Egyik 19

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Hungary
06/03/2026 - 17:26 GMT+1  Hungary detained seven Ukrainians and opened a money laundering probe after authorities intercepted two security vans carrying cash and gold from Austria to Ukraine’. Hungarian customs and police stopped the convoy overnight in a motorway service area. According to Budapest, the transfer was supervised by a former general of Ukraine's Defence Intelligence Service, and other crew members also had military backgrounds. The Hungarian government further stated that Ukraine had previously moved $900 million, €420 million and 146 kilograms of gold through Hungary. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry ’issued a travel warning for its citizens, stating that their safety could not be guaranteed’ in Hungary. The Hungarian Tax and Customs Administration has opened a money-laundering case against the seven Ukrainian nationals arrested. The Hungarian government published photographs of the confiscated cash and gold and released a video depicting the raid, which was carried out by the Anti-Terrorist Police. "If this is genuinely a transaction between banks, the question arises as to why the banks cannot settle this by transfer between themselves – and why such a large amount of cash needs to travel at all, let alone through Hungary," Foreign Minister Szijjártó said. Today afternoon, NGOs with ties to the Hungarian government organised a demonstration outside the Ukrainian embassy in Budapest, protesting what they described as Ukrainian interference in Hungary's electoral campaign. People were seen holding banners portraying the opposition leader as a puppet of Zelenskyy. Orbán's Fidesz party has alleged that Ukraine is financing the Tisza Party in order to unseat the government and remove the vetoes it has exercised within the European Union. (Source. Euronews - based in Lyon, France)

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Hungary
05/03/2026 - 15:50 GMT+1  Last Saturday, shortly after the US and Israel launched their strikes on Iran, PM Orbán convened his security cabinet and raised the country's terror alert by one level. Then, today, the prime minister met with his anti-terrorism coordination committee and ordered border checks. 'Terrorist organisations with Middle Eastern origins have established themselves and grown stronger in Western Europe. We expect them to activate terrorist cells across Europe. We will protect the peace and security of Hungary in this situation as well. We have therefore strengthened controls on foreign passenger traffic arriving in Hungary," he announced. Orbán also ordered soldiers and police to protect Hungary's key energy infrastructure last week, citing 'fears' of an attack from Ukraine. Hungary is currently blocking the European Union's €90 billion loan package to Ukraine over the Druzhba pipeline dispute. Budapest accuses Kyiv of political blackmail. (Source: Euronews - based in Lyon, France)

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Ukraine
Thursday 05 March 2026 16:43 GMT  Zelenskyy says he would rather not repair a damaged pipeline that carries Russian oil to Central Europe. 'This is my position,' Zelenskyy said. 'Zelenskyy added' that he hopes one person will not block the EU's 90-billion euro loan which Ukraine needs to continue funding its defense against Russia's invasion. The government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has blocked a 90-billion euro ($106 billion) EU loan to Ukraine over the interruption to oil shipments, and vowed to veto any further pro-Ukraine decisions until oil flows resume. PM Orbán has claimed that Ukraine and Zelenskyy seek to bankrupt Hungary, and warned voters that if he loses the election, the country would become directly involved in the conflict with Russia. "We have political and financial tools, and with these we will compel them, unconditionally and preferably as soon as possible, to reopen the Druzhba pipeline,” Orbán said. “I will make no pact, there will be no compromise. We will defeat them,” speaking to an economic forum today, Orbán said. (Source: The Independent - United Kingdom)
by 'Spike. Associated Press writer Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine contributed.'

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Hungary
03/03/2026 - 17:59  In a new letter, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán asked European Commission President der Leyen to increase political pressure on Ukraine to restart crude deliveries through the Soviet-era pipeline. He also asked the executive to enforce relevant provisions of the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement, which is being breached by the interruption. "There is no technical or operational reason that would prevent the pipeline from reverting to normal operations immediately," Orbán told der Leyen in the letter dated 3 March and shared on social media. ’The lack of willingness on the side of Ukraine to reopen the Druzhba pipeline is due to political reasons, with the intention to interfere in the ongoing Hungarian election campaign,’ he continues. "We cannot accept foreign interference in our democratic processes, and we will repel all such attempts." According to Ukrainian authorities, the section of the pipeline that runs through Lviv 'was attacked and set aflame by Russian drones' on 27 January. 'We continue with our contacts' with Ukrainians, we work with all member states concerned by this, notably Slovakia and Hungary, a Commission spokesperson said today. "Our priority remains the security of supply of our member states." In the letter, Orbán says that his proposal for a fact-finding mission to the 'damaged' pipeline has been rejected, and diplomatic efforts have apparently reached an impasse. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has also called for the mission to go ahead. The Commission said 'it has not taken part in any fact-finding mission' nor has there been a request ’from Ukraine’. It has indicated it could participate 'if Kyiv gives permission'. The EU delegation in Kyiv has made overtures to visit the site of the incident ’but has not received a positive answer’. ’If European leaders ask us to do this, we must understand what the price of doing so is,’ Zelenskyy said at a press briefing yesterday. In an interview with Corriere della Sera published today, Zelenskyy doubled down, saying Orbán is ’of little value’. Kyiv needs a fresh injection of foreign aid in early April, leaving Brussels with a tight timeline. (Source: Euronews - Brussels, Belgium)

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Hungary
26 February 2026  The patterns and information identified by the Sovereignty Protection Office indicate that preparations for a disinformation operation are being coordinated from international political pressure centres, with the aim of questioning the legality of the elections in Hungary. Based on the information uncovered so far by the Sovereignty Protection Office, a high level of organisation, a concrete Brussels-based financial background, and a potential escalation strategy can be identified – all elements of a political pressure model. A narrative has already begun to be constructed that accuses the government of electoral fraud and suggests that it would not hand over power even in the event of defeat. As part of this operation, organisations financed from abroad are recruiting and training activists. Their objective is to mobilise these activists if the outcome of the election does not align with the expectations of the financiers or supporters. Through reports originating from polling stations and studies intended for international forums, they seek to challenge the legitimacy of the election. In order to intensify pressure, preparations for demonstrations and unrest have also begun. The stakes of the 2026 election are the preservation of Hungary’s sovereignty, a fundamental element of which is the exercise of popular sovereignty. The Sovereignty Protection Office draws attention to the fact that anyone who establishes, leads, or participates in an organisation whose aim is to alter Hungary’s constitutional order by force or by threatening force commits a criminal offense. Two political pressure organisations, largely financed by the European Commission, are attempting to influence the April parliamentary elections through a disinformation narrative. The Berlin-based Democracy Reporting International (DRI) and Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF), on the basis of the EU’s Digital Services Act, sought to enforce their right of access to data against the social media platform X outside of court proceedings. The financial background of the two political pressure organisations raises the possibility that the European Commission may be seeking to exert influence over political processes in Hungary through them. In recent years, Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF) has indirectly received several hundred thousand euros in EU funding through a pass-through organisation called Digital Freedom Fund. The European Commission supported Democracy Reporting International (DRI) directly already in the early years of its operation, and with substantial amounts. Between 2014 and 2023, it received more than EUR 10 million in additional EU funding, mainly for ’good governance projects’ outside the EU. In the past two years, it has been awarded a further EUR 4 million from the Horizon Europe and Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values Programme (CERV) programs. Other international political pressure centres are also involved in shaping the disinformation narrative built around alleged ’rule of law deficiencies,’ aimed at questioning the legality of the Hungarian elections. For example, The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), which has significant lobbying influence in Brussels, stated in its April 2025 analysis titled Safeguarding Hungary’s 2026 Elections that the 2026 vote ’will be neither free nor fair,’ and that Orbán ’may commit widespread irregularities’ on election day in order to tilt the outcome in his favour. The Unhack Democracy, a Brussels-based organisation has been working since 2018 to undermine Hungarian voters’ trust in democratic processes and in the lawful conduct of election. Political pressure organisations already began recruiting and training vote-counting activists last autumn in preparation for the April elections. The 20K Movement has been revived, and since 2025 its activists have – based on prior developments – presumably been working for the Tisza Party. The movement led by Jámbor, a member of parliament from Párbeszéd, Szövetség az Igazságos Változásért (SZÍV), is likewise recruiting vote counters for the Tisza Party. The Szabad Magyar Nagykövetség (Freie Ungarische Botschaft – FUB) is, by its own admission, a group engaged in political pressure activities, with the declared objective of 'overthrowing the Hungarian government from abroad.' The organisation had already held discussions on cooperation with Korányi during the previous parliamentary election campaign. The Sovereignty Protection Office has, in several of its reports, examined Korányi’s role within the international pressure network and presented his involvement in the 2022 illegal campaign financing scandal. FUB’s long-term plan is explicitly to participate in the campaign of the 2026 parliamentary elections as part of a network together with cooperating foreign organisations. Preparations for this included a conference held in Berlin on October 22, where activists who had played key roles in mass protests in Ukraine, Poland, and Serbia shared their experiences regarding the organisation and coordination of unrest. The identity of the speakers at the event points to the organisation’s objectives. They are professional protest organisers who, in their own countries, have already demonstrated how to cause disruption, create instability, and undermine systems – allegedly using foreign funding and acting in line with foreign interests. Jakubovszka was an activist in the Euromaidan uprising, which resulted in more than one hundred casualties. She is also a board member of Vitsche, a Ukrainian diaspora organisation. Torlo is an activist of the far-left organisation CK13 based in Novi Sad, a coordinator within the Serbian pressure network, and one of the organisers of the 2025 protests. Machowski was an activist and prominent figure in the October 2022 protest series that helped bring Donald Tusk to power, overthrowing Poland’s sovereigntist government and advancing Brussels’ interests. International examples and the information presented in this report serve as a warning that, during election periods, protecting sovereignty in modern democracies primarily requires early detection, as well as increased analysis and assessment by state authorities. (Source: Sovereignty Protection Office)
See also: Külföldről finanszírozott nyomásgyakorló szervezetek arra készülnek, hogy megkérdőjelezzék a magyar választások eredményét. (Forrás: (Szuverenitásvédelmi Hivatal)

.6 6 8 23:03

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A felmorzsolódás kegyetlen játszmája - Ukrajna 

Resperger, biztonságpolitikai szakértő, ezredes, egyetemi tanár

 elemző összefoglalója

11:03-tól.

