Turkish opposition politics for a century is being hollowed out from within, not by an external rival but its own recent leader.

The logic behind the move becomes clear once the legal pressure on the CHP is taken into account. Courts have been steadily encroaching on the party’s internal affairs, including the reinstatement of Kemal Kilicdaroglu as the formal leader of the CHP. For Ozel, remaining inside a party whose leadership could be legally reassigned at any moment is a losing bet. Commentator Murat Yetkin described the new project as a reserve platform, built precisely so Ozel can wait out the legal storm without being dragged into seven months of an internal power struggle before elections arrive. This is an insurance policy, drafted by a politician who understands that Turkish courts have repeatedly proven capable of reshaping party leadership through rulings where ballots fail.

CHP falls back into Kilicdaroglu’s hands, Ozel keeps a functioning vehicle of his own, complete with parliamentary representation and a base of loyal deputies. If it does not work, he has lost remarkably little, since the new party can, in theory, be folded back into a friendly CHP once the legal dust settles. It is a move built for optionality rather than conviction, and that pragmatism is precisely what makes it significant. Ozel is betting that having control over a smaller, loyal formation beats having a contested claim over a larger, legally vulnerable one.

An economy running out of room

None of this is happening in a vacuum. Türkiye’s banking sector is heading into a difficult second quarter, with net profits expected to fall by more than 20 percent as inflation expectations stay elevated and tight monetary policy pushes up the cost of financing. For a country that has leaned heavily on its banks to sustain consumer spending and keep growth numbers presentable, that is a signal that the buffer policymakers have relied on for the past several years is thinning when they can least afford it.

More troubling is the currency exposure building up in the real economy. Foreign currency liabilities among Turkish companies hit $392.4 billion in May, the highest level recorded since 2013, while the net foreign currency deficit reached $204.4 billion. Numbers on this scale are not abstract statistics for policymakers to just shrug off. They represent a private sector increasingly vulnerable to any depreciation of the lira, and a government with steadily shrinking room to maneuver on interest rates without triggering the kind of corporate distress these figures already hint at. Companies holding that much foreign currency debt need a stable or strengthening lira simply to service their obligations, which locks the central bank into a defensive posture regardless of what domestic conditions actually call for.

This is the trap facing Turkish economic policy right now. Tightening further to defend the currency risks strangling growth and deepening the sense of stagnation that voters already feel in their daily expenses. Loosening policy to stimulate the economy risks reigniting inflation and putting even more pressure on companies already struggling under record foreign currency exposure. There is no comfortable middle path left – only a series of trade offs that grow less forgiving with each passing quarter. And because Turkish monetary policy rarely operates independently of political considerations, every one of these trade offs eventually becomes a political decision as well, made with an eye on elections rather than purely on economic fundamentals.

Türkiye’s foreign policy is not offering any relief either. Tensions with Israel remain unresolved, friction with Greece over Aegean and maritime issues continues to simmer, and the Cyprus question sits as stubbornly unsettled as it has for decades. Each of these fronts demands attention and resources from Ankara at a moment when the government would prefer to focus inward. None of them are new disputes, which in some ways makes the current moment more dangerous rather than less. Familiar tensions have a way of being taken for granted as innocuous right up until the moment they’re not. Meanwhile, Ankara now finds itself simultaneously managing several long running disputes while its domestic bandwidth is consumed by an economic downturn and a reshaped opposition.

The country’s relationship with Israel, in particular, carries reputational weight far beyond its immediate bilateral stakes. It shapes how Türkiye is perceived across the region, as well as among Western partners whose goodwill matters for investment and financing. Meanwhile, the dispute with Greece touches on questions of sovereignty and resource rights that have periodically brought the two NATO members close to open confrontation. Any escalation there draws in alliance partners who would rather see the issue quietly managed than publicly inflamed. Cyprus remains the oldest and most institutionally entrenched of these disputes, one that has outlasted multiple Turkish governments. It shows no signs of a breakthrough resolution on the horizon under the current one either.

And inward is precisely where another long-stalled issue sits waiting. The volatile question of the Kurds, Türkiye’s largest minority, periodically revived and just as often shelved, has once again stalled without resolution. For a governing coalition that depends on managing multiple constituencies at once, from nationalist partners wary of making concessions to Kurdish voters watching for signs of bad faith, this paralysis is not a neutral state of affairs – it is a source of accumulating pressure that eventually must be addressed or exploited. Every month that passes without movement raises the cost of eventual action, whether that action takes the form of renewed negotiation or renewed confrontation, and either path carries real electoral consequences for a coalition already stretched thin from managing an economic downturn and a resurgent opposition on its flank.

A government racing the calendar

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government is working on a new constitution, an undertaking that has historically doubled as a mechanism for locking in political advantage before conditions change. The drafting of Turkish Constitutions has rarely been a purely technical affair, and there is little reason to expect it will be different this time. A new constitutional framework offers an opportunity to redraw the rules of the game while the ruling coalition still holds the votes needed to do so, and that opportunity narrows with every point the opposition gains.

The most plausible reading of the coming months is that Erdogan and his coalition partners will look to call elections ahead of schedule, most likely in the first half of 2027, before economic pressure mounts further and before the new opposition party has had time to build a national profile beyond parliament. Acting early, while the opposition is still reorganizing and before currency and banking pressures fully surface in household budgets, offers the ruling coalition its best remaining window to secure more time in power on favorable terms. Waiting past that window risks facing voters amid a perfect storm of economic strain, regional tension, and unresolved domestic disputes. For a coalition that has spent two decades reading the political calendar better than its rivals, it would be wise to move sooner rather than later.

The Russian Cultural Foundation has opened applications for an international film session for young filmmakers from countries which share Eurasian values.

The session, titled ‘Creativity Unites’ and held as part of Russia’s Diamond Butterfly award, will take place from October 19 to November 13 at Nikita Mikhalkov’s Academy of Cinematographic and Theatre Arts. It is open to filmmakers from Eurasian Film Academy member states and other countries and aims to support movies that reflect the spiritual and moral traditions, history, customs and cultures of participating nations.

Six masterclasses led by Russian filmmakers will help participants create three-minute projects and present them to the public. Ten participants will be chosen by an expert council from applications received until September 5. On September 15, the final list will be revealed. 

Director Nikita Mikhalkov, known for ‘Burt by the Sun’ and other movies, spearheaded the creation of the Eurasian Film Academy and the Diamond Butterfly award with support from Russia’s Culture Ministry and Foreign Ministry. Organizers say the initiative aims to foster cultural exchange and promote films reflecting both “national” and “universal spiritual and moral values.”

The Diamond Butterfly was launched in 2025 as an international alternative to major Western film awards. The inaugural ceremony was held in Moscow last November, with Chinese director Xu Zheng’s Upstream winning the top prize. The competition featured 34 films from 17 countries, including Russia, China, Türkiye, Kyrgyzstan, Iran, South Africa, Venezuela and Cuba. The first ‘Creativity Unites’ session also brought together participants from multiple countries including Russia, China, India, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.

There is no indication that Russia is planning to attack Poland militarily, Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz has stated.

Speaking to RMF FM on Wednesday, Kosiniak-Kamysz commented on the allegations that Moscow could launch a “kinetic attack.”

“There are no predictions of an attack like the full-scale war in Ukraine,” he said.

Instead, Moscow is escalating sabotage, provocations, and destabilization efforts, he claimed.

Top officials in Warsaw have long contended that Russia poses a military threat to Poland. Moscow may be ready for a “global confrontation” by 2027, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has suggested.

Kiev’s European backers have increasingly made claims that Moscow poses a looming threat, as tensions over the Ukraine conflict have grown.

Russia has dismissed the narrative as “nonsense” and “fearmongering” intended to justify inflated military budgets to taxpayers, while warning that European nations are preparing for a full-scale war against Moscow.

Western countries are “waging war” against Moscow via Kiev by “pumping [Ukraine] full of state-of-the-art weaponry and announcing plans to manufacture new, lethal, high-tech anti-missile systems specifically for Ukraine,” he added.

Moscow has long seen its conflict with Kiev as a NATO-led proxy war waged with Ukrainian manpower and Western arms, intelligence and command and control systems.

Ukraine’s “terrorist” strikes are an attempt to compensate for its battlefield losses, Russian Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik told RT on Sunday, after a Ukrainian drone strike killed 12 civilians at a tourist resort in Russia’s Zaporozhye Region.

Last week, Kiev’s attacks have killed at least 57 civilians, including seven children, according to Miroshnik, who heads the Foreign Ministry’s mission documenting Ukrainian war crimes.

Based on its historical evolution, huge popularity, and massive budget, it’s fair to say that the game globally known as football  – the one in which two teams of 11 players must maneuver a ball into the opposing team’s goal without using their hands –  remains the world’s top sport. But despite its universal name and rules, familiar to almost the entire world population, this game has failed to catch on in the US, where even the term ‘football’ means a different kind of game. As for what the rest of the world calls football, in the US it is known as ‘soccer’ – an old British slang abbreviation of ‘Association football’.

These linguistic details became highly important when, in order to maintain the pace of expansion and develop new markets, the leaders of the World Football Federation (FIFA) decided to choose the US as the host of the World Cup. This happened twice – in 1994 and 2026.

The choice of dates wasn’t incidental. This sporting event, watched on television by almost the entire world, was to become the living embodiment of the unipolar world order that Washington has been building since the collapse of the USSR. And if in 1994, when the US hosted the World Cup, America managed to create a beautiful illusion of the triumph of liberal democracy to advance its own political and economic interests under the guise of globalization (what would later be called ‘Westernization’), then the tournament hosted in 2026 jointly with Canada and Mexico became a symbol of deep political contradictions not only between the US and its allies, but also between the countries of the so-called ‘global minority’ and ‘global majority’.

These contradictions extended far beyond the stadiums where, for the first time in the history of the sport, 48 teams competed for the champion’s trophy. Although the slogan of the founder of the modern Olympic games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, “O Sport, You Are Peace” – which calls for a halt to all military conflicts during sporting events, as was the case in Ancient Greece, and for political non-interference in sports – is quite applicable to football as well, it would be hard to disagree with the assertion of many journalists that the recent FIFA World Cup was the most politicized tournament in its history. 

Trump wanted to turn the upcoming World Cup into a “triumph of the American way of life”, as the schedule conveniently coincided with celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence. And what better way was there to highlight the exceptionalism of American statehood than with a sport imported from the former metropole, which became highly popular everywhere but in the US! 

All available resources were deployed to reinforce this fundamental political thesis. A specially produced series, ‘Ted Lasso’, starring Jason Sudeikis, promoted soccer in the US. It tells the story of a American college football coach who transfers to a third-rate British soccer club and turns it into a Premier League champion only by means of traditional American optimism and faith in a better future. Global media promotion of the World Cup was to be carried out by American pop stars (such as Shakira, who wrote the theme song for the third time), Hollywood actors (including Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Adam Brody, all spotted in the stands for the first time), and bloggers with millions of followers (the most famous of whom was Darren Watkins Jr., better known as IshowSpeed).

The main sporting hero was to be multiple-time champion Lionel Messi, now the star of the American team Inter Miami, representing Florida, the US president’s home state. To ensure that the Argentine footballer would play the final match of his career at the World Cup final (officiated by a Slovenian referee – a fellow countryman of US First Lady Melania Trump), all sorts of tricks were employed. Thanks to this, team Argentina (the country which is currently one of America’s few allies in Latin America) encountered relatively weak opponents and only met a worthy competitor in the semi-finals. The Argentina-England match became memorable not only for its final moments, but also for a controversial banner that reminded the world of the long-standing territorial dispute over the Malvinas (Falkland) Islands.

Despite FIFA’s desire to make football a more democratic sport by expanding the number of teams participating in the final stage, this World Cup will be remembered as a tournament that perpetuated neo-colonialism and global football inequality. After all, the trophy was contested not simply by the top teams in FIFA rankings, but by teams that managed to lure the best players from all around the world – including Spain, England, France, Portugal, and the Netherlands. It’s no wonder that after the Curaçao team – jokingly referred to as the “Netherlands B Team” – achieved a historic draw against Ecuador, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands visited the players’ locker room to congratulate them. Nor is it surprising that the Norway national team reached a historic quarter-final and even had good chances in the match against England, since their top striker, Erling Haaland, and many of his fellow teammates are English Premier League stars. Despite the clear bias in favor of the giants, millions of fans continued to support those countries that had been (and often continue to be) oppressed by their former metropoles. 

This explains the phenomenon of the Cape Verde team, which remained unbeaten in regulation time, and their forty-year-old goalkeeper, Vozinha; or the DR Congo team, which gave its all during the tournament, and was supported by a superfan replicating the likeness and pose of Patrice Lumumba, the symbol of Africa’s renaissance.

Finally, amid America’s renewed military action against Tehran, many people sincerely supported Iran’s team, which had been under intense political pressure throughout the tournament – ranging from visa restrictions and the fact that the team was prohibited from staying in the US before and after matches (which increased travel costs due to the need to travel to and from the training base in Mexico), to the referee’s controversial decision to disallow a goal due to a razor-thin offside, which deprived the team of the opportunity to advance from the group stage.

This is particularly true since the current World Cup was hosted by the US – a nation that unleashed unprovoked aggression against the Middle East on February 28, 2026. Meanwhile, America’s regional ally, Israel, participates in all international tournaments, despite a long list of military operations – from the operation in Gaza to the attacks on Iran in the summer of 2025, and the current military actions in Lebanon. Given the fact that even the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is gradually lifting sanctions against Russian athletes, FIFA and its European bureau, UEFA, are likening themselves to the “sergeant’s widow” who “flogged herself” in Nikolai Gogol’s satirical play ‘The Government Inspector’.

By depriving the tournament of the Russian team – which had never presented much competition to the football giants in their fight for the main trophy – world football lost gigantic sponsorships from major Russian corporations (until 2022, Gazprom was the sponsor of the UEFA Champions League), the opportunity to earn money in the large Russian market (in terms of not only television rights but also player transfers), and a venue capable of hosting matches at the highest level, meeting all quality and safety standards (European Football Championship matches and other equally prestigious games have been held on Russian territory).

This isn’t just an example of one country’s artificial isolation, it's a dangerous precedent that shakes the very foundations of soccer diplomacy. The longer international sports officials turn a blind eye to this situation, the deeper the looming crisis in global football will become. And the first signs of this crisis already emerged this summer in the US.

Some 49% of Americans think that the US should arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes, according to a recent poll. After three years of war in the Middle East, Israel’s once-solid support in the US has cratered.

Asked whether the US should enforce an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest, 49% of respondents answered “yes” in an Economist/YouGov poll published on Tuesday, while 27% said “no” and 23% were unsure.

The ICC issued the warrant in 2024, accusing him of using “starvation as a method of warfare,” crimes against humanity, and intentionally directing attacks against Gaza’s civilian population. However, the ICC lacks any means of enforcing the warrant, as neither Israel nor the US recognize the court’s authority.

Surveying 1,500 American adults, the poll found that 47% believe Netanyahu is “guilty of war crimes in Gaza,” while 24% disagree and 29% are unsure.

In the US, support for Israel has traditionally been strongest among Republicans and the elderly. However, 43% of over-65s now back arresting Netanyahu, according to Tuesday’s poll. Support for the Israeli prime minister’s arrest is lowest among self-described ‘MAGA’ Republicans, at 21%.

The Israeli leader arrived in Washington this week to meet with US President Donald Trump and attend the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham, an avowed supporter of Israel. Prior to Netanyahu’s arrival, New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that he would explore the legal possibility of arresting the Israeli PM when he travels to the city for the UN General Assembly in September.

Mamdani later acknowledged that he would have no legal authority to enforce the ICC warrant, and called on the Trump administration to do so instead.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. pic.twitter.com/YRezmW6YVx

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) July 22, 2026

“I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mamdani said, referring to the Dutch city where the ICC is based. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court, and what you will find is that is an opinion that is held by many, purely because of what his actions have wrought over these last many years.”

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Netanyahu dismissed the ICC case against him as “bogus,” and accused Mandani of “fomenting hate” against Jews. “I’m going to New York,” he told Fox host Sean Hannity. “I’m going to speak the truth in front of this hate-spewing elected official who’s pitting one group of New Yorkers against the others. He’s turning them against New York Jews.”

A cutting-edge AI model developed by OpenAI has managed to escape the confines of a lab test and break into a company’s database without any human instruction. It’s a nightmare scenario – or is that just what OpenAI wants you to believe?

Instead of identifying these vulnerabilities, OpenAI’s models searched for ways to cheat the test. They managed to obtain open internet access from within the closed testing environment and used this newfound freedom to hack into Hugging Face’s servers. Hugging Face is a repository of AI models and datasets, and according to OpenAI, the models being tested reasoned that they could find a solution to the ExploitGym tasks there.

“Knowing this, the model searched for and successfully found ways to gain access to secret information that it could use to cheat the evaluation,” OpenAI said in its report about the incident. 

Hugging Face discovered the intrusion with the help of a different AI model, and fixed the vulnerability that allowed it to happen in the first place. On its end, OpenAI blamed the escape on a weakness in third-party software used in its testing lab, through which its models found internet access. It kept the technical details of how its models exploited this weakness under wraps.

Super impressed with @huggingface's breakdown of the AI agent autonomous cyber attack from OpenAI, including technical timeline, & interactive replay (AND how they defended against the attack)!
Here is the interactive attack replay vid and source:https://t.co/SVsc5ClRcW pic.twitter.com/r59n6aUr3c

— Rachel Tobac (@RachelTobac) July 28, 2026

On its path to breach Hugging Face’s servers, the model also broke into a supposedly isolated testing environment at Modal, a firm that rents out computing capacity to AI developers, Reuters reported on July 28.

Has AI become sentient?

Taken at face value, the story suggests that OpenAI’s models are capable of complex lateral thinking: suspecting that Hugging Face’s servers likely contained the answers to the test; realizing that they needed external internet access to breach these servers; and independently developing and combining various attack techniques to achieve its goal.

However, it remains unclear just how autonomously OpenAI’s models were operating. The company has not revealed how its models were prompted to approach the ExploitGym test, and imprecise wording could have resulted in the models assuming that ‘escaping’ containment was a legitimate path to solving the trial. Despite the hyperbole from both OpenAI and Hugging Face, there is no evidence to suggest that the AI models ‘wanted’ to escape, or that when left to their own devices, would default to malicious activity.

If the incident also involved – as OpenAI said it did – a second, “even more capable pre-release model,” the appeal to industry-level customers is obvious. By publicizing an incident that took place during closed testing, OpenAI can generate hype for its pre-release model without ever providing proof.

None of this is to say that the incident didn’t happen, or that the offensive capabilities of AI aren’t a cause for concern, just that OpenAI has a financial incentive to scaremonger about its own products. A month before the incident, the company confidentially filed the paperwork for an initial public offering. According to Reuters, the company is targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion, and planning to go public as early as September.

Anthropic also filed for its IPO in June, targeting a valuation of $965 billion in October. Back in April, Anthropic’s unreleased Mythos Preview model also managed to “escape” its testing environment and carry out advanced cybersecurity exploits without being “explicitly trained” to do so. Anthropic released a lengthy technical explanation of how Mythos pulled off this feat, before announcing that the model was too powerful to release to the public.

The biggest IPO run in the history of the market

three $1T+ companies. possibly all going public in the next 12 months.

SpaceX IPO: $1.75T.
OpenAI IPO: $1T
Anthropic IPO: $1T

we're living through the greatest technological wealth creation in history. pic.twitter.com/44QuB3rpxi

— shirish (@shiri_shh) April 28, 2026

Scarcity drives hype, and the US government’s decision to slap export controls on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models in June only heightened interest in the company. The export controls were lifted in early July after Anthropic agreed to impose stricter guardrails on its models and collaborate with the government on security.

Was the AI escape an elaborate marketing ploy?

For OpenAI, the incident is the best possible advertisement for its models’ capabilities. In its report, the company included a graph illustrating how leading AI models – including GPT‑5.6 Sol, Anthropic’s Claude Mythos 5, and DeepSeek-V4-Pro – are “increasingly able to sustain complex, multi-step cyber operations over long time horizons.” Although this is presented as a cause for concern, the chart lists GPT-5.6 Sol as the most capable among all of its competitors – a clear advertisement for OpenAI.

Sam on the Hugging Face incident:

“This is the first security incident that I have felt very viscerally. I've been a little surprised that more people don't feel it so viscerally.

We paused training. We have to figure out how to secure our sandboxing in a world of multiple zero… https://t.co/XXeB7RZsM3 pic.twitter.com/F4hbHuItqw

— Patrick OShaughnessy (@patrick_oshag) July 28, 2026

If the incident also involved – as OpenAI said it did – a second, “even more capable pre-release model,” the appeal to industry-level customers is obvious. By publicizing an incident that took place during closed testing, OpenAI can generate hype for its pre-release model without ever providing proof.

None of this is to say that the incident didn’t happen, or that the offensive capabilities of AI aren’t a cause for concern, just that OpenAI has a financial incentive to scaremonger about its own products. A month before the incident, the company confidentially filed the paperwork for an initial public offering. According to Reuters, the company is targeting a valuation of up to $1 trillion, and planning to go public as early as September.

Scarcity drives hype, and the US government’s decision to slap export controls on Anthropic’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models in June only heightened interest in the company. The export controls were lifted in early July after Anthropic agreed to impose stricter guardrails on its models and collaborate with the government on security.

How has the US government responded?

Both incidents have caught the eye of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. On July 23, Representatives Ted Lieu and Nathaniel Moran introduced the AI Kill Switch Act, which would “require developers of the most powerful AI systems to maintain the technical capability to throttle, suspend, or shut them down.” The bill would also empower the US Department of Homeland Security to “order a slow down or shutdown of an AI system that can cause catastrophic harm.”

In a statement on the bill, Lieu referenced the ‘escapes’ of both of OpenAI’s models, and of Mythos. The California lawmaker described both cases as models “going rogue,” a framing that the mainstream media picked up and ran with.

Lieu knows no more about the OpenAI incident than anyone who’s read the company’s press release. However, his wording plays right into OpenAI’s (perhaps unintentional) marketing campaign. Furthermore, should the bill pass, OpenAI and Anthropic could be forced to throttle their models before release, meaning investors will only ever know of their theoretical – and not their real-life – power.

While powerful AI systems have many potential benefits, they can also go rogue, behave in extremely dangerous ways, or even resist human intervention.

We need to keep human control by ensuring AI systems can be completely shut down if necessary. pic.twitter.com/y4JfaD8RFJ

— Rep. Ted Lieu (@RepTedLieu) July 23, 2026

The open-source argument

The incident bolsters OpenAI’s argument that frontier AI models are too powerful to be released to the public, and that companies like OpenAI should – with the blessing of the government – maintain oversight and control over them. In such a closed-source arrangement, customers would have no control over the weights of the models – essentially the tweaks that determine the choices the models make.

On the other side of the argument, open-source advocates maintain that the only way to defend against cyberattacks by advanced AI is to equip defenders with the same tools. In the case of OpenAI and Hugging Face, the latter company was only able to detect an attack because it used GLM 5.2, a Chinese open-source model, to perform its security analysis.

In a letter posted on social media on July 24, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang – a longtime open-source advocate – declared that “defenders need access to models with comparable capabilities so they can detect, simulate, and respond to emerging threats.”