(Forrás: YouTube / Mandiner)

61 461 megtekintés

Kulcsszavak a fent említett szóbeli összefoglalóban:

Ausztria     Donyec-medence    Egyesült Államok     Egyesült Királyság    Európa    Európai Unió    Észak-Korea   Fehéroroszország    fénykép    Franciaország    Irán    Izrael    Kína    NATO    Németország    Oroszország    Ukrajna    Venezuela

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Magyarország
2026. 01. 14.  Brüsszelből minden egyes magyarországi választásba beavatkoznak, most pedig minden eddiginél durvább beavatkozás várható Brüsszel részéről, a frissen kiszivárgott iratok is tanúsítják - írta Szijjártó külgazdasági és külügyminiszter szerdán az X-en. Brüsszelnek olyan kormányok kellenek, amelyek igent mondanak neki: igent mondanak a háborúra, a migrációra és a genderre, tette hozzá. "Magyarország szuverén nemzeti kormánya viszont nemet mond Brüsszelnek: nemet mondunk a háborúra, a migrációra és a genderre" - húzta alá. A tét is minden eddiginél nagyobb: bele akarnak vinni minket a háborúba, a migránsokat pedig be akarják hozni ide. "S tudják, hogy mindezekre csak egy brüsszeli bábkormány mond igent. Mi viszont nemet mondunk Brüsszelnek, akármilyen nyomást is helyeznek ránk!" - szögezte le. Kiszivárgott iratok szerint Benedek, az Európai Bizottság egyik tisztviselője már 2019-ben, titokban a magyar kormánnyal szembeni ellenzéki mozgalom koordinálásán dolgozott. Nawfal politikai kommentátor azt írta friss X-posztjában, hogy kiszivárgott dokumentumok szerint Benedek 2019-től kezdve csendben azon dolgozott, hogy megszervezze és összehangolja az Orbán Viktor elleni ellenzéket. 'Nem metaforikus ellenállásról van szó. Valódi struktúráról. NGO-k, szakszervezetek, finanszírozási csatornák, választási menetrendek. A teljes kezdőkészlet' - sorolta. 'Az illető, Benedek, az uniós intézményekben ült, miközben egy részletes forgatókönyvet vázolt fel tüntetésekre, üzenetalkotásra, adománygyűjtésre - sőt olyasmire is, ami nagyon hasonlít egy árnyékkormányra' - folytatta. A korai próbálkozás elbukott. 'A párt, amelynek felépítésében segített, csúnyán leszerepelt a választásokon. De a kézikönyv nem tűnt el. Csak kivárt. Aztán hirtelen megjelenik egy teljesen új szereplő, Magyar a semmiből. Teljes nyugati médiatámogatás, komoly pénzből és profin felépített kampány, szándékosan homályos ideológia, határozottan EU-párti hangvétel - és üstökösszerű emelkedés a közvélemény-kutatásokban' - tette hozzá. Az EU nemcsak nyomást gyakorol a kormányokra. 'Aktívan megkerüli' őket, ha nem működnek együtt - összegzett. (Forrás: Kormány / MTI)

Hungary
Tuesday, Jan 13, 2026 - 09:30 AM  EU official Benedek plotted to 'organize resistance' against Hungary's Orbán, files show. (Source: Zero Hedge - registered in Bulgaria, headquarters in U.S. / The Grayzone - a US-based entity)

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United States
Nov. 28, 2025 9:00 pm ET  Three powerful businessmen - two Americans and a Russian - in Miami Beach last month, were privately charting a path to bring Russia’s $2 trillion economy in from the cold - with American businesses first in line to beat European competitors to the dividends. Witkoff was hosting Dmitriev, who had largely shaped the document they were revising. The two businessmen shared President Trump’s long-held approach to geopolitics. The borders matter less than the business. Dmitriev was pushing a plan for U.S. companies to tap the roughly $300 billion of Russian central bank assets, frozen in Europe, for U.S.-Russian investment projects and a U.S.-led reconstruction of Ukraine. U.S. and Russian companies could join to exploit the vast mineral wealth in the Arctic. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, had arrived from his nearby home on an island. His investment fund, Affinity Partners, drew billion-dollar investments from the Arab monarchies whose conflict with Israel he had helped mediate. The picture that emerges is a remarkable story of business leaders working outside the traditional lines of diplomacy to cement a peace agreement with business deals. Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign-wealth fund and Putin’s handpicked negotiator, arrived at the White House on April 2 and presented a list of multibillion-dollar business projects the two governments could pursue together. In April, Dmitriev welcomed Witkoff to the St. Petersburg presidential library for another three-hour meeting with Putin. Witkoff took his own notes, relying on a Kremlin translator, then briefed the White House from the U.S. Embassy. There were no limits to what two longtime adversaries could achieve, Dmitriev had argued for months. Earlier this year, Exxon Mobil met with Russia’s biggest state energy company, Rosneft, to discuss returning to the massive Sakhalin gas fields. “We can transition investment trust into a political role,” he said in an unpublished interview that month. That same month, European national security advisers planned to meet Witkoff in London to integrate him into their peace process. But he was busy with his other portfolio - negotiating a cease-fire in Gaza - and couldn’t make it. Afterward, one European official asked Witkoff to start speaking with allies over the secure fixed line Europe’s heads of state use to conduct sensitive diplomatic conversations. Witkoff demurred, as he traveled too much to use the cumbersome system. Dmitriev and Witkoff meanwhile were chatting regularly by phone about increasingly ambitious proposals. In late July, Bakanov, the head of Russia’s Roscosmos space agency, visited NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston - the first such visit since 2018 - as well as the spacecraft manufacturing facilities of Boeing and SpaceX. Their rival space industries, which raced one another during the Cold War, could even pursue a joint mission to Mars with Musk’s SpaceX. Many in the Trump White House, key presidential advisers see an opportunity for American investors to become the commercial guarantors of peace in a new postwar Russia. Elsewhere, a cast of businessmen close to the Trump administration have been looking to position themselves as new economic links between the U.S. and Russia. Trump donor Lynch, the Miami-based investor, had been asking the U.S. government to allow him to bid on the sabotaged Nord Stream Pipeline 2 if it came up for auction in a Swiss bankruptcy proceeding. Lynch, who in 2022 was given a license by Treasury to complete the acquisition of the Swiss subsidiary of Russia’s Sberbank, had been seeking a license for the pipeline since the Biden administration, but in April dialed up his lobbying efforts by hiring McDowell, a friend of Trump Jr. Lynch, pays $600,000 over six months of this year to the lobbyist’s firm who is helping him seek a Treasury Department license to buy the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from a Russian state-owned company. Beach, a college friend of Trump Jr. and campaign donor to his father, has been in talks to acquire a stake in a Russian Arctic gas project if it is released from sanctions. He was in talks to acquire 9.9% of an Arctic LNG project with Novatek, Russia’s second-largest natural gas producer - which is partly owned by Timchenko - if the U.S. and U.K. remove sanctions on it. In a statement, Beach said that his company, America First Global, “actively seeks investment opportunities that strengthen American interests around the world.” He is “extremely grateful” for the efforts Witkoff and others are making to end the war in Ukraine. Elliott Investment Management eyed buying a stake in a pipeline that carries Russian natural gas into Europe. In secret talks, Exxon Mobil Senior Vice President Chapman met Rosneft boss Sechin, Putin’s former private secretary, in the Qatari capital Doha, to discuss Exxon’s return to the massive Sakhalin project. The U.S. sanctioned in October Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil producer to increase pressure on Moscow, prompting the company to put its overseas assets up for sale. Exxon, billionaire investor Boehly and others have explored buying assets owned by Lukoil. By dangling multibillion-dollar rare-earth and energy deals, Moscow ’could reshape the economic map of Europe - while driving a wedge between America and its traditional allies’. In the days after Alaska, a European intelligence agency distributed a hard-copy report in a manila envelope to some of the continent’s most senior national security officials, ’who were shocked by the contents” „Inside were details of the commercial and economic plans the Trump administration had been pursuing with Russia”, including jointly mining rare earths in the Arctic. A question for history will be whether Putin entertained this approach in the interest of ending the war, or as a ploy to pacify the U.S. while prolonging a conflict he believes is his place in history to slowly, ineluctably win. Some of his most-trusted friends, sanctioned billionaires from Putin’s St. Petersburg hometown -  Kremlin-linked businessmen Timchenko, Kovalchuk and the Rotenberg brothers - have sent representatives to quietly meet American companies to explore rare-earth mining and energy deal. More recently, they have been offering U.S. counterparts gas concessions in the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as potentially four other locations. Russia has also mentioned rare-earth mining opportunities near the massive nickel mines of Norilsk and in as many as six other Siberian locations that are still unexploited. Witkoff’ is confident that any settlement with Russia would benefit America broadly, not just a handful of investors. On Aug. 6, Witkoff flew to Moscow, at Putin’s invitation, for a meeting prepared only a few days in advance. Dmitriev walked him through Zaryadye Park overlooking the Moskva River, then escorted him to the Kremlin for another three-hour session with Russia’s leader. Putin mentioned wanting to meet with Trump personally. He gave Witkoff a medal, the Order of Lenin, to pass to a CIA deputy director ’whose mentally unwell son’ was killed fighting for Russia in Ukraine. The next day, Witkoff dialed into a videoconference with officials and heads of state from top European allies, and explained the outlines of what he understood to be Putin’s offer. If Ukraine would surrender the remaining roughly 20% of Donetsk province that Russia had failed to conquer, Moscow would forfeit its claim to Zaporizhzhia and Kherson provinces. The European officials were confused. On Aug. 9, Witkoff retreated to the Spanish island of Ibiza. European leaders were still seeking clarity from him, the White House, and the State Department, on what exactly Putin had offered. The Aug. 15 summit fell apart almost as soon as it began. Witkoff, Rubio, and Trump arrived on Air Force One, meeting Putin, his longtime adviser Ushakov, and Foreign Minister Lavrov. Putin launched into a 1,000-year history lecture on the unity of the Russian and Ukrainian people. Witkoff left uncertain where things stood, but hopeful talks would accelerate soon. When a version of the 28-point plan was leaked earlier this month, it drew immediate protests - keaders in Europe and Ukraine worried that Russia, after violently redrawing European borders, was being rewarded with commercial opportunities. As Western leaders convened this week to digest the plan, Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk offered a pithy summary: ’We know this is not about peace. It’s about business.' “As the President said, his national security team has made great progress over the past week, and the agreement will continue to be fine-tuned following conversations with officials from both sides,” White House spokesperson Kelly said. Witkoff has worked closely with Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio. He is set to visit Russia for the sixth time next week and will again meet Putin. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, former Lt. Gen. Kellogg, has been all but frozen out of serious talks, and last week said he is leaving the government. An administration official said that Kushner and Witkoff also met with Ukraine’s national security adviser, Umerov, in Miami and spoke with Zelensky. In October, Zelensky flew to Washington, hoping to secure long-range, U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles. By the time Zelensky arrived, Trump had spoken to Putin a day earlier and decided not to offer the Tomahawks. Instead, Witkoff encouraged Ukrainian officials to ask Trump for a 10-year tariff exemption. It would supercharge their economy, he said. (Source: The Wall Street Journal - U.S.)

.5 11 30 01:44

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Orbán Viktor miniszterelnök és Donald Trump amerikai elnök sajtótájékoztatója Washingtonban

- Video - 

(Forrás: YouTube / Magyarország Kormánya)

22 543 megtekintés

Kulcsszavak:

Barátság kőolajvezeték    Egyesült Államok    Európa    Európai Unió    Horvátország    Kína    kommunista    Magyarország    NATO    Oroszország    Románia    Spanyolország    Török Áramlat    Ukrajna   ünnep    video

.5 11 10 00:14

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President Trump Participates in a Bilateral Lunch with the Prime Minister of Hungary

- Video -

(Source: The White House)

Keywords:

China    communist    Croatia    Druzhba pipeline    Europe    European Union    holyday    Hungary    NATO    Romania    Russia    Spain    TurkStream    Ukraine    United States    video

,5 11 9 23:37

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Németország jövőjéről

- video -

A Világnézet című műsor vendége Bauer, az MCC Magyar–Német Intézetének igazgatója.

A beszélgetés középpontjában Németország aktuális kül- és belpolitikai folyamatai állnak,

különös tekintettel Friedrich Merz nyilatkozataira, az SPD kijevi látogatására, migrációra.

Bauer elemzései őszinték, provokatívak és mélyrehatóak – Németország jövőjéről.

(Forrás: YouTube - Egyesült Államok / Hit Rádió - Magyarország)

7356 megtekintés

Kulcsszavak:    Argentína     Ausztrália      autonómia      Balkán     Egyesült Államok     Európa     Európai Unió     Finnország     Földközi-tenger     Ghána     Grúzia     Hit Rádió     Horvátország     Izrael     Írország     Litvánia     Magyarország     Mathias Corvinus Collegium     Németország     Oroszország     Szenegál     Szíria     Ukrajna     video

.5 8 26 16:52

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 "A Pride fecsegő felszínének káprázatos látványtechnikája alatt a hallgatag mély
e felszínnél sokkal izgalmasabb rétegei nyílhatnak meg azok előtt, akik elegánsan elemelkednek az anyázás-technika hétköznapi világától.

A legmélyebb szint egyszerűen az, hogy a mindenségben a rend uralkodik,
és minden, ami szembe megy ezzel az előbb vagy utóbb „széthull darabokra”.

A második szint, hogy a világot irányító globális élősködő szándékosan rugdalja lefelé
a létezés entrópikus lejtőjén az emberiséget, amely így sokkal könnyebben kifosztható.

A harmadik szint, hogy nem a pride vagyis büszkeség a lényeg számukra, hanem az,
hogy (lévén a büszkeség ellentéte a szégyen) szégyenként élje át létét mindenki, aki nem „más”.

És végül a negyedik réteg az, hogy minden politikai erő a saját politikai pecsenyéjét süti a Pride tüzén."

Pride (Pénz, Pin@ & Politika), avagy a büszkeség és szégyen diszkrét dialektikája

Bogártól

- Video -

https://tinyurl.com/yv2wwrwt

 (Forrás: YouTube / Egy Bogár Naplója)

16 980 megtekintés

Kulcsszavak:    Európai Bizottság    Európai Parlament    Európai Unió    film    Föld    Magyarország    video

.5 7 3 00:55

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Trump jött... Szakértői eszmecsere

(Forrás: YouTube / Mandiner):

- Video -

197 010 megtekintés

Kulcsszavak:

Afganisztán    Ausztria    Bulgária    covid19    Csehország    Egyesült Államok    Európa    Európai Bizottság    Európai Parlament    Európai Unió    Északi Áramlat 2    film    Franciaország    Gáza    Görögország    Hollandia    Irak    Irán    Izrael    Jordánia    Katar    Kína    Lengyelország    Libanon    Magyarország    NATO    Németország    Oroszország    Pakisztán    Szerbia    Szíria    Szlovákia    Törökország    Ukrajna    video

.6 3 9 / 6 2 25

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Sajtótájékoztató Weidel-lel, az AfD elnökével

- video -

Source:

YouTube / ATV

26 419 views 

Forrás:

YouTube / Orbán Viktor

42 114 megtekintés

Kulcsszavak:  Egyesült Államok    Európa    Európai Bíróság    Európai Unió    Föld    Franciaország    Kína    kommunista    kommunizmus    Lengyelország    Magyarország    Német Demokratikus Köztársaság    Németország    Oroszország    Schengeni Egyezmény    Ukrajna    Vatikán

.5 2 13 13:03

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Európai Bizottság
2025. január 29.  Az Európai Bizottság CERV programja a Soros-szervezetek brüsszeli lába A Szuverenitásvédelmi Hivatal megvizsgálta a Soros-hálózat brüsszeli finanszírozását. A Hivatal jelentéséből kiderül, hogy az Európai Bizottság az amerikai befolyásszerző hálózat tagjai számára az elmúlt években lehetővé tette, hogy közvetlenül Brüsszelből jussanak működési forrásokhoz. A civil szektornak elkülönített Európai Uniós támogatási pénzek megszerzése érdekében jelentősen átalakították a Polgárok, egyenlőség, jogok és értékek program (CERV) pályázati keretrendszerét, méghozzá a Soros-hálózat érdekeinek megfelelően. A CERV programot tehát valójában a politikai nyomásgyakorlás finanszírozására használják. Az Európai Bizottság 2021-ben indította el a CERV programot, melynek keretein belül civil szervezetek közvetlenül pályázhattak támogatásokra. A program forrásait a Soros-hálózat saját céljaira kívánta fordítani. Ennek érdekében Soros és szervezetei komoly lobbitevékenységet végeztek Brüsszelben, és elérték, hogy a források döntő többségét ők használhassák fel. Hazánkban a program pénzeinek nagy részét a magyar civilek helyett a Soros-hálózathoz tartozó politikai nyomásgyakorló szervezetek kapják: a teljes összeg háromnegyede a hálózathoz került, annak ellenére, hogy csupán az összes szervezet egynegyedét teszik ki. A Hivatal saját weboldalán listát tett közzé ezen szervezetekről. A támogatás formájában az elmúlt két évben megszerzett közel 5 milliárd forintból a politikai nyomásgyakorló szervezetek megpróbálták a megrendelő érdekeinek megfelelően tematizálni a nyilvánosságot, szakértői véleményeknek álcázott dezinformációt terjesztettek, valamint a Bizottság által renitensnek kikiáltott országgal szemben nemzetközi nyomásgyakorlást folytattak. Ennek Magyarország szempontjából az eddigi legsúlyosabb következménye, hogy a jelenlegi Európai Uniós költségvetési ciklusban a hazánkat megillető közel 22 milliárd euro-s keretnek mostanáig csak a töredékéhez jutott hozzá. A feltárt információkból egyértelműen látszik, hogy a Soros-hálózat megszállta a brüsszeli intézményrendszert. A brüsszeli pénzalap nem az európai polgárok, hanem a Soros-hálózat érdekét szolgálja. A magyar adófizetőknek jelenleg ráadásul semmilyen ráhatásuk nincs arra, hogy mire költik el valójában a pénzeket, melyek magyar közpénzt is tartalmaznak. Mindez súlyosan sérti a tagállamok szuverenitását, és ellentétes nemcsak a magyar, hanem az európai emberek érdekeivel is.        Az Európai Bizottság CERV Programja - Így nyitotta meg Brüsszel a pénzcsapot a Soros-hálózat finanszírozására. Összefoglaló: Soros 2015-től kezdve az Európai Unió legmagasabb szintű döntéshozóival tárgyalt. Három fő célja volt. Az első, hogy az amerikai liberális-progresszív elit agendáit az európai nagypolitika részévé tegye. A második, hogy az ennek ellenálló tagállamokat az Európai Unió eszközeivel is a végrehajtásukra kényszerítse. A harmadik, hogy a brüsszeli intézményrendszert megszállás alatt tartsa, forrásait eltérítse: belső, uniós finanszírozással, az Európai Uniós szabályok által védve folytassa a hálózatépítést, a tagállami kontroll kizárásával. A transzatlanti érdekhálózat keresztülvitte akaratát az Európai Uniós politikai eliten: több száz képviselőt korrumpáltak, az Európai Parlament legnagyobb informális képviselő testületét hozták létre, a fő döntéshozó, doktrínaalkotó és végrehajtó testületeket pedig elfoglalták, hűséges embereikkel töltötték meg. Megtörtént az átállás. Brüsszel ma a hídfőállása ennek a globalista-progresszív elitnek. Magyarország az utóbbi másfél évtizedben lépéseket tett azért, hogy felhívja a magyar állampolgárok figyelmét a külföldi érdekű politikai nyomásgyakorló szervezetekre és tevékenységükre, illetve megszüntesse e szervezetek szuverenitást sértő gyakorlatát. Ennek következménye az, hogy hazánk tíz éve folyamatos nyomás alatt áll, befolyásolási kísérletek célpontja a bel- és a külpolitika, a nemzetgazdaság és a társadalom egésze. A Soros-hálózat magyar tagjai központi szerepet játszanak Brüsszel megszállásában, az európai civil pénzek elosztása feletti kontroll megszerzésében. Ez az új rendszer jelenleg is alakulóban van, finanszírozási rendszere – az átláthatatlanság biztosítása érdekében – ma is átszervezés alatt áll, a rendelkezésre álló európai források folyamatosan nőnek. A tagországok szuverenitását veszély fenyegeti, különösen Magyarországét, amellyel a Soros-hálózat és Brüsszel elrettentő példát akar mutatni a többieknek. (Forrás: Szuverenitásvédelmi Hivatal - Magyarország)