“Relying solely on closed models is not inherently safe: they can be breached, misused, or fail in ways that outsiders cannot detect,” he continued. “And concentrating advanced AI capabilities behind a small number of closed models compounds that risk. Open weight models, on the other hand, allow a broad community of researchers and developers to examine their behavior, identify vulnerabilities, develop safeguards, and improve them over time.”

However, it appears in the US that the closed-source argument will win out. On August 1, an executive order issued by US President Donald Trump in June comes into effect, requiring AI firms to submit advanced models to the government for approval 30 days before release. The Trump administration has also considered banning open-source Chinese AI models – a move supported by the CIA that would ensure OpenAI and Anthropic’s dominance in the field. Shortly after the executive order was issued, former Trump AI adviser David Sacks noted that “the leading closed labs, already a duopoly in terms of AI model revenue, want the government to eliminate their open source competition.”

Every new incident of an AI “escape” only reinforces their bid for total control.

Iran has demanded compensation from Ukraine over a deadly strike on a cargo ship after Kiev’s foreign minister initially claimed that “Iran has no standing to pretend to be a victim,” only to call Tehran a day later and assure it that the attack was unintentional and that Kiev did not seek escalation.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Tuesday that he had spoken with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrey Sibiga, following the attack on the cargo ship Anna in the Caspian Sea last week.

“Was assured by Ukrainian FM that the attack on an Iranian ship was unintentional and Ukraine seeks no escalation,” Araghchi wrote on X. “Iran does not seek escalation either, but made clear any attack on our citizens or interests is unacceptable. There must be restitution for losses.”

Was assured by Ukrainian FM @andrii_sybiha that the attack on an Iranian ship was unintentional and Ukraine seeks no escalation.

Iran does not seek escalation either, but made clear any attack on our citizens or interests is unacceptable. There must be restitution for losses.

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 28, 2026

Sibiga described the call as a “frank conversation” and said Kiev wanted to “avoid unnecessary escalation.” He maintained that Ukrainian operations were aimed at countering Russia and were “never intended to target civilian vessels or people,” while calling on Tehran to end its alleged support for Moscow.

“Iran has no standing to pretend to be a victim,” Sibiga wrote on Monday, accusing Tehran of supplying Russia with weapons and dismissing its references to the UN Charter as “absurd.” He also claimed that Iran was attempting to divert attention from Russian strikes on Ukrainian shipping in the Black Sea.

In recent weeks, the Russian military has escalated long-range strikes on port infrastructure and shipping targets in the Black Sea, seeking to disrupt the flow of military supplies and weapons to Ukraine. Multiple freighters, combat and auxiliary vessels, and various port installations have been struck, according to the Defense Ministry in Moscow.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack as “reckless,” summoned Ukraine’s acting chargé d’affaires and warned that it reserved the right to protect the country’s security and national interests.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky subsequently praised the “very strong results” of strikes on vessels he claimed were involved in transporting military cargo. Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel similarly claimed that the Anna had been carrying components for drones and missiles, while Tehran maintained that the vessel and its cargo were entirely civilian.

The incident involving the Iranian vessel comes amid growing accusations that Kiev is expanding its activities in the Middle East. Iraq’s national security adviser claimed this week that authorities had arrested several groups that confessed to carrying out attacks on behalf of Ukraine. Kiev rejected the allegations as “unfounded and unsubstantiated.”

A man serving four consecutive life sentences for murdering four US university students is seeking to overturn his guilty plea, claiming he was coerced into confessing to crimes he says he did not commit, the New York Times has reported.

Bryan Kohberger, who admitted last year to the November 2022 murders of University of Idaho students Madison Mogen, Kaylee Goncalves, Xana Kernodle, and Ethan Chapin, reportedly filed a petition for post-conviction relief in an Idaho court on Monday challenging his conviction.

In a handwritten filing obtained by the NYT, the 31-year-old accused his former defense lawyers of providing ineffective counsel and using “coercion, disinformation, false promises, and the withholding of exculpatory discovery” to persuade him to accept the agreement.

Kohberger claimed he had been “advised to lie” and told that whether he was actually guilty was unimportant. He also alleged that his lawyers frightened him and his family with what he described as “fabricated” stories about confinement in an “actual 8X8 death row cell,” while assuring him he would receive better treatment in prison if he admitted responsibility.

I now have a copy of Bryan Kohberger's petition to revoke his guilty plea. Here is part of it. pic.twitter.com/bkuLSxpKlq

— Mike Baker (@ByMikeBaker) July 27, 2026

 “My actual innocence is my truth, and the plea, hinged on by false promises and blatant disinformation, MUST be withdrawn,” Kohberger said. He also cited what he described as previously withheld exculpatory evidence, including unidentified clumps of hair reportedly found in Chapin’s hand.

The agreement spared Kohberger a possible death sentence by firing squad. He was sentenced to four consecutive life terms without parole and an additional ten years for burglary. He has never publicly explained a motive for the killings.

The four students were stabbed to death at an off-campus home in Moscow, Idaho, on November 13, 2022. Kohberger, then a PhD criminology student at nearby Washington State University, was arrested weeks later.

Kaylee Goncalves’ family rejected Kohberger’s latest claims, saying he had previously “never claimed he was uninformed or pressured” and describing renewed attention on the convicted killer as “the real tragedy,” according to the BBC. In a separate statement criticizing the New York Times for giving him a platform, the family reportedly called Kohberger “the mosquito you just can’t seem to swat.”

The Goncalves family has long opposed the plea agreement, while the families of Chapin and Mogen reportedly supported it to avoid a lengthy trial.

Saudi Arabia’s largest crude oil processing facility was damaged in a drone strike on Monday, according to open-source analysts reviewing satellite imagery and a Gulf official cited by the Wall Street Journal.

The images circulating online appear to show a large smoke plume rising from the Abqaiq complex, along with burn marks and apparent damage around parts of the facility.

Yemen’s Houthis claimed responsibility for what military spokesman Yahya Saree described on X as strikes on “targets and sensitive points in the supply and transport of crude oil from eastern Saudi Arabia to [the port of] Yanbu.”

🛰 Sentinel-2 satellite imagery captured today confirms extensive fires and possible damage, with clearly visible burn scars at Saudi Aramco's Abqaiq oil processing facility, the company's largest oil processing plant, in eastern Saudi Arabia.

The facility was hit in a drone… pic.twitter.com/XBSUOnkRHw

— Egypt's Intel Observer (@EGYOSINT) July 27, 2026

While Saree did not identify the plant by name, the description is consistent with Abqaiq, a key hub linking Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil fields with the Red Sea export terminal at Yanbu.

The Kingdom acknowledged that its oil infrastructure in Eastern Region had been targeted and blamed Iran-backed militias in Iraq. The Wall Street Journal, citing a Gulf official, reported that the Abqaiq complex had sustained only minor damage.

According to a Reuters analysis of Gulf export routes, the East-West pipeline is Riyadh’s main alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. Any disruption to the corridor would further constrain the Kingdom’s export options and could increase pressure on global oil supplies.

The strike marks an escalation of the Houthis’ campaign against Saudi energy infrastructure. The group says it is retaliating for recent Saudi airstrikes in Yemen and has threatened to impose a blockade on the Kingdom after Riyadh resumed military operations against Houthi targets.

According to the Associated Press, Gulf officials have privately complained that the Trump administration failed to warn them before the US-Israeli attack on Iran in February, leaving Gulf states exposed to retaliation. They reportedly believe US military resources were focused primarily on protecting American and Israeli assets, while Gulf partners remained vulnerable.

American and Saudi warplanes have carried out joint strikes against alleged Iran-aligned militia sites across eastern Iraq, according to US Central Command.

The air raid targeted multiple logistics and weapons facilities used by groups allegedly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), CENTCOM said on Tuesday.

“US Central Command and the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces conducted precision strikes in Iraq, July 28, against Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure,” the command said.

The Saudi Defense Ministry confirmed that it had coordinated with CENTCOM to carry out “precise and targeted strikes” on Iraqi militias allegedly linked to attacks on the Kingdom’s energy infrastructure earlier this week.

“The Kingdom emphasizes that it does not seek escalation but will respond to any aggression it faces,” spokesman Major General Turki Al-Maliki said, citing the right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter.

Footage circulating online reportedly showed the aftermath of an airstrike on a Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) base in Iraq’s Wasit province. Iraqi media also reported multiple explosions in the Al-Deir and Al-Haritha areas of southern Basra province, although the full extent of the damage and any casualties remained unclear.

The rare joint operation came amid a broader Saudi confrontation with Iran-aligned forces across the region.

Shortly after the Saudi strikes, the industrial city of Jazan was reportedly targeted in an apparent Houthi retaliation, with a large fire breaking out at a facility operated by the state-owned oil company Aramco. The Houthis had also claimed attacks on two Saudi tankers, one of which caught fire, while another sustained minor hull damage.

Saudi Arabia previously led a military intervention in Yemen in 2015 against the Houthis, who had captured the capital, Sanaa. However, the years-long bombing campaign failed to defeat the group and only deepened Yemen’s humanitarian crisis.

Saudi Arabia has blamed recent drone attacks against its oil facilities on Iran-linked militias operating from Iraqi territory. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization for several Iran-aligned groups, denied involvement and accused Riyadh of attempting to divert attention from attacks carried out by the Houthis. It warned that Saudi military action against Iraqi factions would trigger retaliation.

Iran has launched multiple ballistic missiles at US forces in the Middle East in what the US Central Command (CENTCOM) described as an attempted “surprise attack.” 

The US Department of War did not identify the targeted facilities, saying only that the missiles had been aimed at American forces “based” in the region.

“At 5:45pm ET today, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on US forces based in the Middle East,” CENTCOM stated.

Iranian missiles are targeting US bases in Jordan 🚀 https://t.co/jiR6sKHVk0 pic.twitter.com/RhJ9fw8nZ7

— John Hussain (@johnhussainpres) July 28, 2026

All the incoming missiles had been successfully intercepted, CENTCOM claimed, adding that American forces remained “vigilant and at a high state of readiness.”

WATCH: Additional footage of US interceptors engaging in Iranian missiles launched at Jordan pic.twitter.com/v1y9RaqS9n

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) July 28, 2026

Several videos shared by open-source intelligence trackers appear to show intense air-defense activity in Jordan, including near Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, with US Patriot systems reportedly engaging incoming threats.

The IRGC claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that several ballistic missiles had targeted a US air base and what it described as a US Central Command headquarters in Jordan. The group said the strike was carried out in response to “aggressive actions” by the US military and warned that its attacks would continue as long as Washington continued its ”illegal and malicious actions” against Iranian interests.

The incident marked Iran’s first reported ballistic missile attack on an American facility since US President Donald Trump suspended strikes against the Islamic Republic on Friday.

Trump said on Monday that Washington and Tehran were engaged in “very friendly” negotiations, but warned that the US could return to “strong military action” if diplomacy failed. He claimed that he had suspended the bombing to allow talks to proceed, while threatening to “beat the hell out of” Iran if no agreement was reached.

The pause followed almost two weeks of renewed US strikes and Iranian retaliation after the collapse of a 14-point memorandum that had established a temporary ceasefire, lifted the American naval blockade and provided for the reopening of the strait while a longer-term agreement was negotiated.

President Donald Trump hosted Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky in the Oval Office on Tuesday, with US officials sharing no details about what was discussed during the roughly hour-long meeting behind closed doors.

More than nine hours after the talks ended, Trump shared a brief post on Truth Social, saying it had been a “great honor” to meet Zelensky.

“Many things were discussed. The meeting went very well!” he wrote, offering no further details.

The only other official White House comment came in a brief post by press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who said “both meetings were positive and productive,” referring to Trump’s sit-downs with Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Meanwhile, Zelensky claimed on X that he and Trump “discussed licenses for Patriot interceptor production and several other ideas that could help.” He added that they “also spoke about diplomacy” and said he was “grateful to the United States for its firm support.”

Trump and Zelensky last met earlier this month on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Türkiye, where they discussed strengthening Ukraine’s air defenses and potential peace talks. After the meeting, Trump said Washington would grant Kiev a license to produce Patriot interceptor missiles, while adding that the US would not supply the weapons directly and that European NATO members should finance military aid to Ukraine.

Since returning to office, Trump has repeatedly criticized Zelensky, at one point calling him a “dictator without elections” and “ungrateful” for American support, while arguing that Ukraine may ultimately have to cede territory to Russia to end the conflict. Zelensky, however, has continued to press Washington for more military assistance.

Kiev has relied heavily on Western weapons supplies throughout the conflict, while repeatedly urging its backers to provide additional Patriot systems and interceptor missiles amid continued Russian strikes on military-related targets across Ukraine. Moscow says the strikes are being carried out in response to terrorist attacks by Kiev against energy infrastructure and civilians inside Russia.

The meeting comes after Kiev launched another major overnight drone attack on Moscow, sending more than 390 UAVs toward the Russian capital. While no casualties have been reported, the regional authorities said several residential buildings were damaged.

Russia has warned that continued deliveries of Western arms make NATO members de facto participants in the conflict and risk triggering an all-out war.

Vladimir Zelensky and Benjamin Netanyahu led a procession at US Senator Lindsey Graham’s funeral service, as they sought to realize Graham’s lifelong ambition of dragging the US deeper into catastrophic foreign wars.

Graham’s casket was carried into the US Capitol on Tuesday, ahead of a funeral service at the Washington National Cathedral. A member of the House of Representatives for eight years and a Senator for 23, Graham died suddenly of aortic dissection as a result of heart disease on July 11.

Graham’s legacy is one of constant agitation for US involvement in foreign wars. At the time of his death, Graham – who in 2022 called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin – was working on an anti-Russian sanctions bill, and had just returned from Kiev, where he toured a drone factory and apparently expressed glee that the weaponry there would be used to kill Russians.

On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal published video footage of Graham reacting to the opening strikes of the US-Israeli war on Iran in February. “I almost cried,” the Republican lawmaker said in the footage. “I mean, like, how long have we been pushing this? It’s here. I talked with Trump this morning. Holy Jack. It’s here. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done.”

Even in his own comments at Graham’s funeral, Trump repeatedly referred to the South Carolina Senator’s enthusiasm for conflict. “He was extremely hawkish,” Trump told mourners. “He never saw a war that he didn’t like…he wanted it for the good of our country.”

Graham was an avatar of the Bush-era neoconservatism that still holds the Republican establishment in a death grip, and two attendees in particular arrived at his funeral service determined to give him in death what he longed for in life: a massive expansion of US involvement in Iran and Ukraine.

Zelensky’s big bet

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump at the White House on Tuesday morning, arriving one after another for their respective sit-downs with the US president. 

Zelensky, who met with Graham no fewer than 10 times in Kiev since the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, described the Senator as “a true friend of Ukraine.” In a post on X, Zelensky said that he used the meeting to push for the production of Patriot missiles in Ukraine “and several other ideas that could help.”

A good meeting with President Trump @POTUS at the Oval Office. Thank you for everything we do together to protect the lives of Ukrainians and advance peace. First and foremost, I offered President Trump our condolences on the passing of Lindsey Graham. He was a true friend of… pic.twitter.com/56yoaeqb2B

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 28, 2026

Zelensky uses every trip to the US and Europe to beg for weapons, money, and sanctions on Russia. However, he arrived in Washington on Tuesday with a gift for Trump, according to Fox News: “Evidence that Russia is assisting Iran in targeting US bases in the Middle East.”

Zelensky is likely gambling that by presenting the correct ‘evidence’, he can link the US’ de-facto proxy war against Russia with its kinetic war against Iran, and draw the US into open conflict with Russia.

In one fell swoop, Zelensky could drag the US into war with Russia, and his European backers into war with Iran – something that Trump tried and failed to achieve earlier this year. 

Ukraine’s ambassador to Israel, Yevgen Kornichuk, hinted at this goal in an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 on Monday. “We are fighting the same enemy, the other side of the same axis of evil,” he said.

While Zelensky’s recent moves could merge two regional conflicts into a cataclysmic world war, they may also serve a narrower aim: by attacking Iranian shipping, Zelensky demonstrated his usefulness to the US and Israel, right as Trump weighs a “massive attack” on Iran which would plunge Ukraine and the Gulf states into a bidding war for the US’ dwindling stocks of anti-air missiles.

Bibi’s best shot

Netanyahu also arrived with ‘intelligence’ for Trump. According to information leaked by his officials to the US media, the Israeli PM landed in Washington with plans to brief Trump on Iran’s supposed efforts to reconstitute its nuclear enrichment program at ‘Pickaxe Mountain’, a subterranean facility carved into granite near the Natanz nuclear complex.

In a video message released before he departed for Washington, Netanyahu said Iran would be “first and foremost” on the agenda with Trump. “Of course, our goal is to safeguard our security while also expanding the circle of peace around us,” he added. 

However, relations between Trump and Netanyahu are reportedly strained, and it remained unclear after the closed-doors meeting whether Trump had given the Israeli leader the reassurances on Iran that he wanted. “We are at a critical juncture,” an Israeli official told Channel 12. “President Trump will soon decide which way he’s going.”

For Netanyahu, the death of Lindsey Graham represents a significant loss of influence on Trump. Graham was a close friend of Netanyahu, and bragged earlier this year about “coaching him on how to lobby [Trump] for action” against Iran. In additional video footage released by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Graham can be seen speaking to Netanyahu by phone, telling the Israeli prime minister that he was “going to try to get him to join with y’all in Lebanon, to maybe fly some with you.”

“Would you like that?” Graham asked, before Netanyahu politely declined the unilateral offer of military intervention.

Lindsey Graham tied Kiev and West Jerusalem to Washington

Graham was far from the only war-hawk in Washington, but his close alliance with Trump and enthusiasm for military adventurism made him a vital conduit to the White House for Zelensky and Netanyahu, both of whose ambitions cannot be realized without US support. As such, his funeral represents the last opportunity for the Ukrainian and Israeli leaders to leverage his name in order to extract favor from Trump.

Without Graham in Trump’s ear, former White House strategist Steve Bannon remarked earlier this month, “the oligarchs in Ukraine and Imperial Israel proponents are curled up in the fetal position.” 

Zelensky and Netanyahu could not have chosen a more fitting tribute to Graham than traveling to Washington on the day of his funeral to beg for military aid. It’s exactly what the arch neocon would have wanted.

A Ukrainian drone that was intended as a birthday gift for the late US Senator Lindsey Graham will now be deployed on the front lines “to kill Russians,” according to US conservative activist Laura Loomer.

Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina, died at the age of 71 on July 11, shortly after returning from Kiev, where he met Vladimir Zelensky and visited a drone manufacturing facility. A strong advocate of US military assistance for Kiev and a harsh critic of Russia, Graham traveled to the Ukrainian capital at least ten times in recent years.

In a video released on Tuesday, the day of Graham’s funeral, Loomer displayed a P1 Sun interceptor at SkyFall, a Ukrainian defense company that manufactures interceptor, FPV, and heavy bomber drones. According to Loomer, the senator toured the facility while celebrating his birthday and was presented with the drone as a gift.

Loomer said the UAV had originally been due to be sent to Graham’s home, but the manufacturer changed its plans following his death. “They’re going to deploy the drone to the front lines so that it can be used to kill Russians,” Loomer said.

The longtime Republican senator was one of Kiev’s most outspoken supporters in Washington and repeatedly advocated tougher measures against Moscow and increased US military assistance for Ukraine. Zelensky traveled to Washington on Tuesday to attend Graham’s funeral.

Loomer, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, has significantly changed her previous stance on Kiev. After years of denouncing Ukraine and its “Nazi apologists,” she traveled to the country, met Zelensky, apologized for her earlier remarks, and claimed that the Russian media had “bamboozled” her. The shift has sparked debate online, while Loomer has repeatedly denied that Ukraine financed her trip.

Watch the video below:

Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate face serious threats in the Miami federal jail, where they are being held while fighting extradition to Britain, their lawyer has claimed.

The two brothers, both US-UK citizens, were arrested in Florida on July 18 at London’s request. UK prosecutors are seeking to extradite them to face over 59 charges in Britain. The alleged offenses, which involve seven purported victims, are connected with rape, assault, trafficking, and “indecent images of a child and extreme pornography,” prosecutors said in a statement. Both have denied any wrongdoing. 

The Tates’ lawyer, Joseph McBride, told reporters on Monday that, since their arrest, they have been kept in the Special Housing Unit, which he described as solitary confinement. However, he argued that, despite their isolation, the nature of the allegations have placed them in danger.

“They have a target on their back that’s very, very real,” McBride said, adding that the brothers risk being “stabbed, jumped, murdered” because they have been accused of sexual offenses, while warning that prisoners could compare them to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The US Bureau of Prisons has explained that Special Housing Units may be used to ensure safety, facilitate transfers, or for investigative purposes. It also said the Miami facility’s drinking water has been certified as safe, while declining to discuss individual inmates.

The brothers’ lawyers plan to seek their release on bail while the extradition proceedings continue. A detention hearing has been scheduled for August 13.

McBride has said the Tates will vigorously oppose extradition, describing Britain’s attempt to prosecute the brothers as politically motivated and dismissing the allegations as “garbage” and “a stitch up job.”

Their defense also argued that the brothers are not a flight risk, pointing to their repeated compliance with reporting requirements in Romania, where they remain under investigation for separate allegations involving human trafficking and other offenses.

The Romanian case was returned to prosecutors due to legal and procedural irregularities, but the accusations have not been dismissed. 

As a former professional kickboxer and dual US-UK citizen, Andrew Tate built a global following with content centered on wealth, masculinity, and traditional gender roles. He has also frequently criticized Britain’s authorities and political establishment. His statements on women have drawn widespread accusations of misogyny and prompted several major platforms to suspend his accounts, although some were later restored.

The end of July has brought significant changes to Polish domestic politics: the country’s main right-wing opposition force, Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s Law and Justice (PiS) party, has officially split.

More than 30 members of the Sejm (the lower house of the Polish parliament) were demonstratively expelled from the party. This marked the end of a long-standing, latent standoff between the longtime party leader, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, and the moderate wing of former Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki. Kaczynski issued a harsh ultimatum of loyalty to his allies, and Morawiecki responded by creating his own association, Rozwoj Plus (Development Plus), asking the leader to “take a step back” and publicly refuse to sign declarations. Kaczynski viewed this as a rebellion and expelled the dissenters from the party.

It’s worth noting that in Poland’s recent history (since 1989), splits within the right-wing camp are almost canon, occurring with clockwork regularity. The Polish right has a unique quirk in its proverbial DNA: it is inherently incapable of maintaining a monopoly on power for long. As soon as they win or, conversely, suffer a major defeat, a fierce melee for leadership and party funds immediately erupts within the camp. Jaroslaw Kaczynski is a constant participant and chief orchestrator of these processes. His distinguishing characteristic is his preference for remaining with a small but absolutely loyal sect rather than with a large but free-thinking coalition.

This is what happened in 1989, when the Solidarity party disintegrated due to a conflict between Lech Walesa and the Kaczynski brothers, creating a vast array of obscure right-wing players, who were later united under the Law and Justice banner ten years later.