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Europe

France
10/09/2026 - 14:39  Mallet, Financial Times Senior Editor interprets the emerging tensions between Le Pen and Bardella as more than a clash of personalities. They reveal a deeper struggle over the political future of France's ’far-right’ National Rally is becoming as they find themselves in prime position in their hunt to capture the French presidency. Bardella is formally president of the party and has developed his own political constituency, particularly among younger voters and parts of the business community. Yet Mallet argues that Le Pen continues to exercise the decisive ideological and strategic authority, dictates party line. (Source: France 24)

10 September 2026  Today, at the first International Space Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, French President Macron called on the EU to assume stronger political leadership over its space policy, warning that Europe remains fragile in a sector increasingly linked to sovereignty, security and economic competitiveness. 'Europe' should be capable of launching several hundred metric tons into orbit annually at competitive costs, he stressed. 'Europe' cannot invest billions in these rockets and then purchase launches only sporadically, Macron said. The bloc should pursue genuine technological independence and retain the ability to choose its partners for critical capabilities, he said. European Commission President der Leyen echoed Macron's call for greater cooperation, warning that ’Europe's current strengths’ do not guarantee its future position to remain at the forefront, adding that the EU is developing a 'European' Space Shield to strengthen defenses and address critical capability gaps. She also highlighted the growing security dimension of space, citing threats including signal jamming, spoofing and cyberattacks on satellite networks. The global space economy is expected to nearly triple from around $630 billion today to $1.8 trillion by 2035, der Leyen added. She said the Commission had proposed €131 billion ($152 billion) for defense, security ’and space’ under the EU's next long-term budget, five times the funding currently available. Macron announced that France would invest €20 billion through 2030 in the space sector, along with an additional €40 million through the French space agency CNES for an observation program. He also warned that space is no longer a sanctuary, calling for stronger international governance. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)

Germany
10 September 2026  The anti-immigration AfD won a landslide in Sunday’s Saxony-Anhalt election with 43.8% of vote and 39 of 83 seats in the Magdeburg state parliament - three short of the 42 needed to govern alone. The party’s top candidate, Siegmund, claimed a mandate to govern and said he would soon invite other parties to talks on possible coalition scenarios. “We are fully aware of the potential mandate to govern; consequently, we have reached out to all parliamentary groups in the Saxony-Anhalt state legislature - extending a hand to everyone,” he said. He said he is seeking to form a government that is as stable as possible and commands the broadest possible support. The conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the Left Party rejected exploratory talks, saying they would not cooperate with a party ’the state domestic intelligence service has classified as a proven right-wing extremist organization’. Siegmund told a Magdeburg news conference today that the AfD would hold talks with the BSW and with individual lawmakers from other parties in the coming days. Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) will hold talks with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) in Saxony-Anhalt, becoming the only party in the new Magdeburg state parliament to accept an invitation from Sunday’s election winner - a BSW spokesperson said the state board voted unanimously yesterday evening to speak with the AfD. BSW’s regional leader Schulze told reporters the party is willing to talk to all parties, as it said before the election. He described other parties’ refusal to engage as poor political conduct and not a good sign for the democratic culture. The ’left-populist’ BSW entered the Magdeburg state parliament for the first time with 5.3% of vote and five seats. Party founder Sahra Wagenknecht has ruled out a formal coalition with the AfD but has not categorically excluded other forms of political support. In a social media post, Wagenknecht said a majority in Saxony-Anhalt wants change and that the BSW would talk with the AfD about motions on shared priorities - affordable energy and a restart of Russian gas via the Nord Stream pipeline, reform of public broadcasting, and opposition to arms deliveries to Ukraine. She said she wants a cross-party premier standing for a political new start who must also be acceptable to the AfD and its voters. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)

10 September 2026  The German government misappropriated more than a third of the new debt intended for defense spending in 2025 to finance other areas of the federal budget, an economic report revealed today. The Ifo Institute's report detailed how Germany utilized its 2025 defense debt exemption; Hoeslinger, the author of the study, stated that the state took on €28.6 billion ($33.2 billion) in additional debt under the exemption. Hoeslinger found that €11 billion of these funds failed to generate additional defense spending, resulting in a 38.5% diversion rate. The researcher explained that this mechanism created financial leeway in the tax-financed core budget for other nonmilitary purposes. The institute revealed that the government allocated €900 million from this defense exemption to the federal highway company Autobahn GmbH. The report noted that the largest legitimate defense spending increase went toward ammunition procurement, with a surge of €2.32 billion. Hoeslinger highlighted that spending on military research and development remained low at €883.8 million, making up only 1.2% of the total exemption expenses. The author warned that this concentration on conventional equipment ignored future-oriented capabilities like unmanned systems and cyber defense. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)

10 September 2026  Germany held a nationwide warning day today, testing sirens, smartphone alerts and other channels used to warn the public in a crisis or disaster. Alerts were sent via television, radio, smartphones, Cell Broadcast, warning apps and digital city information boards. Sirens and other local channels such as loudspeaker vans were also used in places that took part. Interior Minister Dobrindt said the exercise showed the systems work, warning channels 'function reliably' and are an important part of high-performing civil protection. Tuengler, president of the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK), called the sixth warning day ’a success’. The BBK is asking residents to report their experiences on its website. The results will be evaluated scientifically and used to improve the systems. Officials say the systems are needed for scenarios ranging from natural disasters to 'a military attack on Germany'. The first nationwide warning day in September 2020 was marred by failures, and the drill was paused for a year. It has been held annually since 2022. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)

Moldova
(Thursday, 10 September 2026)  A plane carrying Zelensky was delayed as he prepared to fly to attend a state funeral in Oslo. Zelensky and his wife Olena were on the jet at Chisinau, Moldova's capital, ahead of Wednesday's funeral of Norway's King Harald V when an unmanned aircraft crossed over the Moldovan border. The drone prompted an immediate airspace shutdown and Zelensky's plane was left on the runway for around an hour before it could take off. The flight was only authorised after it was confirmed the drone had come down 160km away, at Mihailenii Vechi. Asked by reporters today, the Kremlin said there had been no threat to the jet. Zelensky's plane had been due to take off at around 16:30 (14:30 GMT) from Chisinau International Airport. But Moldovan government spokesman Ciorici told the BBC that Moldova had closed its airspace after noticing a Russian drone had entered it from the direction of Ukraine. ’Three departures and four arrivals were delayed as a result,’ he added. "After 17:20 (15:20 GMT), the authorities confirmed that the drone had come down and exploded... some 160 kilometres from Chisinau International Airport." Zelensky and his wife arrived safely in Oslo on Tuesday evening, where he held talks with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and other officials about military aid. They joined other dignitaries for King Harald's funeral before flying on to Iceland for a brief visit and then to Canada for further talks. Støre had told public broadcaster NRK: ’His flight was almost hit by a drone when it was taking off from Moldova.’ But a Ukraine source told Agence France Presse the risk had been ’exaggerated’. Ukraine has closed its airspace to civilian aircraft since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022 and Zelensky does not use air travel in Ukraine due to the continuing threat from Russian strikes. He typically rides by train to Poland before taking a flight to countries he is visiting. Russian drones have been targeting Ukraine with increasing intensity in recent weeks and an attack on a Moldovan border crossing at Starokozache killed two people overnight into Tuesday. (Source: BBC - United Kingdom)

Russia
Thursday 10 September 2026 12:35 BST  Russia has sent bone fragments from a legendary Russian prince to boost morale for its soldiers fighting against Ukraine. The Russian Orthodox Church, which has backed Putin throughout the conflict, said it had dispatched a fragment the medieval Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy’s right hand to Donetsk, one of four regions Putin ⁠said he had incorporated into Russia in 2022. Tiny fragments from the sword hand of of Donskoy, who won a famous victory over the Mongols, have been sent. The sarcophagus of the Grand Prince, who died in 1389 and is revered by Russians for defeating the Mongol Golden Horde at the 1380 Battle of Kulikovo, was uncovered this summer during restoration work at Moscow's Cathedral of the Archangel inside the Kremlin. Russian military and church officials presented the discovery as a fortuitous find that could help Russian forces prevail in Ukraine. Putin personally inspected what experts said were the prince's well-preserved remains in August, hailing them as an absolutely unique and marvellous discovery which reinforced the foundations of Russian history. Referring to Donskoy as the holy commander, the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church said part of his remains had been sent to the front to stand invisibly shoulder-to-shoulder with Russian troops. The relic, held in a small ornate casket beneath toughened glass, will be shown to Russian combat units along the more than 1,000-km front line, it said. Donskoy was declared a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1988. Donskoy's relics were carried through the streets of Moscow at the weekend in a huge citywide Orthodox procession marking the Feast of the Moscow Saints in September 6. The carefully choreographed effort to use his remains in a public relations exercise to boost patriotism and morale comes ahead of a parliamentary election later this month. The tour comes as Russian forces seek full control of the Donetsk region. At a ceremony at a World War Two memorial in Donetsk on Tuesday, Kiriyenko, Putin's first deputy Kremlin chief of staff, joined military commanders and the Russian-installed regional head in kissing the relic and making the sign of the cross as a priest read a prayer. Elsewhere, commanders have presented Donskoy's remains as evidence that God is on Russia's side. The Defence Ministry yesterday released footage of troops in the Sverdlovsk region attending a church service carrying icons and Orthodox flags, alongside an interview with a commander who said the relics would support Russia's victory. Critics questioned why Donskoy's remains whose location was broadly known for decades, were recovered and venerated only now, 38 years after he was declared a saint. A state embroiled in war will try all institutions, including religious ones, to participate in it. Diplomatic efforts to end the war have yet to yield a breakthrough. (Source: The Independent - United Kingdom)

September 10 2026 11:22:05  Russia said today that it had detained a Russian security guard working at Britain’s embassy in Moscow, alleging he was hired by Ukraine for a false flag attack on the U.K. ambassador. The FSB security service said the individual had been recruited by a Ukrainian blogger working with that country’s SBU security agency to track events and people at the British embassy and take note of their security system. Ukraine planned 'to prepare and carry out sabotage and terrorist attacks against the head of the British diplomatic mission and other diplomats, and then accuse the Russian side,' the FSB said in a statement. (Source: Hurriyet Daily News - Turkey)

Africa

Sudan
(10 September 2026) 10:30  The latest call for an arms embargo on all of Sudan by the US will strengthen transnational crime and arms diversion. Arms embargoes strengthen the illicit movement of arms and weapons through transnational criminal activities like arms smuggling and trafficking, as well as arms diversion, the transfer of arms from the intended recipient, which make embargoes ineffective. Sanctions and embargoes are only effective if there’s international cooperation to ensure enforcement and if transnational criminal networks and actors are held accountable. The ineffectiveness of sanctions and embargoes weakens international regulations and strengthens transnational criminal chains, encourage transnational crime. As the war rages on in Sudan, both factions require weapons to take over territory, protect territory, or attack the other faction. Arms diversion’s use as a form of bypassing imposed embargoes isn’t new in the region, as seen with Uganda, which has previously supplied arms to South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo through arms diversion despite a UN arms embargo, a scenario that is likely to continue in Sudan. Alternatives that are already present would only be strengthened. This comes against the backdrop of accusations of arms trafficking and smuggling from the United Arab Emirates through Chad and Libya to the Rapid Support Forces. The United Arab Emirates, which has been linked to the RSF, hasn’t been held accountable in any way despite reports by Amnesty International. With no consequences for those implicated in arms diversion or arms trafficking, this may result in increased demand for arms on an alternative path, the black market, and further highlights the link between transnational crime and foreign relations. in the face of embargoes marked by double standards, alliances, foreign relations and illicit networks are no other than a security threat. Enforcing embargoes without acknowledging the foreign policy interests and transnational crime routes that guide the supply of these arms further strengthens transnational criminal activities. In the case of Sudan, transnational criminal activities across the Libya-Chad-Sudan triangle thrive due to the insecurity across these borders in addition to the interests of global powers in this region. These include mineral trafficking from Sudan to the UAE and arms smuggling and trafficking from the UAE to Sudan through Libya and Chad. On the foreign relations front, Libya and Chad have strengthened their relations with the UAE by acting as conduits for illicit arms supply to the RSF. The current measures won’t yield positive results; instead, they are likely to strengthen the already existing transnational criminal actors. (Source: Defence 24 - Poland)
by Agaba

Arctic Ocean

10.09.26, 12:33 PM  The global network of power and telecoms cables running across seabeds is expanding each year, supported by increases in demand for data and electricity, partly driven by artificial intelligence, and some analysts say ’Europe’ remains vulnerable. In the last 25 years, it did two things simultaneously. It dramatically expanded the extent to which it relies on seabed infrastructure, and it dramatically shrunk its capacity to protect that infrastructure, said Jones, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. Cables no thicker than a garden hose, lying on the seabed or buried just below, are critical to global internet connectivity and financial transactions. Their economic and strategic importance has made them targets in past conflicts, including in the First and Second World Wars, when they were critical to delivering orders by telegraph or telephone. Two 1,400 km subsea fiber-optic cables linking Svalbard to Norway lie as deep as 2,700 metres below the sea's surface. They carry vast amounts of satellite data downloaded at the SvalSat satellite ground station, the world's largest and part of NASA's Near Space Network. Activity and suspected interference with some cables prompted new initiatives launched in January last year, including NATO's Baltic Sentry monitoring system and the UK-led Nordic Warden, bringing navies together for increased patrols of critical infrastructure. Windward data showed that at least 11 subsea cables had been damaged or cut in the Baltic from October 2023 through the end of last year. Britain and Norway disclosed in April that they had uncovered a covert Russian operation deep in Arctic waters, near the remote Svalbard archipelago. NATO allies ’caught Russian subs training to unleash a secret weapon designed to disable critical undersea cables without leaving any fingerprints’. A joint operation involving Britain, Norway and the United States tracked and confronted the Russian vessels at sea. The clandestine Russian operation, described to Reuters by two Western officials, was carried out by Moscow's GUGI undersea warfare directorate, which used deep-sea submersibles ’to simulate’ the deployment of the sophisticated and destructive technology. Britain's Defence Ministry pointed to April 9 statements acknowledging attempted covert activities in and near Norwegian and British waters by Russia's Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research. Washington and London have both imposed sanctions on the secretive directorate. Russia didn't damage any cables. The vessels were prevented from completing their exercise and eventually left the area. British and Norwegian officials took their findings to Moscow to show they were aware of the new technology. NATO allies have focused on subsea infrastructure security since the 2022 destruction of three of the four Nord Stream subsea pipelines supplying Germany with Russian gas. German prosecutors have indicted a Ukrainian man who was a special forces officer at the time of the attack. ’Ukraine denies any role in the sabotage’. Since 2023, more ships have sailed slowly over or near sensitive subsea infrastructure including pipelines, power cables and telecoms cables to map their location, an activity known as drifting. It's not illegal to survey infrastructure in international waters but security experts see such extensive mapping as preparation for sabotage. Some Western officials argue that Moscow's targeting of European states has increased in recent months as the front line in Ukraine has become largely static. Most recently, an attempted drone attack on the Leipzig/Halle Airport in August triggered a series of responses from Germany, including the closure of a Russian consulate in Bonn and a cultural centre in Berlin. In August, Central Intelligence Agency Director Ratcliffe visited intelligence counterparts in Moscow, in part to warn Russia against escalating sabotage operations in Europe. The Kremlin consistently denies conducting sabotage operations in NATO countries or plotting any confrontation. Any escalation between Russia and NATO could quickly underscore the strategic importance of an icy expanse of water between the southern tip of the Svalbard archipelago and mainland Norway known as the Bear Gap, one Western official said. To reach the Atlantic, Russian nuclear submarines based in the Kola Peninsula would cross the 400-mile-wide stretch of water before passing Norway's remote volcanic island Jan Mayen. Britain said this week it deployed forces to Jan Mayen in August alongside Norwegian and U.S. allies for an exercise to demonstrate NATO's ability to operate jointly in the High North. Norway plans to have new fiber-optic cable linking Svalbard and Jan Mayen to the mainland by 2028. Last year, drifting in the North Sea rose 52% to 13,079 vessels from the previous year, data from maritime risk analytics firm Windward showed. Activity in the South China Sea region jumped 88% to 18,401 vessels. (Source: The Telegraph – India / Reuters - United Kingdom)