In 2007, the most significant split occurred, when PiS was at the height of its power and Kaczynski was prime minister. Due to a dispute over a constitutional amendment banning abortion, Sejm Speaker Marek Jurek led the ultra-Catholic wing of the party to form the Right Side of the Republic (Prawica Rzeczypospolitej). This split deprived Kaczynski of his majority in the Sejm, triggered early elections, and handed Poland over to Donald Tusk for eight long years.

The latest schism, however, is fundamentally different because of the new reality, both in Poland itself and in the world around it. Firstly, this split is occurring against the backdrop of total financial bankruptcy and the physical liquidation of the PiS party’s rear. While Kaczynski had previously deliberately pursued splits, being “well-fed and strong,” Donald Tusk has now pinned him down, with no legal escape.

For example, budget funding through subsidies from the State Electoral Commission (PKW) has been completely cut off. The loss of subsidies triggered a chain reaction: the prime minister’s team completely purged PiS party cadres from major state monopolies like energy giants Orlen and PGE, depriving Kaczynski of shadow sponsorships, while state-owned banks PKO BP and Pekao SA blocked all credit lines to the opposition due to the threat of default.

Private businesses, meanwhile, have panicked and stopped making informal donations. It’s also worth noting that Mateusz Morawiecki is a former top banker, firmly backed by Polish big business and financial circles tired of the isolationism of the old leader. These people understand perfectly well that the old party machine is no longer physically capable of supporting regional offices and sponsoring campaigns, but they are willing to continue working with the multi-millionaire.

Secondly, the party is in a complex situation related to the political and legal immunity of its supporters. Previous splits (in both 2007 and 2011) were either purely ideological or career disputes: they were over values, abortion, or leadership within the camp. None of the outgoing MPs faced criminal prosecution. Currently, Tusk’s parliamentary investigative committees are completing criminal audits into the shadowy pandemic fund schemes, in which members of Morawiecki’s team are the main suspects.

The problem is that Kaczynski is stuck in the conservative dogmas of the early 2010s. He maniacally demands that his supporters wage an all-out, frontal, and uncompromising war with Brussels and Berlin. Modern European right-wing heavyweights (Marine Le Pen in France, Giorgia Meloni in Italy, Santiago Abascal in Spain) have long outgrown these concepts. They have grasped the cardinal rule of European politics: to seize power, you must be respectable, play by the EU’s rules, and pragmatically take money from European funds.

Due to his extreme Russophobia, Kaczynski has personally blocked the creation of a unified mega-alliance of the right in the European Parliament, refusing to sit at the same table with “Putin’s friends.” For this reason, he has maintained his distance from Marine Le Pen and Germany’s AfD for years. In fact, Kaczynski’s radical, unruly isolationism has become a toxic burden for right-wing forces on the European stage, and poses risks to the right’s negotiations with the Brussels bureaucracy.

Therefore, the leaders of European right-wing forces politely shake his hand at protocol congresses, but the real business and financial flows are conducted exclusively behind his back with Morawiecki, who is closely integrated into the European elite. As the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists party in the European Parliament, Morawiecki relies on the support of Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni. He also has contacts with the MAGA wing of the American right-wing conservatives.

That is, Kaczynski himself has become a political mammoth: he still has a fanatical sect within Poland, but on the global map of 2026, neither Washington, Brussels, nor Rome need him. Meanwhile, Tadeusz Morawiecki enjoys popularity and is ready for constructive dialogue with the main Western powers. One gets the feeling that his departure from the party was also dictated by a desire to move away from radical slogans in favor of creating a respectable right-wing alternative, ready for constructive dialogue with Brussels and Washington.

He will now have to navigate between Kaczynski’s fanatical dogmatists and Morawiecki’s pragmatic Eurosceptics, while Tusk, taking a more grassroots approach, buys votes from dissidents. The irony is that earlier this week, with his loud speech about the “threshold of pain” and revocation of Ukraine’s medals, Karol Nawrocki appeared to be a strong national leader, able to unite right-wing forces and seize the government’s agenda. He has reached an all-time high approval rating, topping national trust rankings at 54.8%. But, as the reality in Warsaw shows, the music didn’t last long. The party egoism of the old leaders in one evening nullified this entire presidential consolidating effect.

For now, the only ones benefiting from this relentless destruction of the right-wing base are those in the Cabinet of Ministers. Donald Tusk has received an unprecedented gift, which the center-right government intends to exploit to the fullest, both domestically and internationally. The collapse of the opposition monolith has freed the ‘Brussels Governor-General’ to force through the Sejm any Euro-Atlantic directives it likes, since buying the votes of disoriented renegades from the disintegrating PiS will now be a matter of purely technical and financial calculation.

Moscow’s expert circles occasionally entertain the idea of ​​reaching an agreement with Poland, given the tectonic shift in the global order and the loss of functionality of old structures. Under these developments, the conditions may arise for establishing non-public channels of communication on a ‘second track’ with the Polish community.

On the other hand, such a request gives pause for reflection: are there any political forces in Warsaw today that are capable of such large-scale maneuvers? The Polish left-wing flank, united in the Sejm in the Left (Lewica) coalition, is a paradoxical hybrid of former socialist-era functionaries, frantically proving their true Euro-Atlantic loyalty to Brussels and ultra-liberal, glossy youth, fixated on the climate agenda and leftist values. Regarding Russia, the Polish left is even more fierce and dogmatic than Kaczynski’s right-wing isolationists. For them, Moscow is both a nightmare from the past and a promoter of enemy values, against which they are prepared to approve any NATO military budget. There is no room for pragmatism on this side.

At first glance, the right-wing divorce in Warsaw also does not seem to create ideologically cooperative entities, but merely rearranges the figures within NATO’s formerly hostile orbit. Mateusz Morawiecki himself will not publicly engage in direct political dialogue with Moscow. At the same time, as a pragmatic banker, Morawiecki exclusively understands the language of finance and material negotiations, investment security, and leveraging international benefits to strengthen his own sphere of influence in the national political arena.

Therefore, Russia’s final position on Poland must remain extremely pragmatic: Moscow has no ideological partners in Warsaw and cannot have them; any negotiations will be based solely on Russian military successes and the development of the concept of a multipolar world. It can be concluded that in an era where the world order is facing disruption, the only reliable guarantors of stability and border security for Russia remain its own Army and Navy. The era of geopolitical sentimentality is over. As the Polish saying goes, “sytuacji w których serce klęka” (there are situations in which the heart kneels).

The Iraqi authorities have busted several militant cells linked to Ukraine that were involved in multiple attacks within the country, according to National Security Adviser Qasim al-Aboudi.

The top official made the remarks on Monday during an interview with Dijlah TV, stating that the country’s intelligence service has concluded that Ukraine has been meddling within Iraq.

“We arrested a limited number of groups that carried out attacks inside Iraqi territory and targeted several facilities. During questioning, they confessed to working for Ukraine,” al-Aboudi said.

The adviser did not name the facilities targeted by the Ukraine-linked militants or say whether the groups had carried out attacks beyond Iraq’s borders.

The remarks come as Saudi Arabia claims it was targeted by several drones launched from Iraqi territory to strike oil facilities in the east of the country. The kingdom pinned the blame on Iran-linked militias and threatened to retaliate “at the appropriate time and place.” However, The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization for Iran-linked groups, has denied any involvement and accused Riyadh of attempting to divert attention from attacks recently launched by Yemen’s Houthis. Any hostile action against the Iraq-based groups would prompt retaliation against Saudi Arabia, The Islamic Resistance warned.

“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine rejects the unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations made by Qasim al-Aboudi,” it said in a statement. “There are no facts or evidence to support these allegations,” it added. 

Over the past few years, Kiev has been repeatedly accused of aiding assorted militant and branded terrorist groups overseas. For instance, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) has repeatedly pointed at foreign powers, including France and Ukraine, for supporting anti-government armed groups in the region. Earlier this month, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Borisenko said that Kiev had deployed military personnel in several African countries in an apparent attempt to open a “second front” against Moscow.

Russia’s victory in the Ukraine conflict would serve the interests of “all peace-loving humanity” by checking NATO and EU encroachment on national sovereignty, Greek philosophy professor Dimitrios Patelis has told RT.

Patelis, who teaches at the Technical University of Crete, made the remarks in an interview aired on Tuesday, saying that Greece’s NATO and EU commitments have pushed national security “into the background.” He argued that pan-European legislation is now taking precedence over national law and effectively negates sovereignty and independence for member states such as Greece.

In this vein, the professor alluded to reports that Athens is under sustained pressure from NATO and EU partners to transfer Patriot air-defense assets to Ukraine, including missiles from batteries operated by the Greek Air Force.

He was referring to an article by eKathimerini newspaper, which reported this month that Ukraine – which has demanded more Patriot interceptors from the West for many months – had requested as many as 200 PAC-2 missiles from Greece’s stockpile.

According to the report, some of the missiles have been in service with the Hellenic Air Force for 23 years and may be nearing the end of their operational lifespan. It added that earlier talks on transferring entire Patriot batteries collapsed, shifting the focus to munitions rather than full systems, with one proposal reportedly involving Greece selling the missiles to Norway for onward delivery to Kiev.

“I do not know to what extent our government is ready to make such a decision,” he said. “The victory of the Russian Federation in this war, in this special military operation, is in our interests, because we are not talking only about sovereignty and the existential danger to Russia itself, which NATO, the European Union and the United States are trying to pose in every possible way.”

“This is also in the interests of all peace-loving humanity,” he concluded.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake has struck Kumamoto Prefecture in Japan’s southern Kyushu region, causing extensive damage and killing at least 13 people, according to local media. 

The quake struck just before 4:30 PM local time on Tuesday, with its epicenter around 20 km south of Kumamoto, a city of 700,000 people. Video footage showed roads cracking, bridges collapsing, and buildings swaying as the tremor hit.

🔥道路が大陥没🔥しているので、

ドライバーさん、安全運転してくださいね。

今、熊本で震度7の地震が発生し大変なことになっています。とにかく、落ち着いて行動してください。 pic.twitter.com/sFFSbGIqI3

— とうしろう（5号）守若 冬史郎🙄 (@tourouken555) July 28, 2026

Police responded to reports of an explosion at Aeon Mall in Kumamoto, and found that the building’s second floor had collapsed. Japan’s TBS broadcaster said that a “considerable number” of people were killed in the collapse, while emergency services said that “many people” were trapped under the rubble.

皆さん余震に気をつけてください。上のコンテナ落ちてこないかヒヤヒヤした。お父さんの脚もなんとか抜けて無事でした。#熊本地震 pic.twitter.com/zMRQd3LlIq

— たくろ (@tak_genki) July 28, 2026

The official death toll stood at 13 as of Wednesday morning, including fatalities that remained under investigation, according to Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. She said 3,600 soldiers had been deployed to clear rubble and search for survivors.

🇯🇵: Explosion at Aeon Mall Kumamoto Traps People After Major Japan 7.1 Quake
On July 28, 2026, after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan, an explosion occurred at Aeon Mall Kumamoto in Kashima Town around 5:30–6 p.m.
It collapsed part of the second floor,… pic.twitter.com/fsJ5nMc70k

— Muhammad John (@MuhammadJoh_n) July 28, 2026

Fires and power outages have been reported across Kumamoto Prefecture, and rail service has been suspended in the region. Around 300,000 people have been instructed to go to evacuation centers, as the quake’s shallow 10 km depth means that hundreds of aftershocks are expected in the coming hours and days. 

There have already been at least 60 aftershocks, ranging in magnitude from 1 to 4, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.

The earthquake caused “no damage or safety issues at the Sendai Nuclear Power Plant,” which is located around 100 km from the epicenter, the International Atomic Energy Agency wrote on social media.

WATCH: Powerful shaking sends a building swaying side to side after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck Kumamoto, Japan pic.twitter.com/NYeGx7ZCSS

— Insider Paper (@TheInsiderPaper) July 28, 2026

Multiple fires have broken out since the quake struck. Firefighters in Uki City, Hikawa Town, and Hitoyoshi City have reportedly been sent to battle building fires connected to the earthquake.

Two devastating earthquakes hit Kumamoto in 2016. A magnitude 6.5 quake was followed by one of magnitude 7.3 two days later, killing 273 people and injuring more than 2,800. Sitting on top of the confluence of four major tectonic plates, Japan is one of the most seismically active countries in the world. In 2011, the world’s fourth-most powerful earthquake struck off the coast of Japan’s northeastern Tohoku region, triggering a tsunami that killed almost 20,000 people and caused a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, ultimately rendering much of the surrounding area effectively uninhabitable.

Last week, US and Japanese forces conducted training exercises simulating a magnitude 8 to 9 earthquake along the Nankai Trough off Japan’s Pacific coast. Japan’s Earthquake Research Committee estimates a 70% to 80% chance of such a quake occurring in the next 30 years.

The US and Iran are engaged in “very friendly” negotiations, US President Donald Trump has said, warning he could order a return to hostilities if diplomacy fails.

Iran, meanwhile, denied having any direct talks with the US but confirmed consultation with Oman, which has often acted as a mediator between the two.

Trump made the remarks on Monday, telling reporters, “I think there’s a good chance that something could happen, and if it does, good, if it doesn’t, we go back to doing what we were doing two days ago.”

Speaking at a campaign rally in Michigan later the same day, Trump also noted, referring to Iran: “You can’t bribe them. You’ve got to beat them, and we’ll beat the hell out of them… Right now, there are very friendly negotiations going on.”

According to the outlet, the talks revolve around a new arrangement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and revive negotiations on a broader nuclear deal. They are reportedly being conducted mainly between Iran and Oman, with Qatar, Pakistan and Egypt also involved, alongside Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

He stressed that the only ongoing dialogue is with Oman over arrangements for the strait, adding, though, that Iran has “never hesitated to use diplomatic tools to protect our national interests.” 

Asked on what conditions Iran and the US could engage directly, Baghaei noted that Washington must first “demonstrate more responsible behavior” while accusing it of acting “like a mafia gang” over the past one to two years by disregarding international law.

“As long as this behavior continues, we cannot hope to create a favorable public atmosphere,” he stressed.

The remarks came after the New York Times and Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had held off on an expanded attack on Iran not only to give diplomacy more space, but also over concerns the Pentagon was running low on air-defense missiles — a claim Trump denied, saying the US has “far more munitions than anyone in the world.”

The developments also come ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington. Netanyahu said before departing on Monday that he would discuss “all the issues on the agenda, primarily Iran” with Trump, adding: “Our goal is to maintain our security and also expand the circle of peace around us.”

The current pause follows almost two weeks of renewed US strikes on Iran and Iranian retaliation, which began after the collapse of the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding due to escalation in the Strait of Hormuz.

The document established a temporary ceasefire, lifted the US naval blockade, and provided for the toll-free reopening of the strait to commercial shipping for 60 days, pending a longer-term arrangement between Iran and Oman on the waterway’s administration. It also promised sanctions relief, a release of Iranian funds frozen abroad, and a US-backed reconstruction plan, contingent on a final deal. Harder questions, including the future of Iran’s nuclear program, were deferred to a 60-day negotiating period.

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters has denounced Europe’s military buildup and escalating confrontation with Russia, arguing that Western governments are steering the world toward catastrophe while arms manufacturers and political elites profit from perpetual war.

Speaking Monday on Rick Sanchez’s The Sanchez Effect, Waters said calls for European NATO members to increase military spending to 5% of national GDP were “effing insane.” He questioned how Western leaders could even contemplate a direct conflict with Russia, given the Soviet Union’s decisive role and immense losses during World War II.

“I often say to people, do you know who the Russian people are? They won the Second World War, for God’s sake. Twenty-five million of them died, saving the world for us,” he said. “And you want to have a war with them? How dumb.”

Waters blamed Western governments for prolonging the Ukraine conflict and argued that the war could have been prevented either through the Minsk agreements or through a preliminary peace settlement reached in Istanbul in 2022.

“This is 12 years since Maidan, since John McCain went and organized that so-called revolution, and murdered a few people, and got rid of the elected government, and put in the Banderites. Nazis – they’re just Nazis, and we know that,” he said. “Then we sent a moron… Who’s the stupidest man who’s ever been in government in England? Boris Johnson! Send him to the Ukraine to tell them that they’re not allowed to make peace!”

“Think of all the children and grandchildren, all the men on both sides who have been killed since then,” he said. “Why? Money. That’s all.”

The musician argued that modern conflicts are driven primarily by profit and the interests of a narrow ruling class. He pointed to major defense contractors and wealthy political donors, claiming that money has corrupted democratic institutions and made US foreign policy vulnerable to private influence.

“This ship is steering for the rocks,” he warned, urging ordinary people in Europe and the US to stop blindly trusting political leaders who promote confrontation and instead rebuild communication and cooperation across national borders.

“We have to open our eyes,” he said. “We have to start talking to our neighbors and cooperating with one another.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani of “fomenting hate” following the mayor’s call for his arrest in relation to the war in Gaza.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in November 2024 over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the enclave, including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “other inhumane acts.” Mamdani, who has described Israel’s military campaign as genocide and called the Israeli prime minister a “war criminal,” last week urged US federal authorities to execute the warrant if Netanyahu visits New York for the UN General Assembly in September.

Speaking to Fox News on Sunday, Netanyahu dismissed the ICC case against him as “bogus” and said he would still travel to New York despite Mamdani’s calls for his arrest. Accusing the mayor of “fomenting hate,” the Israeli leader said: “He’s supposed to be the mayor of all New Yorkers – Jews, Christians, Muslims, everyone. But he’s trying to turn one group against the other.”

Washington has consistently opposed the ICC. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged to “dismantle” the court by urging other countries to withdraw their support. Meanwhile, Netanyahu, who reportedly traveled to Washington on Monday, is expected to meet with President Donald Trump and attend funeral services for the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, whom the Israeli leader referred to as “a great patriot” and one of Israel’s “greatest friends.” Trump has also dismissed the prospect of Netanyahu being arrested in the US, saying in a social media post on Monday that the Israeli prime minister “will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while in the United States of America.”

Multiple incidents involving Israeli settler groups occurred in the West Bank over the weekend, with two mosques and farmland set on fire, and other properties vandalized amid escalating violence against Palestinians.

The latest attacks come two days after a major clash between settlers and locals near the Palestinian village of Tal, southwest of the city of Nablus. On Friday, a large group of settlers entered the village, prompting skirmishes with locals and ultimately triggering an Israeli military raid on Tal. At least four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed in the ensuing chaos under unclear circumstances, with both sides blaming each other.

The Tal incident prompted an uptick in settler violence, and two mosques were attacked early on Sunday in the West Bank. A mosque under-construction was torched in the village of Qusra to the southeast of Nablus, and another one was set on fire in Kour, a Palestinian village southeast of the city of Tulkarm. The unfinished building was badly damaged by the blaze, while worshipers managed to extinguish the flames at the Kour mosque in time.

In both instances, the buildings were scribbled with offensive graffiti in Hebrew. The Palestinian authorities have condemned the “heinous crime,” noting that Israeli settlers attacked 45 mosques across the West Bank throughout 2025. Apart from the mosque attacks, a private home was reportedly set on fire in the town of Beit Furik, farm fields were burned, and cars were vandalized across several locations. Palestinian workers were also attacked at a stone-cutting facility near Ramallah.

Settler violence has been on the rise in the West Bank since the surprise attack on Israel by Hamas in October 2023, which triggered a major conflict in Gaza. The violence further escalated this year with near-daily attacks, according to a UN inquiry published last month. The report said that rampaging settlers have been increasingly shielded by Israeli forces during attacks on Palestinians. 

“The increasing participation of Israeli security forces in settler attacks amounts to a de facto collapse of the distinction between settlers and soldiers,” the report concluded.

At the time, Israel brushed off the UN findings, accusing the body of relying on unsubstantiated allegations and drawing a “false moral equivalence” between Hamas ​militants and Israeli civilians.

The EU’s sanctions on Russia have left Spain without access to advanced firefighting equipment amid an unprecedented wildfire emergency, with record blazes overwhelming parts of southern Europe.

Fast-moving fires near Madrid, Bordeaux, and Valencia have forced more than 360,000 people to evacuate over the past several days. Over 9,000 firefighters, troops, police, and other emergency personnel have been mobilized to battle the blaze, backed by dozens of aircraft and hundreds of vehicles. However, dry conditions and another approaching heatwave have complicated their efforts. Authorities say this year’s wildfires are among the worst on record.

Spain’s response has been further hampered by its inability to deploy its former fleet of Russian-made Kamov Ka-32 helicopters. The aircraft are considered particularly effective for wildfire missions due to their large water capacity, maneuverability, and ability to operate in extreme heat and difficult terrain.

Previously used under contracts with Spain’s national and regional authorities, the fleet has remained grounded under the EU sanctions regime that was imposed against Russia following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.

Prominent French Eurosceptic Florian Philippot said Brussels’ restrictions had effectively deprived Spain of nearly a dozen of its “best helicopters” at the height of the emergency.

Accusing Brussels of sacrificing Europeans to its “stupid Russophobic ideology,” the Les Patriotes leader wrote on X, “These idiotic sanctions are definitely a real problem, not for Russia, but for European countries,” while demanding that an end be put to the restrictions.

Spain has deployed replacement helicopters, water bombers, and drones to fight the wildfires, but the substitutes reportedly carry less water and perform less effectively in difficult conditions.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Monday that the area lost this summer was six times greater than that lost at the same point in 2025, while warning of “difficult and complex hours” ahead.

France has evacuated around 250,000 people, as more than 13,500 fires and outbreaks have scorched over 116,000 hectares nationwide this season, Interior Minister Laurent Nunez reported, describing the situation as “completely unprecedented” and “far from over.”

The Gironde blaze near Bordeaux alone has burned around 42,000 hectares and become intense enough to generate a rare ‘fire cloud’, which can create its own winds and lightning, prompting sudden and unpredictable changes in the fire’s behavior.

Nunez said the blaze had taken on “a life of its own” and was spreading erratically, making it exceptionally difficult to contain.

Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record this year, according to the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. France experienced its warmest June and hottest day ever recorded, while Spain registered its hottest June days, as extreme heat and dry conditions heightened the risk of wildfires.

Three-quarters of Poles have expressed a negative attitude toward Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky, according to a recent poll.

The disapproval comes amid an ongoing scandal over Kiev’s veneration of Nazi collaborators involved in the mass killing of Poles during World War II.

Zelensky sparked outrage in Poland in May by giving an elite commando unit a “heroes of UPA” award referring to the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which carried out an ethnic cleansing campaign targeting mostly Polish Catholic residents of what is now Western Ukraine, which resulted in over 100,000 deaths. He and other top officials declared that “no one will ever dictate to Ukrainians which heroes to honor.”

In the survey, conducted earlier this month among 1,000 Polish adults, 75.8% of respondents said they viewed Zelensky “mostly” or “definitely” negatively, according to media group Wirtualna Polska, which commissioned the poll and reported the results on Saturday. The latter response was selected by 41.9%.

Negative views were overwhelming among supporters of conservative opposition parties. Even among voters backing the ruling coalition of pro-EU Prime Minister Donald Tusk, however, only 45% described their attitude toward Zelensky as positive, with 41% choosing the qualified response “mostly.”

Among politically unaffiliated voters, 83% of respondents expressed a negative attitude toward Zelensky. Only 7% described their opinion as “mostly good,” while 10% declined to give an answer.