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Asia

Iran
September 10, 2026 at 8:50 am  Yesterday, for the first time in 20 years, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Board of Governors adopted a resolution to refer Iran’s nuclear file to the UN Security Council and General Assembly, saying Iran had failed to provide the necessary information and grant the required access regarding its nuclear activities. The IAEA has been denied access to Iran’s nuclear sites since US-Israeli strikes damaged them during a 12-day conflict in June 2025. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Gharibabadi has rejected the decision and described the approach as fabricated. He said US and Israeli attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards had disrupted the inspection and verification process sought by the agency. ’They attack our safeguarded nuclear facilities, disrupt the normal verification process, and then use this disruption itself as a pretext to secure a decision from the IAEA Board of Governors,’ he said. (Source: Middle East Monitor /MEMO/ - headquarters located in London, United Kingdom)

Lebanon
10 September 2026  Israeli forces carried out artillery strikes and explosions in several areas of southern Lebanon overnight and early today despite a US-mediated deal aimed at ending the fighting and disarming Hezbollah, Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported. The Lebanese army said yesterday that Israeli forces had violated the agreement approximately 7,700 times since it was signed in June, including firing near army personnel and patrols. Israel continues to occupy areas of southern Lebanon, including territory it has held for decades and other areas occupied during the 2023-2024 conflict, while its forces have advanced more than 10 kilometers into Lebanese territory during the current conflict. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)

Persian Gulf
10/09/2026 12:37 pm  Yesterday, U.S. President Trump accused the Iranian government of actively seeking to influence the outcome of the U.S. congressional midterm elections scheduled for this coming November. Trump made these remarks at Joint Base Andrews to reporters as he was leaving Washington for a party conference in Dallas. In this context, he explicitly acknowledged that he was not prepared to end the military conflict that has been ongoing for six months. Trump stated that the conflict would end immediately after the election, noting that Tehran can no longer hold out and ’is desperate to influence the outcome.’ He also indicated that he was not ready to lower high fuel prices prior to the elections. Trump also asserted that oil prices would see a sharp, immediate drop once the election is decided. Meanwhile, Iranian leaders are facing mounting pressure due to the U.S. naval blockade and crippling economic sanctions. A recent wave of violence and reciprocal attacks has driven global oil prices to a record high, surpassing the $100-per-barrel mark. U.S. forces struck five Iranian oil tankers on Tuesday - a direct military response to repeated attempts by the Revolutionary Guard to launch ballistic missile attacks targeting U.S. warships in the region’s waters. U.S. vessels successfully evaded the attacks, sustaining no crew casualties. Admiral Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, vowed a severe, deterrent response, stating: ’Let the message to the Revolutionary Guard be clear: if you fire upon our ships, we will impose a far greater economic cost by destroying your fleet.’ On the ground, strategic experts told that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted the U.S. Al-Azraq Air Base overnight, marking a dangerous escalation in both military operations and political rhetoric. The Jordanian military announced that its air defenses had intercepted 18 out of 20 missiles launched toward Jordanian territory. Two missiles landed in uninhabited areas, resulting in no casualties. The arenas of confrontation were not limited to the Arabian Gulf; Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a new wave of intense attacks inside Saudi territory. The strikes targeted vital energy facilities and military airbases and resulted in injuries to at least 70 people. In response, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen carried out counter-airstrikes. The Kingdom seeks to ensure the steady flow of its oil exports to global markets. This ongoing escalation by the Houthis threatens further profound disruptions by exerting constant pressure on the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which serves as the alternative route upon which Saudi Arabia relies to circumvent potential disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, the US Navy is enforcing a tight blockade on Iranian ports, while Tehran maintains firm control over shipping and trade within the strategic Strait of Hormuz. The closure of the strait and control over its waters remain the primary obstacles to any international efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire and contain the volatile regional crisis. (Source: Voice of Emirates - headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates)

South Korea
11:43 ET, Thu, Sep 10, 2026  Anti-Trump protests have exploded in Seoul. Protesters urge their government against deploying South Korean troops to the Strait of Hormuz. Trump asked South Korea for assistance. The demonstrators call for peace in the face of pressure from the U.S. They gathered near the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, today, with banners displaying Trump's face with huge red crosses covering it. Others waved signs saying ’Do not join a war of aggression’ as their leaders decide whether to contribute to the waterway's security. It comes after Trump has piled on the pressure against the U.S. ally to help in the Middle East war, after peace talks recently broke down, and oil prices have surged once more. Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose into triple digits for the first time since July, closing at $101.21 per barrel. U.S. benchmark crude followed closely, ending at $96.05 per barrel a day after strikes on oil infrastructure and vessels in the Middle East heightened the risk of further disruptions to worldwide supplies already strained by conflict. Protestors gathered a day after South Korean defense authorities sent a fact-finding mission to assess the situation in the Strait of Hormuz; however, they stressed that no decision had been made on whether to deploy troops. Iran warns that if South Korea deployed its military, it would be ’regarded as direct support for the party responsible for that aggression and will have serious consequences’. ’As Iran has said, the deployment of our troops to the region would amount to direct participation in an illegal war’, said Jung of the civic group People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy to AFP. ’There have been numerous violations of international law arising from U.S. attacks on Iran, including the bombing of an elementary school and energy infrastructure.’ Back in mid-August, it was revealed by Trump that he had spoken to South Korean President Lee and requested that Seoul give ’a little hand’ in the war on Iran. However, the president wrote on social media at the time, the response had been simply, “No, thanks!” (Source: Daily Express U.S.)

Strait of Hormuz
10/09/2026 11:49 am  Maritime traffic in the strategic Strait of Hormuz has witnessed a notable and striking, sharp decline. The latest vessel-tracking data, reported by Reuters, showed that the number of ships passing through the strait dropped to just seven yesterday, down from approximately twelve the previous day. The low figures reflect a climate of extreme caution and ongoing tension. According to updated data released today, maritime traffic through the strait was limited to just four vessels leaving the Arabian Gulf for open waters, while only three vessels were recorded entering the Gulf. Over the preceding ten days the daily average typically stood at around 14 vessels. This indicates an exceptional slowdown in the movement of commercial ships, cargo vessels, and oil tankers in this vital region. Official figures recorded via tracking systems may not reflect the full picture of actual shipping traffic in the strait. Some commercial vessels and oil tankers traversing this vital waterway engage in silent sailing - switching off their transponders for security and precautionary reasons to avoid potential risks. This practice effectively removes them from the scope of automated monitoring and statistical tracking by satellites and standard maritime tracking systems. (Source: Voice of Emirates - headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates)

Yemen
10 Sep 2026 Yemen’s Houthis deliver ‘significant blow’ to the Yemeni government, seize strategic Red Sea city of Mocha, expanding control over the strategic Bab al-Mandeb Strait, one of the world’s most important trade routes. The Iran-backed group took over port Mocha today while internationally recognised government forces withdrew, directed on the western coast to regroup. Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, the de facto Houthi-led governing authority in Sanaa, said today that clashes on the western coast had been halted following what it described as the expulsion of government-aligned reinforcements. The Houthis now advance along Yemen’s southern Red Sea coast, moving south towards Dhubab. Pusztai, a defence analyst, said seizing Mocha was a major development as it puts the Houthis in a position to cut off the road leading to Taiz, in a very significant blow against the government. It also enables them to control pretty much all of Yemen’s coast on the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb. Yemen’s port Mocka matters for global trade and the Red Sea. Developments around Mocha and Bab al-Mandeb are a regional and international matter. The Strait of Hormuz is about 34 kilometres wide at its narrowest point, compared with about 29km for Bab al-Mandeb. ’This means they could control it just with artillery; they wouldn’t need to even use missiles or drones to attack ships. This would certainly be a major blow to Saudi Arabian shipping and international shipping,’ the analyst said. Saudi Arabia would likely go for a tit-for-tat response as it does not want to enter into ’a long-winded campaign’, Saudi foreign policy analyst Alghashian said. Yemen’s ambassador to Qatar, Badi, accused Iran of reigniting the war after a lull of about five years and using the Houthis to tighten its grip on Red Sea shipping routes. He was describing the group as one of Iran’s key regional arms alongside Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Popular Mobilisation Forces) in Iraq. Pusztai said that the Houthis are not only proxies of Iran. They are fighting also their own war. As part of the Houthis’ offensive against Yemen’s Saudi-backed government, the group has staged attacks on oil facilities and civilian infrastructure deep inside Saudi Arabia. The Houthi-affiliated Saba news agency today said Saudi forces launched an additional 40 air strikes on the governorates of Taiz, Hodeidah, al-Jawf and Marib. The Yemen’s Supreme Political Council reaffirmed its commitment to international obligations regarding Red Sea navigation and called on parties concerned with maritime security to press Saudi Arabia not to send further reinforcements to Mocha. Houthi spokesman Salam described the coastal offensive as a national operation aimed at asserting Yemeni sovereignty. He said the group had no further territorial ambitions and that a just and honourable peace remains its strategic choice. Salam also said that navigation and international trade in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandeb Strait remain safe and uninterrupted. However, the group said its ban on Saudi ships remains in place, reported Saba news agency. Yemen’s Foreign Minister Zouba sent a message to the United Nations Security Council calling for a firm international stance on the situation on Yemen’s western coast. The UN Security Council held an emergency session on Yemen today, called by Bahrain and the United Kingdom after Houthi strikes wounded 73 civilians in Saudi Arabia. Special Envoy Grundberg warned Yemen faces its gravest risk of full-scale war since the 2022 truce. At the session, the US accused the Houthis of acting as Iranian proxies and called for accountability and stronger enforcement of existing sanctions. Russia condemned the Saudi strikes but cautioned against pinning the crisis solely on the Houthis, blaming the stalled UN-led political process. Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s government meanwhile both affirmed their right to self-defence and called for implementation of Security Council resolutions against arms transfers and support enabling the Houthis, and accountability for attacks on shipping and navigation. Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia may signal shortage of long-range weapons, analyst says. Pakistan earlier warned Iran to restrain the Houthis and said the last month finalised its mutual defence pact named the Mecca Defence Alliance with Saudi Arabia and Turkiye could become operational if the group’s attacks on Saudi territory persist. (Source: Al Jazeera - Qatar)