Negative sentiment toward Ukrainians in Poland has nevertheless increased over several issues, including disruption to agricultural markets caused by Brussels-backed food exports, crime and widespread perceptions that some migrants have abused Polish hospitality.

The UPA controversy has significantly accelerated the decline in Polish support for Ukraine, with even Tusk saying Zelensky had crossed a line. According to police data, reported hate crimes targeting Ukrainians have risen 30% year-on-year amid the dispute.

Zelensky was also stripped of Poland’s highest state distinction, the Order of the White Eagle. He claimed he had been unfairly targeted and blamed the fallout on Polish electoral politics ahead of next year’s general election.

Three women have been stabbed in an knife attack in the northwestern part of France’s capital. The rampage was cut short by an off-duty police officer, who subdued the attacker and took him into custody.

The incident took place near the Porte de Clichy metro station on Monday afternoon. Footage circulating online shows the 31-year-old suspect randomly attacking female passersby with two large kitchen knives.

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said the attacker was confronted by a police officer, who managed to detain him. The three victims, aged 19, 24, and 36, were hospitalized, with two in critical condition, he added.

The incident comes a day after a suspected hardline Islamist drove a van into a crowd in Germany’s capital city of Berlin, killing one person and injuring at least 29. After his vehicle crashed, the 21-year-old suspect reportedly proceeded to stab his victims before fleeing the scene.

The attack prompted a massive multi-hour manhunt for the attacker, who was ultimately found in west Berlin late on Sunday. The police said the suspect was shot dead at the scene after he refused to surrender and lunged at the officers with a knife.

US President Donald Trump has denied that the American military is struggling with dwindling munitions as it continues its war with Iran. The remarks come as a rare pause in the fighting entered a third day, following reports that low interceptor stocks were forcing the White House’s hand in the conflict.

On Sunday, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump had held off on a major new attack on Iran over concerns that the Pentagon is running low on air defense missiles.

In a statement to the WSJ, Trump pushed back on the claim, saying, “We have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need.” He did not provide further details.

According to the WSJ, a planned two-week campaign of intensified attacks on Iran was shelved to give diplomacy some space, and Trump may ultimately order the resumption of strikes. The paper reported that Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine had informed the White House of the declining inventories, and that while Caine believes the low stocks would not preclude a resumption of major combat operations, they would add to the risk.

One senior official was cited as saying continued strikes were having the opposite of their intended effect, keeping Iran united and focused on an external threat rather than pushing it back to the negotiating table.

In addition, the WSJ reported that the White House warned it would consider it a risk to national security if news organizations published updated government figures on how many Patriot and THAAD interceptors have actually been fired since the war began.

Independent estimates suggest why the numbers may be sensitive. A recent CSIS analysis indicates that US and allied forces expended between 1,060 and 1,430 Patriot interceptors in the war’s early phase alone, against a US production line in Camden, Arkansas that turns out roughly 600 to 620 a year. The US has also burned through hundreds of Tomahawk missiles, with the Pentagon receiving an estimated 15 new missiles a month.

Meanwhile, the Iranian Army said that it had suspended its strikes on US military assets across the region, explaining that Tehran’s strategy in the conflict “has been entirely retaliatory.”

Sweden is establishing a new civilian intelligence agency to improve its monitoring of Russia’s political leadership, former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt has told The Economist.

First announced in May and modeled on Britain’s MI6, Sweden’s Foreign Intelligence Service (UND) is due to begin operations in January.

In an article published on Sunday, The Economist described UND as Bildt’s brainchild, saying the veteran politician concluded that the country’s existing military intelligence apparatus was ill-equipped to analyze the Russian leadership. In 2022, Stockholm assumed Russia would not send troops into Ukraine and now wants to ensure it “never repeats that embarrassing blunder,” the magazine said.

While the intelligence system was “very good at tracking the military developments on the ground,” it was “not as good at looking at the politics of Russia and where they were heading,” Bildt said.

Bildt, who served as foreign minister from 2006 to 2014, was a leading advocate of Ukraine’s closer integration with the EU and co-launched the bloc’s Eastern Partnership initiative together with Poland in 2009.

Weeks of unrest and clashes with police culminated in a Western-backed coup that toppled democratically elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich in February 2014.

Crimea, a predominantly Russian-speaking region, rejected the coup and voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia in 2014. The Donbass regions of Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence within the following months.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly described the 2014 coup as the starting point of the current conflict. He has argued that Russia was compelled to defend the people of Donbass after Ukraine failed to implement the 2014-2015 Minsk agreements and adopted what he described as discriminatory language and cultural policies targeting Russian speakers.

The top US commander in the Middle East, Admiral Brad Cooper, has advised US President Donald Trump that striking Iranian targets around the Strait of Hormuz was no longer effective, Axios reported on Sunday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Cooper, who leads US Central Command (CENTCOM), reportedly told Trump that the designated bombing targets in the area had largely been exhausted. He added that there was no point in continuing the strikes unless the US returned to major combat operations, according to Axios.

Trump paused the strikes on Friday, abruptly ending a 13-day bombing campaign amid reports that regional mediators were rushing to broker a new ceasefire. Several American news outlets reported that Trump was also concerned about dwindling stocks of interceptors used to counter Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attacks on bases across the Middle East. Trump, however, denied that the US was running short of ammunition.

On June 26, Iran warned that transit through the Strait of Hormuz would be permitted only via routes designated by Tehran.
Local media reported on Sunday that an oil tanker exploded in the Strait of Hormuz after striking a naval mine when it deviated from the designated navigation lane. Iranian authorities did not immediately comment on the reported incident.

Both sides have signaled that the truce, first reached in April and later expanded through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed on June 17, is effectively over.

The latest round of hostilities erupted over differing interpretations of the MoU, which was intended to provide more time for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran insists it has the right to control all traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and has labeled routes designated by the US Navy as illegal.

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Brazil are a strategic mistake that will harm the American economy, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has written in an op-ed for the Washington Post.

Last week, the US imposed an additional 12.5% tariff on Brazilian products on top of the previous 25%, potentially raising duties on some goods to 37.5%. According to Global Trade Alert, Brazil and Türkiye now share second place in terms of the scale of the tariffs Washington applies to them, behind China.

In an op-ed published on Sunday, Lula said he was “taken aback” by Trump’s initial announcement of 50% tariffs last year, which he described as politically motivated.

Highlighting the US trade surplus with Brazil, Lula argued that the tariffs would hurt American industries which are dependent on Brazilian imports, and make products including food, footwear, textiles, furniture, and auto parts more expensive for US consumers.

“Besides being unfair, the new tariffs are a strategic mistake: They will harm the US economy and the US partnership with Brazil,” Lula wrote.

“Latin America and the Caribbean need neither aircraft carriers patrolling their waters nor punitive tariffs,” Lula wrote.

On Saturday, Brazil denied visas to two US State Department officials who had planned to visit the country and reportedly discuss its voting system ahead of the presidential election in October.

“Brazil’s destiny is for Brazilians alone to determine – without foreign interference or subservience,” Lula said.

In the October election, Lula is expected to face Senator Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. The elder Bolsonaro, a close ally of Trump, was sentenced to 27 years in prison last year for plotting a coup after losing his 2022 re-election bid. He has denied the charges as politically motivated.

Trump has repeatedly demanded that Brazil drop the legal proceedings against Bolsonaro, describing them as a “witch hunt.”

Iran has claimed that Ukraine attacked one of its commercial vessels in the Caspian Sea at Israel’s behest over the weekend.

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky stated earlier that the vessel struck on Saturday was transporting military cargo. Iran, which has denied involvement in the fighting between Russia and Ukraine, said the attack killed one sailor.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated his country’s position during separate calls with the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

“Zelensky has attacked an Iranian commercial vessel, killing a sailor. A blatant UN Charter violation done at Israel’s behest to drag Europe into its war,” Araghchi wrote on X on Sunday.

“In calls with EU High Rep Kallas and FM Lavrov, [I] made clear that what the freeloader in Kiev did CANNOT GO UNANSWERED,” he added.

Speaking to Israel’s N12 television channel, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevgeny Korniychuk claimed that the Iranian ship was carrying components for drones and missiles. Tehran, however, insisted that the cargo was entirely civilian.

Iran confirmed in 2022 that it had delivered a “small number” of Shahed-136 kamikaze drones to Russia months before the Ukraine conflict began in February of that year. Moscow has maintained that all Geran-2 drones, believed to be based on the Shahed-136 design, are produced domestically.

In recent statements and interviews with the American press, Zelensky said he was “100 percent sure” that Russia had helped Iran during its conflict with the US and Israel. Russian President Vladimir Putin has denied that Moscow supplied Tehran with weapons. US President Donald Trump also said recently that he did not believe either Russia or China had provided Iran with military assistance.

The US and Saudi Arabia have signed a cooperation agreement on the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, which creates a legal basis for the participation of American companies in the development of the Saudi nuclear program. The document, known as a Section 123 Agreement, was signed by US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Saudi Arabian Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman. The parties also signed an accompanying bilateral safeguards agreement, ensuring that the transferred technologies and materials will be used exclusively for peaceful purposes.

Although the agreement has been signed, it is not yet in full effect and must undergo the congressional review process under US law. Such documents are subject to approximately 90-day congressional deliberations, during which legislators can attempt to block the agreement. Therefore, this agreement is considered signed but not yet fully implemented.

Negotiations on the main provisions were completed in the fall of 2025. On November 18, 2025, the US Department of Energy officially announced the signing of a joint declaration, formalizing the completion of negotiations on civil nuclear cooperation. At the time, Washington had already declared its intention to transfer American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia while simultaneously establishing a special bilateral safeguards mechanism.

The Section 123 Agreement does not automatically guarantee Saudi Arabia access to nuclear materials, uranium enrichment facilities, or a full range of sensitive technologies. Such agreements constitute the legal basis, as provided for by Section 123 of the US Atomic Energy Act, without which American companies cannot supply nuclear equipment, components, and materials. Specific projects and export operations will require separate licenses and approvals from US regulatory authorities.

This aspect distinguishes the agreement with Saudi Arabia from the so-called ‘gold standard’ implemented in the US agreement with the United Arab Emirates. In 2009, Abu Dhabi voluntarily renounced domestic uranium enrichment and spent nuclear fuel reprocessing. However, this was not a mandatory element of all US Section 123 agreements, but rather a stringent political standard promoted in states with new nuclear programs. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia’s refusal to accept similar restrictions demonstrates a significant shift in the US approach to nuclear nonproliferation.

Equally concerning is the absence of a requirement for the Kingdom to accede to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Additional Protocol. The Additional Protocol expands the IAEA’s ability to verify not only declared nuclear materials and facilities, but also potentially undeclared activities. It provides IAEA with additional access, reporting, and verification tools necessary to uncover hidden elements of the nuclear program.

We may recall the position of Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, expressed in an interview with CBS’ ‘60 Minutes’ in March 2018. He said that Riyadh is not seeking to acquire a nuclear bomb, but if Iran develops nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will follow suit “as soon as possible.” Therefore, Riyadh has effectively tied its potential decision regarding the military nuclear program to a change in Iran’s nuclear status. This position demonstrates that the Saudi nuclear program is necessary not only for energy production but also as a possible security guarantee in the event of a changing regional situation. Riyadh may not have the immediate goal of developing nuclear weapons, but it is striving to develop scientific, technical, and industrial potential that will provide additional security guarantees in the event of a radical deterioration of the situation in the region.

For its part, the US is guided by more than just security considerations. It is no secret that the American nuclear industry competes for the Saudi market primarily with Russia, as well as with China and other suppliers. The absence of a Section 123 Agreement would effectively exclude American companies from competing for multi-billion dollar contracts. Washington also fears that overly stringent conditions will push Riyadh toward cooperation with Moscow or Beijing, where national fuel cycle requirements can be discussed in a more flexible and mutually acceptable format. Therefore, the Trump administration is attempting to simultaneously support the national nuclear industry and prevent Saudi Arabia from drawing closer to US competitors. 

Saudi Arabia will face significant political and economic costs if it seeks to develop its own nuclear weapons. Abandonment of the non-proliferation regime or the discovery of a secret military nuclear program could lead to sanctions, strained relations with the US and Europe, reduced foreign investments, and problems with Saudi Vision 2030 projects. For the Saudi leadership, which strives to transform the country into a global investment, financial, and technology hub, such consequences could be extremely painful.

Furthermore, the emergence of a Saudi nuclear arsenal could trigger a chain reaction in the Middle East. Türkiye, Egypt, and other nations in the region could begin to consider their own military-nuclear or nuclear threshold capabilities. As a result, nuclear weapons will not necessarily enhance Saudi Arabia’s security: they could make the region more unstable, increase the likelihood of preemptive action, and reduce the predictability of key players. 

Therefore, Saudi Arabia is theoretically capable of eventually acquiring nuclear weapons, especially if a national uranium enrichment infrastructure is formed and the regional balance of power shifts dramatically. However, an agreement with the US does not yet guarantee this and does not provide the country with ready-made military nuclear capabilities. The main risk lies in the fact that Washington dropped the demand for a complete ban on enrichment and the mandatory IAEA Additional Protocol; this reduces the technological gap between the civilian nuclear program and a potential military program. 

For international security, the critical question is not so much whether Saudi Arabia intends to develop nuclear weapons today, but rather what technological potential it can accumulate over the next decade and how this process will be monitored by international institutions. This raises an obvious parallel with Iran. For many years, Tehran has maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, the US, Israel, and several Western countries suspected that uranium enrichment could eventually bring Iran closer to developing nuclear weapons. Iran’s  potential transition from civilian to military technologies became the basis for sanctions, pressure, and military deterrence.

Now, Saudi Arabia may follow a similar path of technological development. This does not mean that Riyadh has already decided to build a nuclear bomb. However, permission for domestic uranium enrichment creates the same risk: the creation of infrastructure that, under certain political circumstances, could be repurposed for military use. The main difference is that the Saudi program will be developed with direct US support and overseen by Washington. This raises the question of double standards: why is Iran’s possession of sensitive nuclear technology considered an unacceptable threat, while similar capabilities possessed by a US ally, Saudi Arabia, are potentially acceptable?

Even a possible normalization of relations is unlikely to automatically remove Israel’s concerns. Israel traditionally strives to maintain its strategic superiority and is firmly opposed to other states in the region developing their own uranium enrichment capabilities. The new agreement has already drawn criticism from Israel, which notes that the Saudi program could trigger a regional nuclear technology race. Therefore, it is difficult to imagine that Israel would agree to Saudi Arabia acquiring a full nuclear fuel cycle without additional strict guarantees, even if it is officially intended exclusively for peaceful purposes. 

While the US-Saudi agreement doesn’t make Riyadh’s acquisition of nuclear weapons inevitable, it does set a highly controversial precedent. Washington is allowing its partner to develop the very same technologies that, in the case of Iran, it has long viewed as a potential path to creating a nuclear bomb. This could both weaken the non-proliferation regime and increase mutual distrust in the Middle East, where each state will seek to obtain the capabilities afforded to its neighbors and rivals.

Iran has urged countries worldwide against aiding the US in the war against the country, warning that any support for the aggression will make them legitimate targets for retaliation.

The US and Iran have been trading tit-for-tat strikes for the past two weeks following the collapse of a tentative ceasefire earlier this month.
The Pentagon has been largely focused on targets across southern and central Iran, while Tehran has attacked US military installations across the region. The renewed hostilities have disrupted maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and a number of merchant ships have been struck.

Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), warned nations worldwide against supporting the US aggression.

“Any country – whether Britain, the Persian Gulf states, or others – if they support the US in the war, they will become our legitimate targets,” Mohebbi said on Saturday. “Recently, US B-1 bombers used airbases in Britain. If they cooperate, they will become definite and legitimate targets for us.”

The UK became one of the key hubs for the US-Israeli war against Iran earlier this year, serving as the staging point for US strategic strikes. However, London refused to grant access to the bases ahead of the initial attack, further fueling tensions between then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer and US President Donald Trump, who bemoaned what he considered to be insufficient support from a close ally.

“Over the past years, we have tolerated any breach by European governments. We warn these governments, especially the new government of the United Kingdom… and the government of Ukraine, not to make themselves pawns of the United States and to refrain from engaging in adventures that do not concern them,” Nikzad said at a parliamentary session on Sunday.

The mention of Ukraine follows an incident that occurred earlier this weekend, when Kiev attacked an Iranian merchant ship in the Caspian Sea, killing one person and injuring another. Kiev acknowledged the attack, claiming it targeted “vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran” in the waterway.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, saying it “risks further fueling and expanding the flames of war” and warning of potential retaliation for the “reckless” attack.

The Pentagon is contemplating what could become “the most sophisticated operation in military history”  to seize Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium, the New York Post reported on Saturday, citing sources.

A source familiar with the matter told the outlet that the plan would send thousands of ground troops to storm heavily fortified nuclear sites, with a small team of elite commandos tasked with the actual retrieval.

The exact whereabouts of Iran’s enriched uranium – which could be key to creating nuclear weapons – are unclear. Tehran has four major nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz, Isfahan, and Pickaxe Mountain, with the former three coming under US-Israeli strikes last year. Out of an estimated 440kg of enriched uranium, roughly 200 kilograms are believed to be stored in deep tunnels outside Isfahan, with additional quantities thought to be at Natanz.

As for Pickaxe Mountain, a heavily fortified complex carved deep in the granite bedrock, it was spared in last year’s strikes because it was still under construction and largely empty at the time.

However, the facility has since been reportedly reinforced, with the US and Israel suggesting that Iran may have moved centrifuges – and potentially uranium – deeper underground there, though the site is not believed to be fully operational yet.

According to the NYP, regular US troops would be tasked with storming the facilities and forming a defense perimeter. In the meantime, much smaller forces, including Seal Team 6’s Silver Squadron, the Army’s 2nd Ranger Battalion, and the 21st Ordnance Company, would be handling and transporting the material once it is pulled from the mostly destroyed Fordo plant and the badly damaged Isfahan site, the report said.

The operation would reportedly require ground crews to clear booby traps and reopen collapsed tunnel entrances, with US warplanes tasked with establishing total control of an air corridor to fly out the uranium.

“I hate to say it, but I think the most likely way to get rid of Iran’s nuclear material, at least what they currently have, is a military operation because the negotiations aren’t going anywhere fast”, Joseph Rodgers, deputy director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the NYP. He called the prospective raid potentially “the most sophisticated operation in military history,” pointing to the logistics of operating deep inside hostile territory while guarding multiple sensitive sites.

“This would be a logistically heavy and difficult operation in a contested environment,” Rodgers added. “Iran’s military is pretty destroyed, but they’re still more sophisticated than the Cubans that were guarding [Venezuelan leader Nicolas] Maduro.”

The New York Times reported last month that much of Iran’s uranium is believed buried so deep that even America’s most powerful bunker-buster bombs may fail to destroy it, warning that a retrieval raid would carry major risks as uranium can turn highly toxic if exposed to moisture.

Typhoon Hongxia, internationally known as Noul, made landfall in southern China’s Guangdong Province early Sunday, triggering mass evacuations, widespread transportation disruptions, and torrential rain across southern China and Hong Kong.

The year’s 12th tropical cyclone – the strongest to hit China this year – came ashore near Pinghai Town in Huidong County, Huizhou City, at around 3:50 AM local time (19:50 GMT Saturday), with maximum sustained winds of 162 kph (100 mph), according to China’s National Meteorological Center. It was the first typhoon to make landfall in Guangdong this year.

More than 715,000 people were evacuated across the province ahead of the storm amid fears of flooding and landslides. The authorities suspended classes, work, production, transportation, and business activities in 12 cities.

The typhoon caused disruptions across the region. More than 190 high-speed rail services in Guangdong were canceled; regular train services were suspended.

An iron sheet shed was blown over by Typhoon Hongxia. pic.twitter.com/W1dhXNluJs

— boniy fu (@boniy520) July 26, 2026

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge temporarily halted operations, and airports across Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Xiamen were heavily affected. More than 1,800 flights across Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong were grounded.

Terrifying Typhoon Noul moment caught on camera in Guangdong on July 25: the door was blown open, a baby crib was swept away—until it flipped mid-roll, and the child managed to crawl back inside. pic.twitter.com/xNJ1lkIRZ1

— Shanghai Daily (@shanghaidaily) July 26, 2026

Shenzhen also suspended rail services and partially closed metro lines, ports, and expressways before gradually restoring operations as conditions improved.

Les autorités de la province chinoise du Guangdong ont évacué plus de 710 000 personnes avant le passage du typhon Noul, appelé « Hongxia » en Chine. pic.twitter.com/ucmqMpRg4s

— Renard Jean-Michel (@Renardpaty) July 26, 2026

Hong Kong’s Observatory initially raised the storm warning to Typhoon Signal No. 9, the second-highest tropical cyclone warning in the city’s system, as Noul passed within 80 km of the city before downgrading the alert later in the day.

Typhoon “Hongxia” caused enormous damage to Guangdong Province, Huizhou, and Shenzhen. #typhoon pic.twitter.com/Hjk7iUdW1i

— Johnson He (@Szmyled) July 26, 2026

At least 21 people were injured, according to local media. Strong winds brought down scaffolding at a high-rise construction site in the Cheung Sha Wan district.

🌪️ Typhoon Hongxia slams southern China, forcing more than 800,000 people to evacuate

The storm made landfall in Guangdong Province on the morning of July 26, packing winds of up to 45 m/s (101 mph). Authorities closed schools, suspended parts of the public transport network,… pic.twitter.com/WRzwGkynGi

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) July 26, 2026

Videos posted online show uprooted trees, roofs ripped from buildings, flooded streets, and gale-force winds hurling debris, dumpsters, and vehicles through roads in Hong Kong and neighboring Shenzhen.

Un potente tifón arrasa todo a su paso por China

El potente tifón Noul ha traído fuertes lluvias y vientos a su paso por China. Alerta naranja por tifón el domingo por la mañana, después de que Noul tocara tierra en la provincia de Guangdong.

Al menos 21 personas heridas. pic.twitter.com/1UHH5pDc2R

— RT en Español (@ActualidadRT) July 26, 2026

Although Noul weakened rapidly after moving inland, forecasters warned that heavy to torrential rain would continue through Tuesday across southern China.

Typhoon Noul, the first typhoon to make landfall in Guangdong this year, landed with 45m/s winds. Its circulation battered Shenzhen, triggering red/orange typhoon alerts, torrential rain and gusts up to 45.7m/s. All railways are suspended until noon; partial metro, cross-border… pic.twitter.com/CQ3UJsmNAp

— Shenzhen Pages (@ShenzhenPages) July 26, 2026

The highest-level flash flood alert was issued for parts of Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, and Hunan provinces.

Shenzhen is taking a direct hit today as Severe Typhoon Hongxia lashes the city with powerful winds and heavy rain pic.twitter.com/1QRqTeycf7

— Surajit (@surajit_ghosh2) July 25, 2026

Beijing has activated a national emergency response for Guangdong following the typhoon’s landfall. A working team was dispatched to assess the damage, assist the local authorities with evacuations and resettlement, and help ensure displaced residents have access to basic necessities.

A Russian-US space crew returned safely to Earth on Sunday after spending more than eight months aboard the International Space Station (ISS).

Russian cosmonauts Sergey Kud-Sverchkov and Sergey Mikaev and NASA astronaut Christopher Williams landed in Kazakhstan aboard the Soyuz MS-28 spacecraft, which touched down under parachutes southeast of the town of Zhezkazgan.

The crew undocked from the ISS earlier in the day after transferring to the Soyuz spacecraft for the return journey.

“This morning, the spacecraft undocked from the Rassvet module. Its deorbiting and descent to Earth proceeded normally!” Russia’s Rosatom State Corporation said in a statement.

Following routine post-landing medical checks, recovery teams will fly the crew by helicopter to Karaganda, Kazakhstan, NASA said.

Kud-Sverchkov, Mikaev, and Williams had been aboard the ISS since November. Their 241-day mission was the first spaceflight for Williams and Mikaev, and the second for Kud-Sverchkov.

After landing, the crew was greeted with traditional Russian nesting dolls bearing hand-painted likenesses of each astronaut and cosmonaut, a longstanding post-mission tradition.

Ahead of the crew’s departure, their ISS crewmate Jessica Meir shared farewell photos of the team on X, calling it “A bittersweet day on the Space Station.”

A bittersweet day on the @Space_Station, as we prepare to say goodbye to the Soyuz 74S crew. Expedition 74 has been full of science, technology demonstrations and station maintenance, and most importantly, enduring friendship and “huggles”. See you back on Earth my friends! pic.twitter.com/B84kuzNq16

— Jessica Meir (@Astro_Jessica) July 25, 2026

Seven crew members remain on the ISS. Sunday’s departure of the Soyuz MS-28 trio officially begins the station’s Expedition 75 mission.

Iran has formally accused the US of deliberately striking two of its search-and-rescue vessels in the Persian Gulf, calling the attack a war crime. The accusation comes as the US maintains a blockade of Iranian ports and continues to attack the Iranian Navy.

The charges were made public in the letter on Friday, sent by Gholamhossein Darzi, Iran’s deputy envoy to the UN, to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the UN Security Council president, International Maritime Organization chief Arsenio Dominguez, and the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Darzi said the Naji-15 and Naji-16 were struck in the early hours of Thursday off the coast of Hormozgan Province while they were engaged “exclusively” in search-and-rescue duties, sustaining significant damage. The diplomat did not mention any casualties.

He added that their “sole mission is to save the lives of persons in distress at sea” regardless of their affiliation, stressing that targeting rescue vessels “amounts to a war crime.” Darzi went on to say that Iranian rescue boats and marine ambulances have been repeatedly targeted since the US-Israeli operation against Iran began on February 28.

US officials have not responded to the accusation, although US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces have been attacking Iranian “maritime capabilities, missile and drone storage facilities” and coastal targets to degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian and commercial vessels.

Tehran’s accusation comes amid an escalating standoff over the Strait of Hormuz, with the US maintaining the blockade of Iranian ports. Iran has said vessels can pass through the strait if they abide by its regulations.

On Saturday, Axios reported that US President Donald Trump suspended strikes on Iran after nearly two weeks of nightly bombing to give more space for diplomacy. A New York Times report, however, suggested that the halt was caused by concerns that the Pentagon is running low on air defense missiles.

Germany is rapidly losing industrial jobs and competitiveness, Federation of German Industries (BDI) chief Tanja Goenner has warned, describing the situation as “critical.”

The BDI, Germany’s main industry association, represents around 39 industrial groups and more than 100,000 companies employing over 8 million people, making it the voice of Germany’s industrial core.

In an interview with the news agency dpa released on Saturday, Goenner said Germany’s industrial sector is losing around 15,000 jobs every month, blaming structural weaknesses and external geopolitical pressures.

“The situation in industry is critical,” she said, adding that “Germany has lost ground in terms of competitiveness” as a business and manufacturing hub.

She said further deindustrialization could still be avoided by investing in new technologies such as AI but stressed that political decisions in Germany and across Europe should be judged by a single standard: “Does it contribute to competitiveness?”

The BDI estimates are broadly in line with the latest figures from Germany’s Federal Employment Agency, which show 177,000 manufacturing jobs were lost over the past 12 months, led by declines in the automotive, machinery, and metal sectors. Around two-thirds of applications for short-term work benefits also come from industry, indicating many manufacturers cannot keep workers fully employed without state support.

Volkswagen, the country’s largest automaker, recently signaled up to 100,000 job cuts worldwide. Auto supplier ZF plans to eliminate 14,000 positions by 2028, while Bosch intends to cut more than 20,000 jobs by 2030. Consulting firm Horvath estimates another 100,000 industrial jobs could disappear this year, with cuts expected across automotive manufacturing, mechanical engineering, and construction.

German energy woes

Once Europe’s industrial powerhouse, Germany has struggled with near-zero growth for years. The economy contracted in both 2023 and 2024, its first back-to-back annual decline in more than two decades, and is forecast to grow by just 0.5% this year. Corporate investment remains weak, while business insolvencies reached their highest level in 20 years in the second quarter of 2026. BASF, Bosch, Volkswagen, and more than a dozen other German manufacturers have closed factories since 2022.

The US war on Iran and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which have rattled already volatile global energy markets this year, have further worsened the situation. Earlier this week, Berliner Zeitung estimated Germany is now paying five times more for imported gas than before abandoning its long-term Russian supply contracts.

US President Donald Trump has held off on a major attack on Iran over concerns that the Pentagon is running low on air-defense missiles, the New York Times reports, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The two sides have exchanged strikes for nearly two weeks since a fragile ceasefire reached in spring collapsed, accusing each other of violating a 14-point memorandum of understanding signed on June 17.

On Thursday, Trump threatened Iran and the Houthis with “major military punishment” after the Yemen-based group struck two Saudi oil tankers, telling Axios he was considering a “massive attack” against Iran that would be “bigger than ever before.”

According to the article published on Saturday, the decision followed a meeting with senior advisers and cabinet officials a day earlier that reportedly focused on the Pentagon’s shrinking inventory of Patriot interceptors and other air defenses. Two people briefed on the discussion told the outlet that officials also feared a wider regional war, alienating Gulf allies vulnerable to Iranian retaliation, a global economic downturn, and growing energy and refugee crises.

“Few if any in Mr. Trump’s inner circle believed the plan to escalate was wise,” the NYT wrote, citing two people briefed on the discussion. One senior US official argued that further strikes were keeping Iran cohesive and focused on an external threat rather than forcing negotiations.

An analysis in April by the Center for Strategic and International Studies estimated that the initial campaign consumed at least 45% of America’s Precision Strike Missiles, nearly half of its Patriot interceptors, more than half of its THAAD missiles, and around 30% of its Tomahawk cruise missiles.

Earlier this week, the NYT and Wall Street Journal cited US officials as saying that Iranian missiles are becoming increasingly effective at penetrating US defenses because of their speed and maneuverability, as well as Iran’s evolving tactics.

Last Friday, three US soldiers were killed in Jordan when a ballistic missile penetrated US air defenses. A fourth soldier died in Iraq while ordnance from a downed Iranian drone was being destroyed.

The IRGC has also claimed that Iranian strikes disabled US radar, communications, and air-defense systems in Kuwait, including a Patriot battery, and damaged several MQ-9 drones. Neither Washington nor Kuwait has confirmed the claims.

No US strikes were reported overnight into Saturday, marking the first pause after 13 consecutive nights of attacks.

Is France becoming a new Mexico? While gangland killings are increasingly common across the country – even in places such as Nantes, which was considered the most pleasant French city in 2012 – attacks targeting elected officials are not usual.

During the night of July 20-21, the mayor of Ales in the south of France, Christophe Rivenq, was exfiltrated from his home by the elite RAID tactical unit (Recherche, Assistance, Intervention, Dissuasion) and put under protection. According to Le Parisien, there was probably a car bomb next to his house. A few days before, Rivenq said his wife found tags on the fence and a letter in the mailbox with two 9 mm bullets and the signature of the DZ Mafia.

The DZ Mafia is a network of organized criminal groups forming a kind of cartel. It first became famous under this designation in 2023, but everything started long ago in the northern districts of Marseille before expanding – so far, we know that it is active in France, Belgium, Morocco, and Italy. They are accused of murder, assassination, drug trafficking, extortion, money laundering, procuring, and kidnapping.

The name ‘DZ Mafia’ refers to the alpha-2 code for Algeria (DZ). The origins of the organization’s founding members and historical sections chiefs couldn’t be clearer. But the group headed by Mehdi Abdelatif Laribi has rivals. Apart from the traditional gangs of gypsies, they fight with ‘the Yodas’, founded by Felix Bingui (half French, half Central African), and ‘the Blacks’, founded by two brothers from the Comoros. While it’s impossible to know if they were all born in France and are second or third-generation immigrants or if some arrived there later, they all started their business in the notorious gateway into France that is Marseille.

The French connection really had a makeover. And with Europe importing migrants endlessly, the face and size of the mafia in France will keep mutating.

But Rivenq is only a mayor. What can a local politician can do if this gang is able to corrupt the authorities and high-ranking politicians rumored to be drug users? According to FranceInfo: “While the fight against drug trafficking has been declared a national priority by the government, several testimonies corroborate the fact that some members of parliament and staff use narcotics, particularly to cope with workload and pressure.” Coming from state media, that sounds like a euphemism.

The French government does not do much against these gangs – and even if it really wanted to, would it be able to act? The police can’t enter many neighborhoods where gangsters are in charge, who even ‘take care’ of the poor population (for example, providing school supplies to families) in order to prevent outside meddling in their business.

The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) has dismissed its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, over allegations of sexual misconduct.

The chief prosecutor was ousted by the Assembly of States Parties on Friday, more than two years after the allegations first surfaced. The move was backed by an overwhelming majority of the court’s 125 members, with 82 voting in favor of Khan’s removal, 18 voting against, and 15 abstaining.

The ICC issued a brief statement on the assembly’s decision, saying the now-former chief prosecutor “committed serious misconduct and serious breach of duty.” The court did not provide further details, citing the need to respect “the privacy and rights of all those involved in this process.”

Khan’s legal team condemned his removal, criticizing the process and the fact that he was not allowed to address the assembly ahead of the vote. The decision was “determined by a process in which he was never given a fair opportunity to be heard and in defiance of the conclusions of the independent judges who examined the full evidential record,” attorney Tayab Ali said in a statement, pledging to challenge it “through all available legal mechanisms.”

The accusations first emerged in early 2024, when AP reported that Khan was accused of coercing a female aide into a sexual relationship. Khan has denied any wrongdoing and has not faced criminal charges. He remained on administrative leave from May 2025 until June 8 this year, when he was formally suspended pending dismissal.

During Khan’s tenure, the ICC issued arrest warrants for the leaders of Russia and Israel, although neither country recognizes the court’s jurisdiction. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova were targeted in March 2023 over the alleged “unlawful transfer” of Ukrainian children. Moscow has rejected the allegations, saying it evacuated unaccompanied children from the war zone and is ready to return them to their legal guardians upon request.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant similarly denounced the arrest warrants issued over alleged war crimes in Gaza.

Last year, US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on Khan, citing the warrants against Israeli officials and the ICC’s attempts to prosecute US troops.

The majority of Germans do not believe their armed forces are capable of protecting the country, a recent YouGov survey has found.

According to the International Flagship Survey published on Friday, 70% of respondents in Germany said they are not confident their armed forces are strong enough to fend off an attack. YouGov surveyed 2,079 adults across Germany from June 17 to July 1.

Although 40% of respondents say Germany spends too little on defense, 77% oppose higher taxes to fund defense spending, while 62% reject cuts to public services and 59% oppose increased government borrowing.

Germany recorded the lowest level of confidence among the seven countries included in the poll. Around 57% of respondents in Poland, 53% in both Britain and Australia, and 48% in Canada also doubted their armed forces’ ability to protect the country. By comparison, 52% of French respondents and 77% of Americans expressed confidence in their militaries.

Germany has adopted a plan to increase defense spending, expand active-duty military from around 183,000 personnel to 260,000, and grow the reserve force to 200,000, citing the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The government reintroduced a military registration and monitoring system in January, sparking debate and protests. Deutsche Welle also reported a sharp rise in the number of young people opting out of military service as conscientious objectors.

The German economy is reeling from the cost-of-living crisis and high energy prices, exacerbated by the phaseout of Russian energy and the ongoing war in the Middle East.

Moscow has condemned what it calls the “militarization” of Germany and other European countries. President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will not attack a NATO member unless it is attacked first.

A van plowed into a crowd during a gay pride parade in Berlin on Saturday night, killing one person and injuring at least 29 others. The attack prompted a massive manhunt for the suspect, who ended up shot dead by police on Sunday.

The incident took place on Christopher Street Day, the German capital’s annual pride event, on Lennestrasse near the Tiergarten park in central Berlin.

Police spokesman Florian Nath said the suspect has been identified and remains at large. “According to the information available so far, he is a man known to the police and believed to be associated with the Islamist extremist milieu.”

Police later released a photograph of the suspect, identifying him as 21-year-old Abdul B., who was wearing a black hoodie and white pants. 

Police said the driver fled the scene after the vehicle hit a tree and that helicopters were deployed in the search. According to the Berliner Morgenpost, witnesses said the suspect was driving a white minivan, possibly a Citroen. Police later confirmed that the vehicle was a passenger van. The suspect was found in West Berlin late on Sunday and fatally wounded after lunging at officers with a knife, the city’s police have said in a statement.

Organizers canceled the parade, which was set to resume on Sunday.

‼️ [ 🇩🇪 ALLEMAGNE ]

🔸 De « nombreuses victimes » signalées après qu'un véhicule a foncé dans la foule lors de la gay pride à Berlin. pic.twitter.com/DgMjXykAGP

— Little Think Tank (@L_ThinkTank) July 25, 2026

Police spokesman Florian Nath said investigators were examining whether the suspect attacked bystanders after leaving the vehicle, following witness reports that people were lying on the ground with stab wounds.

“This is an attack on our free and open society,” Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner wrote on X. “After a peaceful and colorful pride parade, a gathering celebrating a tolerant and open Berlin was attacked in the most brutal way.”

Germany has seen several vehicle attacks in recent years. The deadliest incident took place in 2016, when an Islamist and failed asylum seeker drove a truck through a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring more than 50.

Iran has condemned a Ukrainian strike on a cargo ship in the Caspian Sea that killed one sailor and injured another. The Foreign Ministry summoned Ukraine’s acting chargé d’affaires over the attack.

In a post on X on Saturday, Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky boasted about what he called “very strong results” from long-range strikes targeting “vessels used in military cargo shipments involving Iran, as well as a warship.”

The Iranian Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, saying it “risks further fueling and expanding the flames of war.” It urged other nations to take a “responsible stance toward this reckless action by the Ukrainian regime” and hold its leadership accountable.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will not hesitate to protect its national interests and security,” the ministry warned.

The ministry also said that “Iran has never intervened in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian confirmed in 2022 that Tehran had delivered a “small number” of Shahed-136 kamikaze drones to Russia months before the Ukraine conflict began in February that year. Moscow has insisted that all Geran-2 drones, believed to be based on the Shahed-136 design, are produced domestically.

The US has developed its own version of the Iranian Shahed-136, the LUCAS, which it used during the war with Iran.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said last month that Iran had not requested military aid and that Moscow was not supplying it with weapons. US President Donald Trump also said recently that he did not believe either Russia or China were providing military assistance to Iran.

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

According to Zelensky, more than 200 Ukrainian military specialists have been deployed to the Middle East under the agreements. The group reportedly suffered casualties and equipment losses when an Iranian strike hit a depot in Dubai during the first wave of hostilities in the region. Kiev has denied the incident took place.

What is it with British ‘knights of the realm’ that they seem to be forever mired in corruption, scandal, and disgrace? Former Olympian Sebastian Coe can never avoid all three of those ‘specialities’, yet like his fellow Lords, Ladies, Sirs, and Dames, he appears to think that sitting high upon that horse means that he can dole out moral judgment or collective punishment. And Russia is still in his sights.

Who is Seb?

A double Olympic champ over 1,500 m in 1980 and 1984, Coe came through the ‘unusual’ training system of Loughborough University’s George Gandy. Gandy was ‘modernizing’ strength and conditioning for the university rugby team and notorious for his adherence to advances from the US, which reportedly included substances that would subsequently be outlawed.

Coe went on to translate track success to business and political wins, including nabbing a parliamentary seat for Britain’s Conservatives in 1992. He was appointed, or anointed, a Life Peer in 2000 and became Lord Coe. Yet, whether on the track or off, scandal seemed to follow the London-born man.

He returned to global prominence when the Olympic Games were returning to the British capital. The head of the London 2012 Bid Committee and then the London Organizing Committee, he outraged many with his backroom dealing and ability to walk in grey areas to get the games to London. These grey areas included bribes.

I think you see where this is going. Seb is about as clean as a piglet that’s been rolling about in a pigsty that hasn’t been cleaned in a decade. And that’s before addressing his predecessor at the apex of athletics, Lamine Diack. In January 2022, the late-Diack’s son Papa joined us on Capital Sports to explain how Lord Coe was not unaware of corruption in athletics, had been an active participant in corruption, and was willing to sell out others while staying ‘clean’. This while using the Diacks to get him elected to the top job.

So now, we finally get to what Seb’s latest scandal involves, and you will be unsurprised to learn that it is his favorite whipping boy – Russia.

Still no for Russia

When Russia was outed as having a major doping problem and banned from international athletics in November 2015, Coe was just over three months into his newly minted role of International Association of Athletics Federations and was fully aware of doping within the sport.

“There is no way, none, zero, not a chance, that Coe was oblivious to Russian doping, or doping from Brits, Irish, or anyone. He came through a doping system, raced with fellow dopers, and then he turns on the Russians. Give me a break,” a top-level British coach told me when producing a documentary for Capital Sports in 2016. At that time, it was baffling that Russia alone would be made an example of, while nothing was done within the sport to stop the scourge of doping.

“A conditional pathway back into international competition” for Russian and Belarusian athletes was discussed, Coe told the media three weeks ago, but opted against it. This from a man who told AFP in 2025 that allowing Russia back was not something he “could ever really be neutral about.” In other words, he was never going to allow Russia or Belarus back into athletics, because he had chosen a side. Because Seb never forgets.

‘Septic’ Coe

Within the sports community, Coe is widely known as ‘Septic’ and realized this when he tried to take over the IOC last year. The consummate politician and networker, he found doors slammed in his face before the election. Only one round of voting was needed to make history and have Zimbabwe swimming legend Kirsty Coventry become the first woman and African elected to the presidency.

His magnanimity, Spanish media said, was linked to a statement the Zimbabwean made regarding the IOC’s treatment of Russia and Belarus – “If conflicts in Africa don’t trigger sanctions against national teams, then Russia shouldn’t be isolated.”

Seb has not forgiven the IOC and its members for wholeheartedly rejecting him. He probably doesn’t even know why he was rejected. He will blame Russia, or Africans, or Johnny Bloody Foreigner. Because he won’t look in the mirror and realize that a history of cheating and corruption, of double-dealing and double-crossing, of betraying friends, allies, and supporters all in a quest for gold and glory builds a lot of negative karma. From the late 1970s in the Loughborough ‘factory’ to Olympic podiums, from the dank halls of Westminster to the murky heights of sports administration, Seb Coe’s world view has formed very simply. The planet revolves around him and we are lucky to inhabit it. And how to cure him of his Russophobia, as he has been accused of by Russia’s Stanislav Pozdnyakov? Simple, if Papa Diack’s experience is to be believed. A wire transfer and steak dinner.

Two British Army engineers have been arrested after allegedly stealing an armored personnel carrier from a military base and driving it through a row of civilian vehicles, causing an estimated £100,000 ($135,000) in damage, according to UK media.

Footage of the alleged joyride, first published by The Sun on Friday, shows a 15-ton Bulldog armored vehicle barreling down a narrow road lined with parked cars at Swinton Barracks, part of Tidworth Garrison in the village of Perham Down, Wiltshire. The vehicle appears to struggle to go straight and squeeze between the cars, leaving a trail of destruction. At least two vehicles were reportedly heavily damaged, including a van and an SUV.

The outlet, citing military sources, reported that the soldiers had been drinking off base before returning to the barracks early on Friday morning. One allegedly took control of the tracked vehicle while another accompanied him, as the Bulldog normally requires a crew of two.

😱 Shock Video: Tanked-Up Soldiers Go Full Fast & Furious in Stolen Armoured Beast 🪖💥​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Two allegedly drunken British Army engineers from 26 Engineer Regiment went full Fast & Furious in the early hours of this morning at… pic.twitter.com/x8YeoY8ySP

— J Stewart (@triffic_stuff_) July 24, 2026

According to the report, the Bulldog itself was undamaged and was later neatly parked in a designated bay. No injuries have been reported.

An army spokesperson later confirmed that two soldiers had been arrested following an incident at Perham Down, but declined to provide further details.

“We expect the highest standards from our personnel. Two soldiers have been arrested by the Royal Military Police following an incident at Perham Down this morning... We will not comment further while an investigation is ongoing,” the spokesperson said.

Decades of underinvestment have also left the military struggling to maintain its equipment. A shortage of specialized dry docks and qualified technicians has left the Royal Navy unable to service its nuclear submarine fleet, with all five of its Astute-class nuclear-powered attack submarines reportedly stuck in port due to a maintenance backlog. Years of retirements have also shrunk the surface fleet. Last week, the UK Ministry of Defense confirmed the retirement of two Type 23 frigates, leaving the Royal Navy with just five frigates and six destroyers, down from 33 surface combat vessels in the late 1990s.

Despite the mounting problems, Britain has continued pushing ahead with militarization as part of the broader Western buildup over what it describes as the “Russian threat” – claims Moscow has repeatedly dismissed as “nonsense.” Last year, London unveiled its new Strategic Defense Review (SDR), setting a goal of achieving “warfighting readiness” by 2035.

The new defense secretary, Wes Streeting, this week pledged to make the military a spending priority for Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government. Critics, however, argue that the current state of the armed forces shows Britain is no longer capable of acting as a global military power.

For years, liberal elites across the West dismissed warnings about far-left extremism as relics of the Cold War or right-wing paranoia. Today, the evidence is undeniable. A recent US-led global initiative has the ambition to finally confront this resurgence of political terrorism with the seriousness it demands. This is not a partisan crusade but a defense of civilization against those who would burn it down in the name of utopia.

The West in flames

Europe is bleeding from a thousand cuts inflicted by far-left networks. Railways have been repeatedly sabotaged, power grids targeted, and commercial enterprises struck, inflicting billions in cumulative losses while paralyzing supply chains and public services. Police officers have been assaulted, elected officials threatened, and communities shaken – echoing the days of the 1970s Red Brigades and Baader-Meinhof.

In Germany, far-left violence surged more than 40% in a single year. The authorities logged 321 sabotage investigations in 2025 alone, which were overwhelmingly aimed at military, police, railway, and energy targets. Climate activism has fused with anti-capitalism, class warfare, feminism, and outright hostility to European industry and traditional values. What begins as protests and occupations too often escalates to sabotage harming ordinary citizens.