09:12-10 September 2026  Yemeni government forces expanded military operations against the Houthis on several fronts yesterday, making battlefield gains in Al-Jawf province and cutting Houthi supply lines toward the eastern fronts. The advances coincided with the launch of a major operation south of Marib, intensified fighting in southern Taiz and along the western coast, and the thwarting of a Houthi boat attack in the Red Sea. Government forces said the operation in Marib aimed to secure its southern belt and push the group away from its defensive lines. The operation began early yesterday and was still underway. Army and Popular Resistance forces also seized several positions and brought Houthi supply lines under fire. The operation coincided with military activity in Marib in recent days and fighting across the province’s northern, western and southern axes. In Taiz, clashes continued on southeastern fronts, alongside artillery fire and airstrikes targeting Houthi positions and concentrations. The Houthis had sent reinforcements to several positions. On the western coast, the National Resistance’s military media reported the killing and capture of several commanders linked to a Houthi plan to attack toward Bab al-Mandab. Naval forces separately said they thwarted a Houthi boat attack in the Red Sea after detecting the vessels and engaging them, forcing them to retreat north toward Hodeidah port. In Al-Dhale, Yemeni Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Aqili inspected front lines to assess operations, readiness and deployments. (Source: Asharq Al Awsat – headquartered in London, United Kingdom, owned by a member of the Saudi royal family)

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United States
September 10, 2026/3:15 p.m. ET  Acting Navy Secretary Cao reportedly admitted to a reporter at the conservative outlet The Epoch Times that the Iranian military ’blew the hell’ out of the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters at Naval Support Activity Bahrain in a February 28 drone attack. ’Haven’t heard a senior U.S. official admit this on the record until now,’ Fox News’s Griffin wrote. Cao also told The Epoch Times Morgan that Iran’s attack left American forces unable to “pull in” the USS Abraham Lincoln, the aircraft carrier that was at sea for months and ravaged by reports of poor conditions and low morale. The Acting Navy Secretary Cao’s nomination is hung up in Congress. ’A clear and particularly stark pattern we see in the war with Iran is that the Iranians are inflicting tremendous strategic damage with their missiles, but that the USG denies this at first and only admits it weeks, if not months, later. This creates a prolonged false impression that the war is going much better than it actually is and that strategic setbacks are not taking place at all,’ wrote Parsi of the Quincy Institute. ’The media narrative was that Tehran was utterly failing. In reality, Tehran was showcasing capabilities that the official Western narrative ensured were underestimated.’ ’That’s not what you want to hear in an expensive war that’s going very poorly: When asked about any plans to return to the U.S. base in Bahrain, Cao told the Times’, ’I have a task force that’s looking at that.’ (Source: The New Republic - United States)

September 10, 2026 2:53 PM ET  The AI company Anthropic has issued a report on its efforts to disrupt so-called threat actors attempting to use its AI model Claude for malicious activities. Those include users doing research that could support the development of biological weapons. Anthropic noted five case studies in its report. One involved researching how to make a mosquito-borne disease more transmissible. Another involved redesigning toxins for what Anthropic says was a national program. Anthropic notes that it disrupted the activity and shared the information with the authorities and partners in the industry. (Source: NPR - United States)

Thu, Sep 10 2026 6:49 AM EDT  The announcement of Anthropic’s Mythos model, which it touted as having advanced cyber capabilities, in April whipped up a frenzy of panic among financial institutions globally. In July, OpenAI said its models were responsible for a cyber incident on another company, while Anthropic’s Claude models were also responsible for cybersecurity incidents, including in one case where Mythos created fake identities to fool humans. Roughly 1,400 AI researchers, from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and Google DeepMind, published an open letter in July urging the U.S. government to develop the tools necessary to support an effort to deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development. Debate grows over self-improving AI and its risks. More researchers at OpenAI and Anthropic are publicly urging slower AI development, they call for an AI slowdown and they are warning of existential risks of the technology to humanity, after the resignation of a researcher, Coxon, at Anthropic fueled fresh scrutiny. Tuesday he accused Anthropic and rival OpenAI of gambling with our lives. He added that those building AI believed that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. Hubinger, Anthropic’s alignment lead, responded that he expects there is a more than 10% chance of that happening. Anthropic researcher Marks said that AI developers believe their technology could cause human extinction (or similarly bad outcomes), in an X post yesterday. ’This could happen in the next few years. In general, the more senior the employee, the more concerned they are.’ ’We have always been transparent that AI will bring both enormous benefits and unprecedented risks,’ an Anthropic spokesperson said, adding that the company was building models with ’some of the strongest safeguards in the industry.’ Many concerns revolve around advanced models getting incredibly capable at improving their own performance, a process known as recursive self-improvement (RSI). There is not yet a viable scientific plan to solve risks from recursively self-improving AI. ’If AI development continues along its current path, the systems we’ll see in the next few years are likely to represent further capability jumps of equal or larger magnitude, and to increasingly drive their own development,’ OpenAI’s chief scientist Pachocki said. ’I am concerned no one is prepared for the consequences of a continued rapid rise in machine intelligence,’ he said Saturday, in a company blog post. Christiano, who was formerly head of safety at the U.S. Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), said recent development of AI capabilities led him to ’believe there is a meaningful risk that rapid acceleration in AI capabilities leads to catastrophic and irreversible loss of control in the very near term.’ OpenAI announced yesterday that Christiano is joining the board of OpenAI Foundation. Adding to the worries are numerous cyberattacks and security incidents in recent months by rogue AI models. developed by both OpenAI and Anthropic. They are both racing towards public listings. Anthropic is expected to begin marketing its initial public offering in mid-October at the earliest and complete the listing days before the U.S. midterm elections in November. Former AI czar of U.S. President Trump, Sacks appeared to suggest Anthropic’s plans for an IPO should be halted. ’Surely Anthropic’s IPO must be paused until the claims of this whistleblower can be investigated,’ he said in a post on X. Members of Congress have looked to introduce bills to address the rapid advance of AI in recent months, though there’s little clear consensus about how the tech should be regulated. One, called the FRONTIER Act, aims to establish a framework for governing the deployment of advanced AI models. Another proposed legislation, dubbed the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act, would temporarily pause advanced AI development until safety rules were established. While chiefs of AI labs have increasingly publicly called for more rules and standards around the development of models, huge competition between companies developing the tech is spurring rapid advances. ’Safety researchers are resigning, powerful AI models are breaking out of their labs, and companies are racing ahead anyway,’ Rep. Trahan, D-Mass., wrote in a post on X on yesterday. ’It’s past time for Congress to get off the sidelines and do its job.’ (Source: CNBC - United States)

Thursday 10 September 2026 04:20 EDT  Senior officials informed the president that Tehran could continue to resist U.S. pressure, potentially prolonging the conflict beyond Inauguration Day in January 2029. Top White House advisers, including Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Rubio, have privately warned President Trump that the conflict with Iran could extend through the remainder of his presidency, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. The private warnings were delivered during confidential meetings, internal strategy discussions held in the Oval Office and the Situation Room, suggesting military engagement could become a defining foreign policy issue for Trump's entire term in office. These private warnings stand in sharp contrast to Trump's own public remarks regarding the war. Speaking yesterday, the president offered a much shorter timeline for the conflict, telling reporters and the public he expected the fighting to end far sooner than his top advisers projected in private. Trump also acknowledged that diplomatic talks remain a possibility for resolving the dispute, though he clarified that his administration did not prefer negotiations at this stage. The Journal's disclosures underscore a clear divergence between internal assessments and public messaging. For now, private warnings from White House officials suggest that the conflict with Iran may continue well beyond the midterms and through the remainder of Trump's presidency. (Source: The Independent - United Kingdom)

10/09/2026 - 07:58  US President Trump is struggling with opinion ratings in the low 30s as the cost of living soars and his months-long war against Iran drags on. US Midterm elections tend to be referendums on the unpopularity of the president. Trump yesterday urged his supporters to pretend he was on the ballot in the upcoming midterm elections, even saying he would give $5,000 to each American adult if the ’right-wing’ Republicans win midterm elections, retain control of Congress in November. ’If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000. It will be called the Trump dividend,’ he told the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, inside the American Airlines Center. The president did not say where the money would come from – with the theoretical bill likely topping $1 trillion – citing only that ’our country is making so much money’. Trump strongly defended the unpopular Iran war, predicting victory and linking it directly to lower oil prices – before suggesting the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz should be renamed after him. Decision Desk HQ projects Democrats to win the House 230-205 and the Senate to finish 51-49 in their favour in November. It's going to be a communist country if they win, Trump said. Trump's speech was received warmly in the room, with spontaneous bursts of chanting after each applause line, and the enthusiasm spilled into the American Airlines Center's vast atrium outside. Republicans highlighted tax cuts and immigration enforcement, touting boosted manufacturing and lower prescription drug prices. The convention featured a video address from Democratic Senator Fetterman, who has become increasingly at odds with his party's left wing over issues including his hardline support for Israel. Despite the political headwinds facing Republicans, the mood was festive. The gathering is the first Republican national convention held specifically for a midterm election, although no candidates are being nominated and no formal party business is planned. Instead, organisers have constructed what amounts to a two-night television rally touting Trump's record and Republican candidates. (Source: France 24 ’with AFP’ - France)