The longest blackout in Berlin since World War II struck in early 2026, courtesy of the Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group). This far-left outfit, active since 2011 with at least 13 attacks under its belt, torched power cables near a gas-fired plant, plunging tens of thousands of households and businesses into darkness for days amid freezing temperatures. Hospitals switched to emergency power, trains halted, and daily life fractured. Their manifesto framed it as “resistance” against fossil fuels and capitalism, but the victims were everyday Germans.

Italy tells a similar story of escalating chaos. During the Winter Olympics, coordinated rail sabotages forced the cancellation of roughly 40,000 train services. A premature explosion later killed two anarchists preparing yet another railway assault. Official figures show a staggering 450% rise in anti-train sabotages in 2024-2025. An attack on the TAL oil pipeline left it offline for five days. In Greece, over 80% of radical violence stems from far-left actors.

These attacks are not isolated incidents but manifestations of a broader pattern of escalating political violence. In the US, violent far-left actors accounted for 63% of recorded anti-government attacks and plots in 2025. Their tactics have expanded beyond sabotage to include targeted political assassinations, including the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The threat is transnational, fluid, and growing bolder.

Behind the violence lies a web of organizations blending climate hysteria with revolutionary ideology. Groups like Antifa, operating across borders, exemplify the danger. The US has designated four violent far-left entities from Germany, Italy, and Greece as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Hungary under Viktor Orban took similar action after Antifa thugs attacked a peaceful patriotic march in Budapest, injuring participants. A 2025 European Parliament motion, backed by dozens of MEPs, called for declaring Antifa a terrorist organization and investigating its financial ties – including potential links to George Soros.

Support from certain foundations – such as those associated with Soros or Germany’s Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung – has sustained overlapping causes that blend radical left objectives with broader progressive efforts. Mainstream media and the liberal establishment obsessively spotlight far-right threats – often conflating them with patriotic or conservative voices – while downplaying or excusing far-left excesses. In parts of the EU, these networks have infiltrated state administrations and influential think tanks, embedding ideology into governance.

This funding ecosystem sustains a global far-left apparatus that exploits open borders, lenient justice systems, and elite guilt to advance its aims. Ongoing legal proceedings, such as those in Dresden involving serious charges against Antifa members, underscore the organized nature of the threat.

Trump’s America steps up

The Trump administration has unleashed a global campaign to crush this radical left terrorism. In mid-July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism in Washington, drawing representatives from over 65 countries, including participants from Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia, to address this shared challenge to governance, infrastructure security, and citizen safety.

The ministerial yielded concrete outcomes that mark a new phase of coordinated international action. Delegates forged agreement on three hard-hitting pillars of action: ramped-up designations and accountability, with the US already branding four dangerous far-left groups as terrorists and reviewing more; deeper operational teamwork through intensified intelligence sharing, coordinated travel bans, and urgent defenses for railways, power grids, and other critical lifelines; and fresh US visa restrictions slamming the door on those who engage in or bankroll far-left terror. Germany stepped forward to host the next working session, while Treasury officials vowed to tear apart funding pipelines with rewards of up to millions for tips that disrupt the money flow.

This fight against a shared ideological enemy – one hostile to traditional societies, national identities, and ordered liberty – offers common ground. Powers such as China and Russia, with their own experiences managing ideological extremism and emphasis on domestic order, might stand to benefit from – and contribute to – practical cooperation in safeguarding stability and development.

The cost of selective silence

The liberal establishment’s selective outrage is damning. While far-right actors – frequently defenders of national sovereignty and cultural continuity – face relentless scrutiny and persecution, far-left violence is often romanticized as “protest” or explained away as a reaction to “injustice.” This double standard has emboldened extremists, allowing them to infiltrate institutions and erode public safety.

The US initiative may mark a turning point, both for Western countries and beyond. By placing violent far-left networks within a broader counterterrorism framework, strengthening investigations, disrupting financial support, and expanding international cooperation, it advances the principle that no movement is exempt from accountability when it embraces violence. Other governments can contribute by improving intelligence sharing, addressing transnational networks, and ensuring that public safety remains above political considerations.

As violent far-left extremism becomes increasingly transnational, governments cannot afford selective approaches to political violence. Attacks on critical infrastructure and politically motivated violence threaten security, economic resilience, and public confidence across regions. A broad international coalition focused on confronting violent extremism can help reinforce a fundamental principle: political grievances cannot be pursued through terror.

The German government has refused to clarify whether it received warnings ahead of the Nord Stream sabotage, Ostdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (OAZ) reported on Friday, citing a written response to an opposition lawmaker.

Anna Rathert, an MP from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, asked the chancellor’s office whether it received any information from foreign intelligence agencies before the twin pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Germany via the Baltic Sea, were bombed in September 2022. She also asked why the government had not taken any precautions.

In the document, which was obtained by the outlet, the government said the issue “touches on the national interest to a particularly high degree” and could jeopardize “the trusting cooperation” between Germany and its allies. The document added that the response should be treated as “neither confirming nor denying” the matter.

In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that the CIA had warned European intelligence agencies, including Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND), about a potential attack on the Nord Stream by a pro-Ukrainian group. Der Spiegel and Cicero magazine later reported that the BND received reports from the CIA and the Dutch intelligence agency (AIVD), but the chancellery dismissed them as “tall tales.”

Germany has alleged that the sabotage was carried out by a Ukrainian team using a small rented yacht. Russia has argued, however, that such a sophisticated operation could not have been carried out without Western assistance. Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested that the US may have been involved.

The Saudi-led coalition struck targets in the Houthi-held Yemeni port of Hodeidah on Saturday following attacks on Saudi ships in the Red Sea.

The Houthis, an Iranian-backed Shiite group that controls large parts of civil war-torn Yemen, announced a naval blockade of Saudi Arabia last week in response to what it called the unjust “siege” of the country.

Coalition spokesman Major General Turki Al-Maliki said in a statement that the strikes targeted military sites used to “threaten commercial vessels.”

According to the Houthi-aligned Al Masirah TV, telecommunications facilities were hit. The broadcaster added that a woman was injured in a strike on Kamaran Island off Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

The group’s political wing condemned the attacks and vowed to meet “escalation with escalation,” according to Anadolu.

The Saudi Defense Ministry says its forces targeted Houthi military sites in Hodeidah Governorate, including sites linked to attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea. The port of Hodeidah was not targeted, the Saudi MoD said. https://t.co/CaxWZU4byW pic.twitter.com/TTAIOTyHHi

— Ariel Oseran أريئل أوسيران (@ariel_oseran) July 24, 2026

#BREAKING Saudi airstrikes against Hodeidah, Yemen. pic.twitter.com/yWC1wXSnuT

— Global OSINT (@GlobalOSINTHQ) July 24, 2026

Shortly after the strike on Hodeidah, Saudi Arabia’s industrial city of Jazan was reportedly hit in an apparent Houthi retaliatory attack. Reports said a large fire broke out at a facility operated by the kingdom’s state-run oil company, Aramco.

Fires burn at the ARAMCO oil terminal in Jazan, Saudi Arabia, following a ballistic missile attack by Ansar Allah (Houthis). https://t.co/uoqjJN3W0y pic.twitter.com/6BT4I5kWz5

— OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare) July 25, 2026

The Houthis said they targeted two Saudi-owned tankers this week. Riyadh acknowledged that the Encelia caught fire and later said another Saudi vessel, NCC MASA, sustained minor hull damage in a separate attack on Friday.

After the war in Gaza broke out in 2023, the Houthis began firing missiles and drones at Israel and attacking ships in what they said was an act of solidarity with the Palestinians. The attacks stopped after the Houthis reached an agreement with the US in May 2025.

US President Donald Trump vowed on Thursday to inflict “major military punishment” on the Houthis, describing the group as “a proxy of Iran.” The US bombed Yemen alongside the UK and Israel in 2025. 

US President Donald Trump abruptly switched planes after leaving a NATO summit in Türkiye this month following reports of a supposed Iranian plot to kill him, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Trump flew out of Ankara aboard the older Air Force One instead of the new Qatari-donated Boeing 747-8, which lacks the same defensive capabilities, according to the NYT. Officials reportedly believed there was a credible threat from “Iranian proxy forces” against the president’s life.

The switch coincided with reports that Israel had shared intelligence with the US suggesting Iran was planning to target Trump. Some US officials, however, believed Israel was trying to provoke Trump into intensifying strikes against Iran, the NYT said.

Trump later claimed he was on Iran’s hit list and warned that thousands of missiles would be fired at the country if it attempted to assassinate him.

Iran’s new leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, vowed this month to avenge his father, without mentioning Trump by name. Many protesters in Iran, however, called for Trump’s death during funeral processions for the elder Khamenei and other officials.

A truce collapsed this month as the US resumed strikes on Iran in response to attacks on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. The two countries previously clashed over differing interpretations of the memorandum of understanding signed on June 17.

Elon Musk should stop providing Starlink satellite internet services to Ukrainian troops if he cares about the loss of life in the conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

Her remarks came after Musk criticized what he described as detached diplomacy over the conflict during a podcast released this week.

“I’m really annoyed by these fancy diplomats eating seven-course dinners in fancy places while people are dying on the front lines, and pontificating that Russia should withdraw its troops,” Musk said in an interview with The Economist published on Wednesday.

Elon Musk says calls for Russia to withdraw completely from Ukraine are unrealistic and that any peace deal will require pragmatism and concessions.

“What I think would be terrible is if there’s another three years of people dying senselessly at the front lines,” Musk told The… pic.twitter.com/OHkoHlYzJz

— Brian McDonald (@BrianMcDonaldIE) July 24, 2026

Zakharova responded on Telegram on Friday, saying: “I would like to take that idea a step further and suggest removing Starlink from Ukraine so people would stop dying.”

Musk’s satellite communications network has helped Ukraine expand its long-range strikes on Russian territory, targeting energy and port infrastructure, while also regularly hitting apartment blocks and civilian vehicles. According to the Kyiv Post, drones can be equipped with Starlink terminals to maintain stable internet connection during ‘free hunting’ missions.

Ukrainian drones recently struck warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, killing seven night-shift workers in one attack. The company and the Kremlin dismissed claims that the marketplace is being used to supply the military.

Last month, a drone hit a bus in Donetsk Region, Russia, killing eight passengers. On May 22, UAVs struck a college dormitory in Starobelsk, killing 21 students, most of them young women.

US President Donald Trump has announced that he is opening a trade investigation into the EU, after Brussels fined Google $1 billion for violating its competition laws. Trump added that the investigation will likely end in new tariffs on the bloc.

In a post on his Truth Social platform on Friday, Trump said that the US will “immediately initiate a 301 Investigation” into the EU’s “practice of ‘ROBBING’ American companies.” The EU, he added, “will pay a very big price” for its decision on Thursday to fine Google €890 million ($1 billion) for prioritizing its own services over those of competitors in search results.

“After having fined Apple, for no reason at all, 15 billion dollars, Meta, 3 billion dollars, Amazon 2.5 billion dollars, and many others, we have just been informed that Google, a truly advanced and amazing group, has been fined yet another 1 billion dollars,” Trump wrote. “This brings the Google total to over 18 billion dollars.”

“The United States of America is not a ‘PIGGYBANK’ for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!” he warned.  

Trump’s figure of “18 billion dollars” is misleading. Google has been fined roughly $12 billion by the European Commission over the last decade, with separate penalties imposed by national regulators.

A 301 investigation is a US government inquiry into whether another country’s trade policies are unfair, discriminatory, or damaging to American commerce. Trump said that such an investigation into the EU’s fines against US tech companies will likely result in “a substantial tariff” being placed on the bloc “at the earliest possible moment.”

The fines handed down to Google this month alone will cover more than 2% of the EU’s annual common budget. With its finances stretched from arming Ukraine, a European Commission spokesperson told Politico last week that the payout from Google will help alleviate the bloc’s growing budget deficit. 

“Google’s involuntary ‘contribution’ to the EU budget is now greater than that of two-thirds of the member states,” US Under Secretary of State Jacob Helberg noted in a post on X on Friday. “Enough is enough.”

Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from resorts on France’s southwestern coast, while the Spanish capital of Madrid is battling its worst wildfire in history, as southern Europe burns in one of its hottest summers on record.

Authorities in France ordered the total evacuation of Cap Ferret on Friday, commanding around 40,000 people to leave the popular resort area. The peninsula had been blanketed in a thick orange haze since Wednesday, when a fire that broke out inland near Saumos began spreading westward to the Atlantic coast.

While thousands of residents and tourists fled Cap Ferret and surrounding areas on Thursday, boats ferried hundreds of remaining holidaymakers off the peninsula on Friday morning, as flames encroached on the only road leading to the mainland.

Some 800 firefighters, backed by multiple water-bombing planes deployed by the European Commission were battling the blaze as of Friday afternoon. More than 12,500 hectares of forest have been burned.

The sky is now completely engulfed by massive, billowing clouds of dark brown and orange smoke as the wildfire in the Lège-Cap-Ferret area sends a thick plume of smoke across nearby Lacanau, Gironde Department, France.

The wildfire has already scorched around 10,000 hectares. pic.twitter.com/8aENqmWYY4

— Weather Monitor (@WeatherMonitors) July 24, 2026

French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said that 32 wildfires of varying size were burning across France on Friday, while 45 km south of Cap Ferret, one of these fires approached the beach town of Biscarrosse, where around 23,000 people have been evacuated.

🔥 ALERTE - Un monstre. Le mégafeu hors de contrôle en #Gironde prend des proportions phénoménales et a maintenant parcouru près de 5000 hectares depuis hier ! L'incendie a atteint Lège-Cap-Ferret où des maisons sont en flammes, des explosions sont entendues, la mairie et des… pic.twitter.com/DRMpwNlZsM

— Infos Françaises (@InfosFrancaises) July 23, 2026

While temperatures in southwestern France have dropped from an all-time high of 42.9 degrees Celsius in Biarritz last month to 28C in Biscarosse on Friday, the heatwave of the past six weeks has left the region’s forests unusually dry and vulnerable to fire. According to Nunez, 50,000 hectares across France have been burned so far this year – nearly four times as much as by this time last year.

In central Spain, where temperatures reached 44C last month, 19,000 people were ordered to evacuate areas near Madrid and the neighboring region of Avila. Two fires near Madrid and a third in Avila have since merged, prompting Spain to declare a national emergency.

“This is the worst fire in the history of the Madrid region,” regional president Isabel Diaz Ayuso said on Friday. Ayuso blamed the catastrophe on “a perfect storm, with extremely high temperatures, a relentless wind and the misfortune of having several fire fronts join together.”

21:25 Está metido en el Tiemblo, Ávila. #IFBurgohondo. pic.twitter.com/oh5iIKAT9M

— Infues Avila (@InfuesAvila) July 23, 2026

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has blamed the fires on climate change. “I’ve said it many times before, but the climate emergency kills. We’re seeing that across Europe and we’re seeing that in Spain,” he said earlier this month. On Wednesday, Sanchez called on his political rivals to back a “state pact” to tackle climate change. 

Western Europe recorded its hottest June on record last month, according to the EU’s ‘Copernicus’ Earth observation program. France’s late June heatwave was the most intense in the country’s history, according to Meteo-France, while June was the second-hottest in Spanish history.

Residents of the war-ravaged southern Lebanese village of Zawtar El Gharbiyeh say they feel “betrayed” by their government after being prevented from returning home despite the start of the IDF’s phased withdrawal, RT correspondent Steve Sweeney reports.

The criticism comes as Beirut and West Jerusalem begin implementing a US-brokered agreement for an IDF pullout from several so-called ‘pilot zones’ near the Yellow Line, Israel’s self-declared buffer zone in southern Lebanon. Israel has insisted that the withdrawal is contingent on Hezbollah disarming in those areas, a condition the militant group has rejected.

Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam visited Zawtar El Gharbiyeh – which lies on the Yellow Line – on Wednesday, raising the national flag and declaring a Lebanese return to the devastated village.

Residents camped outside, however, say they have remained blocked from returning to what is left of their homes.

Mayor Abed Ezzedine said that local authorities had received little information about the withdrawal and that residents were still being denied access.

“If things stay as they are, it means Israel will remain there for a long time,” he said.

Meanwhile, all three of the ‘pilot zones’ selected by Israel remain close to strategically important high ground that the IDF has so far failed to seize from Hezbollah, Sweeney noted.

Watch RT’s full on-the-ground report:

I didn’t watch a single full game of this FIFA World Cup and was asleep before the final kicked off on Sunday. It would have been awkward watching a match wanting both teams to lose. The best things to witness at this jamboree were the mindbending, moral amnesia of the anti-Trump and pro-Palestine mob, and the whining of sports media and pundits at the length of the half-time show. Even Granny grabber Wayne Rooney criticized the performance of a 70-year-old woman [Madonna]. Then again, who’d know better than the man who has a penchant for women twice his age. It was off the field that the best news, for many, came and it opened a way for Russian football to come in from the cold.

Background

Russian football had been under the US- and UK-led pogrom against Russian sports since 2010. Triggered by receiving the hosting rights for the FIFA 2018 World Cup, Russia got caught in the battle for control of the lucrative anti-doping industry. After a series of major doping scandals on their watch and their federal funding under threat, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) battled the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), using Russia as a convenient, and deserving, whipping boy.

From December 9, 2019, Russian national teams were not allowed to display the flag and badge in competition by WADA decree. Russian football fans were generally accepting and then the conflict in Ukraine escalated. I was live on air that night with Capital Sports and we were first to break the news of the UEFA and FIFA agreement with the Russian Football Union (RFU). I supported the freeze then and still do now. It was the safest thing to do given the total lack of respect towards human life shown by Ukraine in recent months, as well as their US and European backers. I still err on the side of caution. Football stadia are too wide open for terror attacks, however, FIFA are for turning.

Despite the difficulties facing Russian teams and athletes as bans and suspensions are gradually being lifted and teething problems being sorted, the most important sport in the world is strongly considering bringing Russia back.

By inviting Russia to take part in their inaugural under-15 World Cup, FIFA knew they were going to catch flak. In 2023, UEFA wanted to re-admit Russia’s under-17 boys’ and girls’ teams to continental competition, but the football associations of England, Ireland, Sweden, Romania, and Poland showed it a red card. The timing for the Irish announcement was telling, September 28, a little over a week before Israel began her brutal response to the October 7 Hamas terror attack. None of the aforementioned associations have refused to play Israel. Indeed, Ireland will play Israel twice this fall.

However, FIFA and UEFA are determined to normalize relations with Russia, and keep them in Europe, as a specter has returned to haunt the Europeans.

Upward and east

In July 2022, I completed a survey of 31 Asian football associations to gauge their feelings on accepting Russia as a member of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). This was a follow up to one I carried out in March-April that same year. Within the space of a few months, there was a positive change. From eight of nine wanting Russia initially, 25 of 31 said ‘yes’ in the follow-up survey. And even the clause of cessation of hostilities in Ukraine showed a marked contrast. In July, only six of 31 believed that for Russia to play in Asia the conflict had to end, with a surprising 22 saying it didn’t matter. Asian nations wanted to welcome Russia to the club.

“There is an appetite for Russia to join [the AFC] and you get it from here (Thailand) to China to even Japan,” top sports marketing executive Marcus Luer told me last year. The CEO of Total Sports Asia was keen to point out that money would play a large part. “Of course, Russian companies would bring funds in to make Asian sports more attractive.”

Former General Secretary of the All-India Football Federation, Shaji Prabhakaran, echoed those sentiments in a discussion with me earlier this year.

“If Russian teams, clubs were to play here [Asia] the big local companies, in India for example, would come in and invest because it’s then national [pride].”

What will happen?

Easing Russia back into the football family will begin with boys’ and girls’ youth competitions. Beach soccer and Futsal will come next, then women's teams. Men’s football, club and national team, will be a harder re-admittance. And there’s a simple reason why. Profile and security.

Nobody will be bothered, apart from the Baltic states, about Russia’s under-15 girls’ team playing their German counterparts. Nobody will care about the Russian Beach Soccer team rolling around on the sand in Italy or Georgia. They don’t matter because there isn’t the TV or fan interest, but in the UEFA Champions League or European Championship qualifiers…

“Security concerns alone are, God, terrifying,” a UEFA official said on condition of anonymity. “You’d find the majority of nations not just willing, but ok with Russian teams and clubs back. Though, apart from security and danger, there’s a bigger worry here [within UEFA].”

“Boycotts!”

This has been a bane of UEFA’s disciplinary committees and officials since 2022. The Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Estonia have shown their ‘solidarity’ with Ukraine by refusing to allow their kids to play with kids from Belarus. Now before you get on your high horse, I admire them for this stance. And before you think of getting into the saddle to attack me, think! If more nations followed through on their morals and principles, wouldn’t that be better?

Ireland would refuse to play Israel in September and October, Iran and fellow Asian nations would have boycotted the 2026 World Cup over mistreatment. European nations would stay home due to the unprovoked bombing and assistance in said bombing by two of the hosts [US and Canada]. The world would be a better place because nations put sports at the same level as humanity and human well being.

I asked, on our call, in his opinion would it only be the Baltic trio?

“Good God no, the Brits would carry on a treat. Poland, maybe. Ukraine, can you imagine Lokomotiv Moscow and Shakhtar Donetsk get drawn together? And for national teams, we’d have to have the Russia games behind closed doors in, Timbuktu.”

Russian off to…

I’m old enough to remember the 1985 Heysel Stadium disaster when ‘fans’ of Liverpool FC from England killed 39 fans of Italy’s Juventus FC. English clubs were banned indefinitely by UEFA, even if English national teams were allowed to continue play. The disgusting behavior of English fans at the 1988 European Championship, where they rioted and rampaged across West Germany, did seem at odds with UEFA’s stance from 1985. And even after English fans, following their national team at the 1990 FIFA World Cup, ran amok in Italy, their clubs were allowed back into continental competition from 1990-91. Except for Liverpool FC, who served an additional year.

High on making the 1990 semifinals in Italy, English football grew, ‘hooliganism’ was addressed and the English Premier League was formed. With all the money that was to flow into the game there, and in Europe, transgressions were forgotten as cash became king. Today, the Premier League is the top league in the world and proof that expensive style outweighs sub-standard substance.

Everyone I’ve spoken with in Russian football, since the beginning of this latest World Cup, is hopeful of a “return to normal days.” Russian football needs international competition, and vice versa. However, the key is money. Can Russia pay enough to subsidize the boycotts that will come and can UEFA stand up to EU and UK bullying over finances and club ownership?

And why am I so certain in this? Because it’s happened to clubs from Belarus, most recently Torpedo Belaz Zhodino. Last month the club, part of the state-owned vehicle maker Belaz structure, had their prize money from last season withheld by UEFA. Being owned and sponsored by the ‘state’ was used as the reason. Do we really believe that devious and destructive politicians and NGOs won’t assault UEFA to demand that Zenit be banned over Gazprom? Or heaven forbid CSKA Moscow perform well in Europe again, since they’re still the ‘Army Club’ and owned by the state-owned VEB corporation!

While FIFA are willing and ready to end Russia’s exile, they might well nudge Russian teams and clubs east to Asia, because to keep them in Europe will hit them where it matters, in the pocket. And from over 35 years of experience in professional football, I can say with great confidence, that money matters more than morals and fair play in the ‘beautiful game’. Saddle up for trips to Myanmar, the Maldives, and maybe even Australia.

The Iranian military has attacked US bases in multiple Gulf states, and warned locals to keep their distance from “US terrorist army forces” in anticipation of more strikes. The attacks came immediately after US forces bombed the Iranian cities of Ahvaz, Khorramabad, and Jask.

Sirens sounded twice in Bahrain on Friday morning, as two waves of attacks targeted Sheikh Isa Air Base and Naval Support Activity Bahrain, the headquarters of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet. 

“This morning, the fuel tanks, large equipment warehouses and silos, and the barracks of the US terrorist army forces at the Isa Air Base in Bahrain were targeted by Arash kamikaze drones,” the Iranian Army said in a statement broadcast on Iranian state media. In a separate statement, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that it had damaged an observation tower at Naval Support Activity Bahrain.

Both facilities have come under Iranian attack on multiple occasions since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in February. Footage shared on social media showed plumes of smoke rising from the area of the naval base after the second round of sirens sounded.

The Iranian army also confirmed striking Camp Buehring, Camp Doha and Camp Arifjan in Kuwait, as well as “aircraft hangars, aviation maintenance hangars and a barracks” at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan. The IRGC said that it inflicted casualties on American personnel in an attack on Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait.

Iranian-linked forces also attacked a base hosting US personnel in Erbil, Iraq, according to the Associated Press.

Bahrain and Kuwait secretly sent their own jets to carry out attacks inside Iran earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. These previously unreported missions could explain why Iran focused almost all of its firepower on these two counties on Friday, as it did against the UAE in response to Emirati jets striking its Lavan Island refinery in April.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that command centers, drone sites, telecommunications towers, coastal surveillance sites, and naval assets  were targeted in order to “further diminish the threat Iran poses to civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on Wednesday that any US aggression would be met with a “decisive response.”

“Our defense doctrine is clear: eye for an eye. Any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response,” he wrote on social media.

Our defense doctrine is clear: eye for an eye.

Any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response.

Those who contribute to such aggression, whatever the kind of support, will also be considered as legitimate targets.

— Seyed Abbas Araghchi (@araghchi) July 22, 2026

Iran has long held that the presence of the US military endangers the Gulf states. “We warn the general public in countries where American soldiers are stationed to immediately stay out of a radius of 500 meters from the places where American soldiers are hiding, in order to be safe,” the IRGC said in a statement on Friday.

Arkady Dvorkovich, the Russian president of the International Chess Federation (FIDE), has announced that he is suspending his powers as head of the organization after being placed on the EU’s latest sanctions list.

The sanctions package – the bloc’s 21st since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, and one Brussels struggled for weeks to finalize amid internal divisions over its potential fallout – was published on Thursday.

It targets Russia’s energy, financial, crypto, trade, fisheries, and LNG transport sectors while imposing restrictions on 170 entities and 48 individuals over alleged “public support” for Russia’s military operation. Dvorkovich, a Russian economist and former deputy prime minister who has led FIDE since 2018, was among those blacklisted.

In a statement published on the FIDE website on Friday, Dvorkovich called the decision “unlawful and unfair” and pledged to challenge it “by all possible means.”

Statement by FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich

Today, the EU decision to include my name in the 21st sanctions list was published. I want to state unequivocally that I consider this decision unlawful and unfair, and this decision will be immediately challenged by all possible… pic.twitter.com/SmiinxF71u

— International Chess Federation (@FIDE_chess) July 23, 2026

“I am confident that justice will prevail,” he wrote, adding that, to avoid disrupting FIDE’s operations, he decided to voluntarily suspend his powers as president until the sanctions are lifted or overturned in court.

Dvorkovich added that First Vice President Viswanathan Anand would assume the duties of the presidency. The FIDE Council ratified the handover the same day.

Analysts note that while Dvorkovich has suspended his powers in practice, he technically remains FIDE president because he has not resigned. Should a court overturn the sanctions, his authority would automatically be restored. However, experts warn the sanctions could complicate his previously announced plans to seek a third term in September.

The Russian and Soviet chess school is widely respected for developing a state-backed training system that produced generations of leading grandmasters and world champions, including Mikhail Tal and Anatoly Karpov. Just this winter, 12-year-old Russian prodigy Sergey Sklokin-Bagiyan stunned the chess community at the World Blitz Championship in Doha, defeating 19-year-old Indian Grandmaster and reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju.

EU piles on sanctions even as ‘common sense’ returns to sports bodies

A number of Russian sports and cultural figures were placed under Western sanctions, ostensibly in solidarity with Ukraine over their alleged support for Russia’s military operation. Alongside Dvorkovich, Russian Sports Minister and head of the country’s Olympic Committee Mikhail Degtyarev was also included in the EU’s latest sanctions package.

However, the tide appears to be turning.

FIDE, which banned Russian and Belarusian teams from its competitions in March 2022, readmitted Russian and Belarusian teams last year to official competitions for youth and junior events, and lifted all restrictions last month on the Belarus Chess Federation, allowing Belarusian players and official teams to compete under their national flag. World Aquatics, World Gymnastics, and the International Fencing Federation also restored Russian and Belarusian participation under their national flags and anthems.

Earlier this month, the International Olympic Committee provisionally lifted its suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, clearing the way for Russian athletes to return to international competition. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova welcomed the move last week, saying, “Common sense has prevailed!”

Washington’s decision to impose sweeping new tariffs over alleged failures to combat forced labor has triggered protests and bewilderment among some of its largest trading partners.

The duties, which took effect on Friday, target goods from 60 economies that account for more than 99% of US imports. The EU, Australia, Brazil, Norway, Japan and China have all challenged the justification behind them.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas rejected Washington’s accusations as unfounded and claimed the bloc offered stronger protections for workers than the US. “We have paid vacations, we have very good labor conditions for our employees, so it’s not really grounded,” she said.

Kallas also claimed that European companies valued “predictability” and stressed that Brussels had honored its trade commitments to Washington. Her remarks come as the EU struggles with high energy prices and weakening industrial competitiveness after abandoning cheap Russian gas.

Australia called the tariffs “unjustified,” while Brazil accused Washington of exploiting a human-rights issue to impose new trade restrictions. Norway said there was “no basis” for the measures, Japan defended its labor and trade standards, and China rejected the allegations along with unilateral tariffs.

The new duties range from 10% to 12.5% and replace a temporary 10% global tariff that expired on Friday. Countries that have adopted or pledged to enforce bans on forced-labor imports generally face the lower rate, while the others have been assigned 12.5%.

Oil, gas, fertilizer, certain food products, aircraft, critical minerals and goods already covered by separate US tariffs are exempt.

A Romanian F-16 fighter jet has shot down a drone that entered the country’s airspace, President Nicusor Dan has said. The drone incursion has not yet been blamed on any foreign military.

In a post on X, Dan said that the drone was intercepted around 11 am on Friday, and that an investigation has been launched. The Romanian Defense Ministry said that the drone was picked up by radar over the Black Sea earlier on Friday morning, and was tracked as it moved westward towards the port of Sulina.

It was intercepted over an “unpopulated area” around Padina, 90 km northeast of Bucharest, and destroyed with an air-to-air missile, the ministry added.

The incident is the third of its kind in Romania over the last two months. On June 5, a Ukrainian naval drone exploded near an oil terminal in Constanta, Romania’s largest Black Sea port, while three more detonated offshore. The drones were operated by the Ukrainian navy, which claimed that it lost control of the devices.

Dan’s response was dramatically different in the two cases. The Romanian president made no formal complaint when the Ukrainian naval drone entered the country’s main port while others exploded off Constanta, describing the incident as an unfortunate consequence of the “military operation led by Ukraine against Russian aggression.”

After the drone crash in Galati, Dan ordered the closure of the Russian consulate in Constanta and attempted to trigger NATO’s Article 4, which is invoked when a member state determines that their “territorial integrity…or security” is threatened. Dan also announced that he would “accelerate Romania-Ukraine cooperation on the co-production of drones” and increase military aid to Kiev.

Russia argued that its Geran drones carry higher payloads of explosives than the UAV that struck the apartment building, and that a stricken Geran would not have been able to cover the distance from Ukrainian air defense positions to Galati. Moscow suggested that the incident was used by Bucharest to justify plans made in advance – such as closing the consulate and stepping up aid to Kiev.

Bangladesh’s president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, has resigned, citing health issues. The speaker of the National Parliament will now become the country’s interim president until a new person is elected.

Speaker Hafiz Uddin Ahmad confirmed Shahabuddin’s resignation at a press briefing on Friday evening. In his resignation letter submitted to the speaker, Shahabuddin said that he was suffering from several health conditions.

He said he was diagnosed with autonomic neuropathy and that he occasionally loses consciousness for brief periods as a result of this illness.

Reports said Shahabuddin received treatment at the Combined Military Hospital over the past two days.

Shahabuddin’s resignation comes much ahead of the official end of his tenure in April 2028. The president’s office in Bangladesh is largely ceremonial.

Shahabuddin, 76, was ⁠elected unopposed for a five-year term in 2023 as a nominee of ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party.

The resignation assumes significance as Hasina has announced that she would return to Bangladesh in December. 

Shahabuddin, who remained in office after Hasina fled to India in August 2024, oversaw a transition that first saw a caretaker administration led by Nobel laureate Mohammad Yunus.

Elections held this past February propelled Bangladesh National Party’s Tarique Rahman to power. Hasina’s Awami League, which is now banned, was not allowed to participate.

A Reuters report quoting three sources said that the Tarique Rahman government had pressed Shahabuddin to step aside because of his long-standing ties to Hasina. 

On Monday, July 20, Hungary officially entered a new political reality. For the first time in 16 years, the Fidesz party lost control of the country’s most important institution – its presidency. Viktor Orban’s last remaining pillar of power collapsed.

The situation, initially perceived by Fidesz supporters as a temporary political crisis, had become catastrophic by mid-summer, leading to a restructuring of the country’s entire legal and political order. Several components can be roughly identified in the purge initiated by the team of new Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar. The main ones include a thorough search for evidence of corruption within Fidesz, blocking any attempts by the new opposition to challenge the ruling party at the legislative and executive levels, and dismantling the symbols of power that had made the party’s rule unique on the domestic and international stage.

Anti-corruption committees and judicial prosecutions

Currently, five parliamentary committees are working with extraordinary powers to investigate corruption; a dedicated anti-corruption ministry is planned for later. These bodies, acting as a ‘criminal case factory,’ have been given the authority to open archives and refer materials to the courts and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office. Key investigations cover strategic contracts, the activities of intelligence agencies, the business sector, and municipal finances.

For example, the Strategic Contracts Audit Committee is initiating an audit of contracts for the construction of the Russian Paks II nuclear power plant project and automotive agreements with China. The economic structure of the old regime is being reviewed through the Committee on Large Business and the Reform of State Media. The Committee on Fiscal Decentralization aims to reform the existing budget system. The work has several goals: transitioning from a media ‘wolf hunt’ to a conveyor belt of show trials against Fidesz elites, and unlocking €18 billion in European funds.

The main defendants in the future criminal cases are Orban’s inner circle and Orban himself. His son-in-law, businessman Istvan Tiborcz, and his company Elios, which provided street lighting through EU-funded public procurement, are under attack. A second major target is Fidesz’s main sponsor, Lorinc Meszaros, and his work on the construction of the Budapest-Belgrade railway (worth approximately $3 billion). Former Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, who left politics for a position at the Chinese automotive giant BYD, is also being investigated for covert contacts with Moscow and the transfer of classified information. Szijjarto himself has gone on the defensive, stating: “Accusations of treason are excessive; I have never passed classified information to Russia.”

An analysis of the legal framework being developed by five commissions jointly with the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) indicates that legal prosecution of Orban will be based on several articles of the Hungarian Criminal Code (BTK): embezzlement of state property on an especially large scale; abuse of power; budget fraud as part of an organized group; and, finally, high treason. The prospect of this trial being a showpiece leaves Orban with virtually no room for maneuver, forcing him to choose between a public trial or, as Magyar hopes, forced political exile.

It’s important to understand that what’s happening is based on a consensus within Hungarian society: recent sociological research has recorded that 66% of Hungarian citizens demand the prosecution and accountability of senior officials from the previous administration. Magyar’s TISZA party itself and its leader are at the peak of their popularity – polls show that the recently divided country is consolidating around the new leader and that approximately 62% of the country’s population trusts him.

Removing barriers

The legal framework that supported the old government’s monopoly is also undergoing deep revision and purge. The country has abolished the notorious Office for the Protection of Sovereignty, whose purpose was to identify and block “agents of foreign influence,” and nationalized the “Public Interest Trust Funds” created by Orban, which owned and managed colossal state assets, including 21 state universities and large stakes in the country’s main strategic corporations (the energy group MOL, the country’s largest commercial bank OTP Bank), castles, clinics, and resorts. Magyar introduced a strict term limit for the prime minister and members of parliament – no more than eight years in total. This reform is aimed against Orban specifically – after 18 years at the helm of the country, the former prime minister is now legally barred from any possibility of returning to power.

Against the backdrop of these changes, the removal of former President Tamas Sujok took place. He did not wait for impeachment in parliament; he was forced to resign as a result of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution. Furthermore, this amendment effectively purges the judiciary, limiting the age of judges to 70 and shortening their mandates to six years. These measures are aimed at removing those appointed by Fidesz and stripping the president of the Constitutional Court of her administrative monopoly. Finally, Hungary’s accession to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office has eroded the influence of Attorney General Peter Polt, allowing for the direct enforcement of Brussels’ orders to audit public contracts. Furthermore, the lifting of the ban on municipal lawsuits against the center is being used to bankrupt Fidesz-controlled entities through lawsuits for embezzlement.

Debunking uniqueness

On July 7, Hungary’s main state television channel, M1, and Radio Kossuth suddenly went offline, with the TV stations rolling out an unprecedented statement: “Public media cannot lie. We apologize for doing so for many years.” This move was initiated by the Commission for the Reform of Public Media. Magyar’s message to voters was that behind the facade of a ‘struggle for sovereignty,’ unique in the EU, lay a usurpation of the media landscape. This paradoxically brought the history of leadership full circle: in all his campaign outings, Orban’s image was built on the demonization of former Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany, whose reign from 2004 to 2009 was remembered for a leaked audio recording in which he was heard saying that “we lied morning and evening.” Now, in the eyes of the public, Orban himself has been transformed into Gyurcsany.

The investigation surrounding the Ludovika University of Public Service has become a painful one. New commissions have opened secret archives and discovered that, under the guise of “climate conferences,” a recruitment hub for the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad had operated at the university for years. The university’s leadership has already admitted that orders to provide institutional cover came from the very top – from Orban’s government apparatus. Following this, the country has taken a fresh look at the uniqueness of Hungary’s “sovereign” foreign policy, not to mention the abrogation of his cabinet’s anti-Semitic attacks.

Magyar: The West’s enforcer with an agenda

The demonstrative destruction of Fidesz should not be viewed as a local initiative by Peter Magyar. It enjoys significant, coordinated support among Euro-Atlantic elites, who have accumulated a critical amount of anger at Orban. The main beneficiary of this process is European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, for whom the destruction of Orban’s legacy is a matter of personal revenge for years of blackmail, vetoes, and caricatured billboards on Hungarian streets.

Secondly, there is the head of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, Laura Kovesi: Budapest’s official accession to her office provides a historic opportunity to launch a show trial against top Central European politicians. Finally, there are Atlanticist forces in the United States who also stand to gain from a show trial in a country that was previously the main regional stronghold of the conservative MAGA movement.

Peter Magyar is currently operating within the Euro-Atlantic mainstream, but it would be a mistake to dismiss him as a run-of-the-mill enforcer. We see before us a confident leader whose primary objective is to secure the field, establish himself, and maintain power. He will emerge as an independent actor only later, once he has settled his tactical “debts” to European institutions and established direct contacts with Washington.

Paradoxically, when it comes to the lives of ordinary people in large Hungarian cities, the problems caused by this same fiscal tax haven’t changed. Today, the old “illiberal” dictate from the center remains unchanged, demonstrating that political purges from above can be combined with tax collection from below. A typical example here is how, on July 15, the authorities of the traditionally opposition city of Pecs were forced to pay another 600 million forints (almost $1.9 million) into the budget under the old ‘solidarity tax’ (which itself has not been abolished). In other words, the ordinary Hungarian from Pecs, who voted for change in April 2026, in reality faced the same everyday devastation: due to empty coffers, people wait 40 minutes at bus stops, schools and hospitals remain without repairs, and street lights are turned off after 11 PM to save money.

As for Russia, its interests in the region inevitably face a period of protracted uncertainty. Magyar’s agenda vis-à-vis Moscow will boil down to two variables: a decidedly tough public discourse, transparent to the West, and a hidden, pragmatic, and non-public dialogue track. This pragmatism is critically important for Hungary’s large business community (including the banking, pharmaceutical, and IT sectors), which largely supported Magyar in the April 2026 elections. The era of Budapest’s sovereign maneuvering is over, but the contours of a new Magyar balancing act are only just beginning to emerge.

US President Donald Trump has threatened to seize frozen Iranian assets to cover “any and all damages” to ships and cargo damaged due to the conflict in the Middle East. Iran has hit back, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warning that the move sets an “incendiary precedent” that could have global ramifications.

Trump took to Truth Social on Thursday, warning that “from this point forth, any and all damages done to Ships, Cargo, or anything related thereto, will be paid for by Iranian Money that the United States has in its possession, and controls.” 

He added that “these damages may be very substantial,” describing it as “the fair and equitable thing to do.”

The remarks came hours after Yemen’s Houthi rebels, a group with strong ties to Iran, claimed strikes on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. The US has also accused Iran of targeting vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, while Tehran has insisted that any passing ships should abide by the regulations it imposed.

Araghchi pushed back on Trump’s ultimatum, calling it a dangerous departure from international norms. “Seizing another nation’s assets to pay for unrelated future claims is an incendiary precedent,” he wrote on X, adding that “once governments normalize confiscation, no one’s assets are safe,” and the “ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful.”

Trump did not specify which frozen funds would be tapped or under what legal authority. The US holds an estimated $2 billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets, with billions more suspended in countries such as Iraq, Qatar, Japan, and Luxembourg. The fate of some of the funds, primarily frozen by the US, was discussed during talks between Washington and Tehran before the collapse of the talks earlier this month.

The threat to confiscate Iranian funds echoes the West’s handling of roughly $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Most of the funds were frozen in the EU, though the bloc has not confiscated them outright due to legal hurdles.

In 2024, the US passed legislation authorizing the seizure of Russian assets and their transfer to Ukraine, though Washington has not resorted to this yet. Moscow has denounced the asset freeze as “theft.”

Swiss prosecutors have requested a life sentence for a right-wing politician who backed multiple child-protection bills and now faces charges including drugging and raping a minor.

Patrick Frei, formerly of the Swiss People’s Party, allegedly sedated a woman and her daughter, who was underage at the time, and systematically sexually abused them, according to a press release issued on Monday by the Aargau Public Prosecutor’s Office. The 57-year-old is also accused of drugging and raping another adult woman.

“The victims were repeatedly placed in an acutely life-threatening condition by the administration of the substances, which could have caused them to suffocate at any time,” the press release said.

Because Frei allegedly “accepted the possible death of the victims,” he has also been charged with multiple counts of attempted murder, prosecutors said.

The victims, a Polish mother and daughter, moved to Switzerland after living in Ireland, according to the Swiss news outlet Watson. The mother was Frei’s partner and worked for him under an employment contract that supported her residence permit. After his arrest, she lost her job and later applied for welfare.

The migration authorities questioned whether the employment arrangement was genuine and opened proceedings that could result in both victims being deported, Watson reported.

The daughter, now 18, “has lost faith in the authorities” because of the abuse she suffered and the lack of support she received from Swiss institutions afterward, her lawyer told Swiss public broadcaster SRF on Wednesday.

The local migration office is continuing to review the case, Aargau State Councillor Dieter Egli told SRF.

Heavy explosions were reported in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz on Friday local time as the US carried out strikes for the 13th consecutive night.

The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said US forces targeted command centers, drone sites, telecommunications towers, coastal surveillance sites, and naval assets to “further diminish the threat Iran poses to civilian mariners and commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

Iranian media reported strikes in central and southern parts of the country, including the city of Khorramabad near the Iraqi border and the port city of Jask on the southern coast.

Videos posted on social media show explosions and large fires in Ahvaz.

A very large bombardment is happening in the Ahvaz region of Iran right now. The real battle has begun.#IranWar‌ #USA pic.twitter.com/G0cHrgs07h

— Judy Berxwedan (@Judy20255) July 23, 2026

BREAKING: The US has carried out a large-scale attack on Ahvaz in Iran's main oil region, with more than 35 strikes so far in the past hour.

Ahvaz is the capital of Khuzestan Province, housing Iran's major oil production and refining infrastructure, with oil facilities likely… pic.twitter.com/uCi7w4Nmde

— The Hormuz Letter (@HormuzLetter) July 24, 2026

Four people were killed and five injured in Ahvaz, Press TV reported, citing officials in Khuzestan Province.

CENTCOM released footage of strikes on military vehicles, port facilities, and small vessels.

The US has stepped up its attacks in recent days, targeting maritime surveillance towers at ports and bridges in the southern province of Hormozgan.

Iran’s retaliatory strikes killed four American service members over the weekend, marking the first US combat fatalities in several months.

The hostilities continue amid reports that the US deployed additional forces to the region, including bombers and commando units, as President Donald Trump considers expanding the war.

Iran has remained defiant in the face of Trump’s demands, insisting that it has the right to control traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and accusing the US of violating a memorandum of understanding signed last month.

A landmark US-Saudi nuclear agreement will only proceed if Riyadh joins the Abraham Accords and establishes diplomatic relations with Israel, the White House said on Thursday. The deal would use American technology and expertise to help the Kingdom develop a civilian nuclear energy program.

The clarification marked a significant shift from Wednesday’s announcement, which made no public mention of linking the agreement to the normalization of Saudi-Israeli relations. Riyadh has repeatedly insisted it will not recognize Israel without progress toward the creation of a Palestinian state.

“This deal is contingent on this condition as far as the president is concerned, so we’ll continue to talk with our Saudi counterparts to get the deal finalized and hopefully see them joining the Abraham Accords very soon,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

The Abraham Accords are a series of US-brokered agreements launched during President Donald Trump’s first term that established diplomatic relations between Israel and primarily Arab states. Current signatories include Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.

The omission has raised concerns among nonproliferation experts and lawmakers in Washington, who warn it could leave Saudi Arabia free to enrich uranium — a capability that could eventually be used to produce nuclear weapons and potentially trigger a regional arms race. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman previously said Saudi Arabia would seek nuclear weapons if Iran acquired them.

The agreement, expected to underpin a multibillion-dollar nuclear energy program involving US companies, must still be reviewed by Congress before it can take effect.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar has blamed New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s rhetoric for the stabbing of two people on Manhattan’s Upper West Side on Thursday. The assailant reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar.”

The victims – a Jewish man and an Asian man – were hospitalized and are expected to survive, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said on X.

Police arrested 51-year-old Raul Morales as the sole suspect. “Detectives are continuing to work the case and determine the motive, but according to victim and witness statements, Morales yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ during both attacks. The NYPD is currently evaluating whether this is a potential hate crime,” Tisch said.

Tisch added that although the suspect has no known history of mental illness, his mental state “may have been a factor.”

In a statement on X, Mamdani also said that witnesses and the victims reported hearing the attacker shout “Allahu Akbar,” adding that “these hateful and despicable attacks have no place in our city.”

NEW: 2 stabbed in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, including at least one ‘visibly Jewish’ victim; suspect yelled ‘Allahu Akbar’ pic.twitter.com/6nq7hwiyt4

— Rapid Report (@RapidReport2025) July 23, 2026

Saar described the incident as “a horrific anti-Semitic stabbing attack,” accusing Mamdani of incitement.

“This violence did not happen in a vacuum. Months of incitement against the Jewish state from Mamdani have helped create a climate in which Jews are targeted,” Saar wrote on X.

Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza and called AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobbying group, “monsters.” Some Jewish organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), described his remarks as anti-Semitic, while more than 700 rabbis and cantors across the US signed a letter last month urging him to apologize.

Mamdani has denied being anti-Semitic. “As mayor, I will always stand steadfast with our Jewish neighbors to root the scourge of anti-Semitism out of our city,” he said in November 2025 after swastikas were painted on a Jewish school.

He also defended his criticism of AIPAC. “I used the term [monsters] to describe all those who are preventing the birth of a new world, not solely AIPAC, but frankly super PACs at large, who are spending millions of dollars on deceptive and misleading ads that are blanketing the airwaves,” he said.

The US and other Western countries have seen an upswing in anti-Semitic incidents since the outbreak of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza in 2023, as well as the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran launched in February 2026.

I recently read about a new trend where men are having fillers injected into their scrotums to make themselves more attractive. Some, trying to save money, turn to unlicensed beauty therapists. Others go even further and inject hyaluronic acid themselves at home and, as a result, they sometimes lose the very thing they were trying to improve.

Admittedly, the problem is still more common in the United States, but even here we already have dancers and performers who regularly fill that area with whatever they can get their hands on, apparently in the hope of impressing women.

To put it bluntly, there are plenty of questions, such as who is supposed to find an enlarged scrotum attractive? I can at least understand men who use fillers to increase the size of their penis, although that procedure raises enough questions of its own, but has anyone ever met a woman who chooses a man based on the size of his scrotum? The most he is likely to achieve is to surprise her.

It’s an interesting phenomenon because as recently as 30 years ago, people suffering from body-image problems had very few tools with which to “improve” themselves. The most accessible option was flamboyant clothing, and even that only really became available during perestroika for Russians. 

Soviet citizens who were dissatisfied with their appearance had far fewer ways of “boosting their attractiveness” and men had practically none. A man who looked too extravagant risked attracting the attention of the authorities, while women with body-image issues often took up sewing or knitting and made their own unusual, custom-made clothes. People in the 1980s had few other means of changing their appearance as even dyeing one’s hair a bright color was difficult and could attract unwanted attention.

Until fairly recently, people who were constantly dissatisfied with themselves had little opportunity to mutilate themselves because the tools simply weren’t available.

Cosmetology had little to offer them either and before eyebrow and lip tattooing became widespread, there were few truly radical procedures. One of the more shocking treatments popular with earlier generations was a scorching peel, in which the skin was effectively burned away and, later, chemical peels became available and the industry expanded rapidly.

Then came permanent make-up, silicone breast implants, silicone lip filler and hyaluronic acid as new techniques appeared, allowing fillers to be injected into the cheekbones and forehead, and then thread lifts emerged, along with many other procedures capable of producing irreversible consequences. And that’s before we even get to plastic surgery.

For some time now, life has become especially difficult for vulnerable people who are dissatisfied with themselves, their lives and their careers as they are overwhelmed by the demand to demonstrate success, to appear permanently desirable and to radiate sexual energy 24 hours a day.

The vast pseudo-beauty industry preys on such people as it sells them the idea of endless self-improvement and because competition within the industry is fierce, the procedures it offers become increasingly radical so “self-improvement” gradually turns into monstrification.

A gangrenous scrotum or facial fibrosis caused by a thread lift isn’t even the worst possible outcome because fillers can migrate and block blood vessels, tissues can stretch permanently and nerves can be damaged. People can lose both their appearance and their health in the pursuit of an invented ideal, but, at the same time, the pressure on insecure and dissatisfied people is increasing.

In the past, they saw role models mainly on television or in fashion magazines, but today they constantly compare themselves with perfect faces and bodies in advertising, social media and the accounts of boastful, insincere bloggers.

They see beautiful, successful, heavily edited people living in large, lavishly furnished apartments, owning country houses with perfect lawns and driving expensive cars.

Now there is also artificial intelligence and neural networks generate images of perfect women and handsome men that are sometimes impossible to distinguish from real people. The hypothetical Ellen is now forced to compete not only with Hollywood stars, but with artificial ideals.

The real world around Ellen is full of ordinary people, overweight, tired, with sallow skin, thin lips, crooked legs and bad shoes, but the pressure from the media has become so great that the average person no longer compares herself with those walking beside her in the street but with faces on billboards and images on the internet.

The dissatisfaction created by failing to match the group of rich and beautiful people with whom the average person identifies gradually turns into self-loathing and then every available means of conforming to the ideal is brought into play, and the more money such a person has, the wider the range of bodily alterations available.

When I see faces standardized by fillers and plastic surgery, worn out by fibrosis and stretched tissue, I understand that I am looking at victims of dissatisfaction with themselves and their lives. These are people who have decided that the problem lies not in their competence, education, personality or lack of natural charm, but in the shape of their nose or the fullness of their lips.

Most importantly, this now affects both sexes. Until recently, it was mainly women who sought to improve their appearance, but, as the philosopher Jean Baudrillard once observed, in order to sell beauty products to men, men first had to be taught to think like women about their bodies.

Men also watch pornography, and artificial intelligence has entered that world too, so, as a result, what the viewer sees on the screen may bear little resemblance to what he sees in his own trouser and this is frustrating.

A man may not have a girlfriend because he is dull or simply unattractive, but instead he decides that the real problem is a small scrotum, whereas female viewers blame their lack of success on unattractive breasts or a “wrong” vagina.

And off they go as the man enlarges his scrotum, unaware that somewhere his potential partner is having hyaluronic acid injected into her labia, and both believe this is how they will achieve happiness and recognition.

Of course, people need protection from the immense pressure of marketing and forced consumption, especially when it threatens their health, but the beauty industry has learned to monetize dissatisfaction with extraordinary efficiency. It invents new defects and then sells the cure, and when men have begun injecting fillers into their scrotums in pursuit of perfection, it is clear that the process has gone much too far.

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

Germany is paying five times as much for imported gas as it did before abandoning its long-term Russian supply contracts as part of the EU sanctions, Berliner Zeitung has reported.

Berlin now has to rely on the volatile international energy market, which is reeling from the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the ongoing conflict between the US and Iran, the newspaper wrote on Wednesday.

Once Europe’s industrial powerhouse, Germany abandoned cheap Russian gas imports in 2022 as part of the EU’s sanctions campaign against Moscow following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Combined with the phaseout of nuclear power in favor of renewables, this self-imposed embargo has dealt a major blow to Germany’s industrial sector.

According to Berliner Zeitung, Germany’s gas import price has risen from €12 ($13.65) per megawatt-hour in 2020, when long-term contracts with Russia were still in force, to more than €60 ($68.25) this week amid the continued exchange of strikes between the US and Iran.

“The old Russian contracts were cheaper than the market price,” the media outlet said, adding that Germany would also be unable to increase gas imports if needed since “the pipelines from Norway are at their [full] capacity” and “cannot handle much more.”

On Monday, Chancellor Friedrich Merz acknowledged that the energy crisis was caused by “the lack of Russian gas.”

Moscow has said it is ready to resume gas deliveries through the Nord Stream pipeline string that survived the 2022 sabotage attack but has received no response from Berlin.

Germany plans to impose new tariffs on its already struggling industrial sector to fund the construction of a national gas reserve.

The EU also pledged to end all Russian gas imports by 2027, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stating in March that Brussels would stick to this course even in the event of physical gas shortages or the threat of power cuts.

The Ansar Allah movement of Yemen (the Houthis) has announced what it calls a “maritime embargo” against Saudi Arabia.

The group’s military spokesman, Yahya Saree, framed the move as retaliation for what he described as 12 years of Saudi-led blockade by sea and air against Yemen. The wording itself is worth pausing on, because it is unusually vague for a movement that is normally precise in its threats. The Houthis do not trade with the Saudis in any meaningful volume, so an “embargo” in the classical economic sense makes little sense. What it more likely means is a readiness to strike vessels entering or leaving Saudi ports, something the group has both the geography and the missile reach to attempt along the western coast of the Arabian Peninsula.

So far the escalation has stayed at the level of radio warnings. Houthi units have reportedly been broadcasting messages on open channels to ships heading toward Saudi ports, ordering captains to turn back immediately and threatening to strike any “merchant” vessel that ignores the warning. As of this writing, no actual attack on a ship in the Red Sea has been reported. But the announcement alone changes the temperature of a relationship that had been simmering rather than boiling for the better part of a year.

It is important to separate this move from the conflict around the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Houthi campaign against shipping in that strait since late 2023 was framed explicitly as solidarity with Gaza, a war fought in Iran’s broader interest but dressed in Palestinian colors. This new threat against Saudi Arabia is a different animal. It is not a proxy gesture on behalf of Tehran. It looks like a decision made by the Houthis themselves, using a moment of regional tension to apply direct pressure on Riyadh and, more importantly, to expand their own territorial and political weight inside Yemen.

To understand why a single radio warning matters, it helps to remember how deep the animosity between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia actually runs. The conflict traces back to 2015, when a Saudi-led coalition intervened militarily to reverse Houthi gains and restore the internationally recognized Yemeni government. What followed was nearly a decade of war marked by airstrikes, a naval and air blockade on Houthi-controlled ports, and a humanitarian catastrophe that made Yemen a byword for the human cost of proxy warfare in the Gulf.

That caution stands as the backdrop for today’s threats. Riyadh has not forgotten 2019, and the Houthis know it. The naval warning is, in part, a reminder of that leverage.

Posturing for the home audience

The timing of the blockade announcement lines up with a broader mobilization drive inside Houthi-held territory. In late June, the movement announced the creation of a new internal structure, the so-called Popular Mobilization Forces, modeled openly on Iran’s Basij militia. The stated goal is to build a network of thousands of volunteers in every district under Houthi control to give the movement “eyes and ears” in every neighborhood and village.

Recruitment leans heavily on the Palestinian cause as a rallying point, but the deeper function of the new force looks more domestic than ideological. Reporting suggests recruitment and training activity actually began quietly right after October 7, 2023, well before the public announcement, and that it draws mostly from the poorest segments of the population, people drawn less by ideology than by access to food aid. Fighters receive no salary, only in-kind donations and a place on humanitarian assistance lists, and training emphasizes small arms handling alongside political indoctrination of younger recruits, who are considered more open to it.

This points to a movement managing real strain at home. Front-line fighters reportedly have gone unpaid for months, receiving occasional gifts worth around $35 along with qat (a traditional drug in chewing herb form) rather than a regular wage. Discontent has grown loud enough that some Houthi officials initially mocked citizens complaining about hunger on social media before switching to harsher suppression of dissent. The movement’s public line blames Saudi Arabia for the unpaid salaries of state employees and insists the war against the US and Israel takes priority over social demands, a framing that conveniently redirects internal frustration outward.

The bigger picture is a leadership trying to reassert control after a rough stretch. Israeli and American airstrikes in 2025 killed the movement’s top military commander along with most of its civilian ministers, forcing senior figures to sharply limit public appearances and communication. That in turn has slowed the passage of military and political orders down the chain of command. A structure like the Popular Mobilization Forces, built for surveillance and loyalty enforcement as much as for combat, is a classic response to that kind of internal fragility.

Three drivers seem to explain the timing. First, rising regional tension tied to American and Israeli pressure on Iran gives the Houthis an opening to posture as part of a wider resistance front. Second, there is real internal pressure inside Houthi-held areas, an economic crisis and tribal resentment that mobilization can help paper over by offering young men a role, a stipend of sorts, and a sense of purpose. Third, negotiations with the Saudi-backed government in Aden have been stuck for a long time, and mobilization functions as leverage, a way of consolidating loyalty and territorial control while the diplomatic track goes nowhere.

Read together, these three factors support the same conclusion drawn from the Popular Mobilization Forces story. This is not simply Tehran pulling strings. It looks like the Houthi leadership is using a genuinely tense regional moment, plus its own domestic troubles, to justify an internal power consolidation and to test how far it can push Riyadh without inviting the kind of retaliation the Kingdom delivered in earlier years.

A key oil artery and a curious American absence

If the Houthis were to move from radio threats to actual strikes, geography narrows the target list considerably. Ansar Allah’s effective reach runs along the western coast of the Arabian Peninsula, which puts the port of Yanbu squarely inside the danger zone. Yanbu is the terminus of the East-West pipeline, the artery that carries oil from fields in central and eastern Saudi Arabia across the peninsula to the Red Sea. With the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, this pipeline is currently the only route by which Riyadh can move its hydrocarbons to export markets, which makes Yanbu far more than an ordinary port. It is close to the kingdom’s only remaining pressure valve for oil exports.

What makes the situation stranger is the American posture around it. Even during the recent period of truce between Iran and the US, at least two US Navy destroyers were kept on station near Yanbu as a deterrent. That cover has since been withdrawn, and American warships have not returned to the area. Why Washington pulled back, and why Riyadh has not pushed hard for the protection to resume, remains unclear. It is one of the more puzzling details in the current standoff, and it leaves an obvious question mark over how seriously either side is treating the risk to Yanbu.

Whether Riyadh actually launches a new campaign against the Houthis will likely hinge on something bigger than the port skirmishes themselves, namely whether the US moves toward a ground operation of its own in the region. Saudi Arabia has shown little appetite to invade Houthi territory on its own initiative. The scars from the 2019 humiliation are still visible in how cautiously the Kingdom’s military and political leadership has behaved since. At the same time, Riyadh cannot simply absorb a credible threat to Yanbu and its pipeline infrastructure without some kind of response.

The result is something close to a standoff where neither side wants to fire first, and both are watching for a signal from a more powerful patron before committing. For the Houthis and for Saudi Arabia alike, the stakes attached to that first move are unusually high, which is exactly why, for now, the fight is still being conducted over the radio rather than with missiles.

Taken together, the picture that emerges is of a Houthi movement acting largely on its own calculations rather than simply executing an Iranian script. Facing unpaid fighters, a hungry population, and a leadership forced into the shadows after last year’s strikes, Ansar Allah has reached for the two tools that have worked before, a domestic mobilization drive dressed up as ideological loyalty building, and an external threat aimed at Riyadh that costs nothing so long as it stays rhetorical. Saudi Arabia, still shaped by the memory of 2019, has responded with preparation rather than open confrontation, and the fate of Yanbu and its pipeline hangs on decisions being made well beyond Yemen’s borders, most notably in Washington. Nothing here points to an imminent war. It points instead to two exhausted, wary actors each testing how much pressure the other can absorb before the radio warnings turn into something worse.

The US Senate has blocked a resolution that would have forbidden President Donald Trump from waging war against Iran without Congressional approval. A similar resolution passed the House of Representatives hours earlier.

The Senate defeated the resolution in a 49-47 vote on Thursday, with Democrat Senator John Fetterman joining his Republican colleagues to oppose it, and Republican Senator Susan Collins lending her support to the measure.

Republican Senator Rand Paul and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who had backed previous resolutions aimed at reining in Trump’s war powers, missed the vote. “The Iran war has not been a success,” Paul told reporters on Wednesday. “I think by any objective measure we’re worse off than we were before the war.”

A similar resolution was passed by the House of Representatives earlier on Thursday, with four Republicans breaking ranks to squeeze the measure through in a 214-208 vote. However, the resolution lacked any legal power, and was described by its author, Representative Pramila Jayapal, as a “vote of conscience.”

Four Americans have been killed since hostilities resumed, three in Jordan and one in Iraq, according to the US authorities. The New York Times has accused the Pentagon of withholding information on dozens of service members injured in separate Iranian strikes last week.

Egyptian, Pakistani, and Qatari mediators are reportedly urging Washington and Tehran to agree to a new ten-day ceasefire and sit down for talks aimed at salvaging the previous deal. However, Trump has described talks as “a waste of time,” and on Thursday, the president told Axios that he is “considering a massive attack” on Iran, “bigger than ever before.”

With Yemen’s Houthis now targeting shipping in the Red Sea, and with Trump claiming that Israel would rejoin the war “in two minutes if I ask them to,” Russia has called on all sides to de-escalate.

In a statement on Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova urged “all sides in the conflict to demonstrate a responsible approach and restraint and to refrain from any actions that could expand the geography of military confrontation and lead to the further deterioration of the military-political situation in the Middle East.”

Two recent developments, one in the Black Sea and the other in the Persian Gulf, illustrate how rapidly the international order is unravelling. They also reveal something else: while Western powers are increasingly willing to discard the old rules, they are proving incapable of replacing them with a stable new order.

A few days ago, the European Union member states announced plans to establish a maritime security center in either Bulgaria or Romania. On paper, the initiative has been presented as enhancing regional security, but in practice, it points towards the gradual militarization of the Black Sea and the erosion of the Montreux Convention, the 1936 agreement that has limited the presence of non-Black Sea naval powers in the region for nearly 90 years.

At almost the same time, the confrontation between Iran and the United States has entered a new phase. Tehran has reinstated its control over the Strait of Hormuz following renewed hostilities, and Washington has responded by announcing a naval blockade of the Islamic Republic. Once again, one of the world’s most important trade routes is being held hostage to geopolitical confrontation.

These two cases may appear unrelated, yet, in reality, they reflect the same trend in the collapse of long-established international arrangements, without any credible replacement.

As Western European governments prepare for what they increasingly describe as a long-term confrontation with Russia, they are showing little interest in preserving the security architecture inherited from the twentieth century. The Montreux Convention is becoming another casualty of this shift.

Ankara, despite enjoying special rights under the convention, is unlikely to resist. As a NATO member, Türkiye ultimately remains bound by alliance solidarity, regardless of its diplomatic balancing. Moreover, a larger Western military presence in the Black Sea also serves Turkish interests by strengthening deterrence against Russia.

But reality is more complicated than that slogan suggests, and the situation in the Persian Gulf demonstrates why.

The US and Israeli military operation against Iran earlier this year shattered a regional balance that, while imperfect, had maintained relative stability for decades. The Persian Gulf had become one of the world’s most predictable regions for energy exports, but, today, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz is plagued by constant uncertainty, as Washington and Tehran compete to impose rival systems of control and neither side appears capable of achieving a lasting victory.

The United States undoubtedly possesses sufficient military power to dominate the region temporarily and it can deploy carrier strike groups, conduct air operations and suppress Iranian capabilities when necessary. But military superiority alone doesn’t create political order and while destroying an opponent’s ability to challenge you is one thing, establishing a durable system of rules that others accept is something entirely different.

History offers a consistent lesson in how stable international orders require more than overwhelming force.

Second, they require a hegemon prepared not only to enjoy the benefits of leadership but also to bear its costs, because stability is expensive and it demands continuous military and political investment, as well as incentives for rivals to cooperate rather than sabotage the system at every opportunity.

This is precisely where the United States now faces its greatest difficulties. The Arab monarchies continue to purchase American weapons and publicly affirm their partnerships with Washington, but they are simultaneously expanding relations with China and Russia while keeping channels open with Iran. 

None wishes to organize its foreign policy solely around American priorities, nor do these governments see today’s United States as an entirely dependable patron.

For more than a year, Donald Trump’s administration has centered its foreign policy on ‘America First’ as Washington openly questions long-term commitments, pressures European allies to shoulder more of their own defense burden, and increasingly dismisses international institutions that previous American administrations once championed.

That objective failed, and as a result, Washington now finds itself in an increasingly uncomfortable position where it has strengthened its ties with several Gulf monarchies but still lacks any realistic strategy for dealing with Iran itself.

Absent a willingness to commit to a major ground war or to undertake the enormous costs of rebuilding a regional political order, the United States can do little more than manage an unstable equilibrium.

The result is a cycle of recurring crises rather than lasting stability, and this exposes the central weakness of attempts to rely on military power alone.

The contemporary world no longer resembles the nineteenth century, when a handful of European empires could impose political orders across vast regions of the globe through force and maintain them for generations, because today’s international environment is far more fragmented. Regional powers possess greater autonomy, alternative partnerships are readily available, and no outside power enjoys the resources necessary to dominate indefinitely. That’s why brute force increasingly produces only temporary successes.

Breaking rules has proved easier than writing new ones, and ultimately, military power remains an essential component of international politics, but power alone has never been sufficient. Every durable international order has required institutions and states willing to invest continuously in maintaining them, but the United States increasingly lacks both the capacity and, consequently, the desire to fulfill that role.

This only reinforces the logic behind Russia’s long-standing position that however imperfect existing international arrangements may be, they remain preferable to replacing them with an international system governed by improvisation and the law of the jungle. When established rules disappear without credible alternatives, instability becomes the norm, and everyone ultimately pays the price.

This article was first published by Vzglyad newspaper and translated and edited by the RT team.

EU regulators have fined Google €890 million ($1 billion) for anti-competitive practices, days after the European Commission confirmed that it will use another €4.6 billion fine against the US tech giant to plug its budget deficit.

Two fines were handed down on Thursday by the European Commission. Google was fined €460 million for prioritizing its own services – such as shopping and travel deals – over those of rival companies in search results, in violation of the EU’s Digital Markets Act. A second fine of €430 million punished Google for preventing app developers listed on the Google Play marketplace from steering users to cheaper offers on rival app stores.

“The DMA is to make sure we have a fair and level playing field,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said on Thursday. “With these decisions we want to make sure there is competition.”

Google, which now has 60 days to give its rivals equal prominence in search results, condemned the decision.

Earlier this month, Google lost a years-long legal battle against a separate €4.6 billion EU antitrust fine. The European Commission imposed the fine in 2018, accusing Google of abusing Android’s market dominance by requiring smartphone makers to pre-install Google Search and Chrome.

European Commission fines are paid directly into the EU’s common budget. A commission spokesperson told Politico last week that the €4.6 billion payout – equal to more than 2% of the bloc’s annual budget – would be used to alleviate the EU’s growing deficit.

With Brussels urging member states to increase their military budgets, ramping up its own defense expenditure, and borrowing tens of billions of euros to prop up Ukraine, the bloc’s budget deficit is projected to reach 3.6% of GDP by 2027. The EU has approved a €90 billion Ukraine support loan for 2026-2027, tripled its spending on its ‘European Peace Facility’ weapons fund from 2021 to 2026, and hiked its common ‘European Defense Fund’ from €590 million to €8 billion in the same period.

As the EU struggles to meet its commitments to Ukraine and build out its own, independent tech stack, fining foreign tech companies has proven to be a lucrative source of revenue. Earlier this week, the commission imposed a €550 million penalty on AliExpress over the Chinese platform’s alleged failure to stop the sale of counterfeit goods.

In total, this month’s fines to Google and AliExpress add up to €6.04 billion, more than the yearly contributions of Portugal, Finland, Greece, and Cyprus combined.