(Thursday), 10 September 2026 11:51 am  US special envoy Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Kushner recently travelled to Moscow and Kyiv as part of US diplomatic efforts. Reuters reports that Trump spoke with Putin by phone on Tuesday, shortly after Witkoff and Kushner returned from meetings in Moscow and Kyiv. Yesterday US President Trump (local time) spoke about efforts to end the war in Ukraine. He said Russian President Putin wants a deal on Ukraine, framing Moscow as open to an agreement even as the conflict remains unresolved, but blamed the lack of progress on the hostility between Putin and Zelenskyy, two people that hate each other. ’I know about deals and these are two people that are tired of fighting,' he added. Asked by a reporter if he spoke to Zelenskyy, Trump responded, 'We had a great conversation. He is wanting to make a deal’. Trump has previously suggested direct negotiations involving Russia and Ukraine. His latest comments leave open the possibility of a trilateral meeting, although no such meeting has been formally announced. Asked if he was trying to set up a trilateral meeting,“It could happen,” Trump said. “We had a good conversation. It could happen. Too many people are dying in that war. 25,000 last month.’ (Source: Outlook India)

NATO

10 September 2026  Today, at the Conference of the Heads of German Missions in Berlin, NATO Secretary General Rutte called for European allies to shoulder more responsibility for the continent's security as the alliance seeks to strengthen 'Europe's' role in its defense. The NATO chief stressed that ’rebuilding armed forces is essential’ for Europe. On the war in Ukraine, Rutte said Russia is suffering ’enormous losses,’ citing estimates of more than 40,000 Russians killed or seriously wounded every month. Touching on recent reported sabotage attempts 'across Europe', he said these are tactics of a ’desperate regime that is failing to meet its objectives in Ukraine’. Putin ’thinks he can weaken our support for Ukraine, but he will fail’, he said. Following his address, Rutte participated in a moderated discussion with German Foreign Minister Wadephul. Asked whether he thinks the US is still prepared to defend ’Europe’, ’the US is totally committed to NATO, is totally committed to Article Five, Rutte replied, adding that he has no doubt. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)

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Europe

Cyprus
10 August 2026  Britain has two ’Sovereign Base Areas’ on Cyprus – known as Dhekelia in the east of the island and Akrotiri in the west. They are large, highly secretive military and intelligence installations comprising 3% of the island’s land area. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) wrote in a formerly secret 1993 file that RAF Akrotiri plays a key role in support of the Priority 1, Category A intelligence and communications effort on Cyprus. It added that ’this secure airhead enables MOD and OGD [other government departments] to move sensitive equipment to and from Cyprus secretly and without scrutiny.’ Cyprus is ’one of the few areas where the UK can make a substantial and unique contribution to the UK/US intelligence exchange’, an MoD official wrote in another file from 1993. The reason was that ’its location gives access to certain intelligence targets not otherwise accessible’, though it did not specify these targets. Cypriots protested against Britain expanding its military facilities at Akrotiri on 8 August 2026, as one placard reads “No to the antennas of death'. The discovery comes as Britain plans to build 136 new military antennas at Akrotiri by confiscating 450,000 square metres of marsh land currently used by Cypriots within the so-called Sovereign Base Area. Speaking at the protest outside RAF Akrotiri on Saturday, local Kourion mayor Georgiou told that British authorities had quietly increased the proposed number of masts from an initial 20. ’They definitely tried to hide information’ about the true scale of the project, Georgiou said. Declassified files raise further questions about the role of Britain’s Cyprus base. A secret 1993 file was written by the secretary of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in its 1993 ’Cyprus Garrison Review’. It noted in reference to Akrotiri that ’the need to maintain a strategic airhead and forward operating base in the Eastern Mediterranean is of continuing importance.’ The files further show that the UK government ’connives with its Cypriot counterpart to understate’ its intelligence activities from its Cyprus bases. A classified note from an MoD official to then defence secretary Rifkind’s office in May 1993 stated: ’It remains important to our relationship with the Cypriot government that we do not embarrass them by revealing publicly the extent of intelligence activity in the sovereign base areas.’ At the time some 4,500 British military and civilian personnel were on Cyprus working ’in units operating the communications and intelligence facilities’. Cyprus has long hosted a wide range of UK and US intelligence facilities notably RAF Troodos, Britain’s spy station on the summit of Cyprus run by GCHQ, the UK’s largest intelligence agency. Another file, also marked secret, makes clear the importance of Cyprus to the UK intelligence relationship with the US. ’Through this the UK can repay the US for the enormous amount of intelligence received free from other collection systems around the world’, the note added. Chilcott, private secretary to Rifkind when he later became foreign secretary, wrote in February 1996 that the maintenance of the Cyprus bases ’remained an overriding national interest’. ’Our possession of them’, he added, ’contributes significantly to the transatlantic relationship’. The files, available at the National Archives but some of which remain partly censored, suggest the Cyprus base could have played a greater role in British operations than previously divulged by the government. It will add to further suspicions that Cyprus has been used by Britain to covertly supply other intelligence support or arms to Israel during the genocide, as was reported by newspaper Haaretz in October 2023. Akrotiri was used by Britain for hundreds of surveillance flights over Gaza in aid of Israeli intelligence. The government says the flights were only intended to help find hostages held by Hamas. Haaretz noted at the time that over 40 US transport aircraft, 20 British transport aircraft and seven heavy transport helicopters have flown to RAF Akrotiri carrying equipment, arms and forces. By November 2023, Declassified had found four US Air Force military transport flights that departed from RAF Akrotiri in the previous 12 days destined for Israel. When asked in parliament, the UK government refused to comment on US military operations from its Cyprus base. More than half of voters in Cyprus want to shut down British military bases on the eastern Mediterranean island, a recent poll found. British bases on Cyprus are just 120 miles away from Lebanon and 220 miles from Gaza. (Source: Declassified UK)
By Curtis, the the co-director of Declassified UK, author of five books and many articles on UK foreign policy;    Miller, the editor of Declassified UK, the author of Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes. 

Germany
10 August 2026  Following the entry into force of the EU's Pact on Migration and Asylum on June 12, Germany has reportedly ’hardened its stance on migrant returns, seeking to resume transfers to Italy and Greece’. A spokesman for the German Interior Ministry told ANSA that the functioning of the Dublin system is an indispensable condition ’for the success of the Common European Asylum System’ and that Berlin expects transfers to Italy and Greece to resume from that date. Under the Dublin regulations, the asylum claims of incoming non-EU migrants need to be processed in the first country of entry in the EU. The new pact also introduces stricter rules on secondary movements of migrants between EU member states, a long-standing source of friction between Italy and countries such as Germany, Austria and France. Italian Interior Ministry sources told the news agency that there are no Dublin migrants to take back from Germany. The sources said Italy considers all alleged ’Dublin migrants’ who moved to another EU member state after landing in Italy before June 12 to have been cleared under agreements reached with some countries. The sources also said it was still too early to establish whether migrants who arrived in Italy after June 12 are currently in other EU countries, as too little time has passed to establish this. For irregular migrants who arrived after June 12, Italy will argue that a compensation”mechanism should be applied, taking into account migrants who landed in Italy aboard vessels operated by NGOs flying European flags, the sources said. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey) 

Russia
10 August 2026  In Russia’s Belgorod region, a woman was killed after a drone struck a private home in the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka. In Tatarstan, a large-scale drone attack on the city of Nizhnekamsk killed 13 people and injured 39 others. The attack targeted industrial and civilian facilities in the city in the early morning. Tatarstan declared a day of mourning for the victims. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed its forces shot down 456 Ukrainian drones overnight across the country and Crimea. In Ukraine’s Sumy region, 14 people were injured in a Russian guided-bomb attack. Ukrainian Air Force claimed it shot down or suppressed 92 Russian drones and three Banderol loitering munitions during an overnight attack. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey) 

Europe
10 August 2026  European natural gas prices jumped around 8% today, amid uncertainty over the normalization of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Although Iran indicated that a deal was close, it cautioned that this would not result in the strait reopening immediately and again ruled out direct negotiations with the US. After Tehran renewed a lengthy list of demands for Washington as conditions for fully reopening the strategic waterway, Iran and Oman remained short of a final agreement over the weekend. Continued uncertainty has raised concerns that disruptions to liquefied natural gas shipments through the key route could persist, further delaying cargoes from major exporters such as Qatar. Benchmark Dutch TTF futures climbed to nearly €60 ($70) per megawatt-hour as of 1345GM. The delays have tightened global gas supplies, intensified competition between European and Asian buyers for available LNG cargoes, and complicated Europe’s efforts to replenish storage facilities ahead of winter.
(Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey) 

10.08.26, 01:00 PM  Climate is changing more rapidly in Europe than on any other continent and the damage is already stretching public finances, setting off wild swings in inflation, redrawing the tourism map, and forcing the bloc to rethink how power is produced and how goods are transported while this wildfire season is on track to be Europe's biggest ever. There are multiple episodes of extreme events at the same time and mostly in the same regions. Together, the hit to the region's economy can already be measured in the hundreds of billions of euros, economists and academics estimate. Traffic on the Rhine and the Danube rivers, key cargo arteries, is severely limited because of low water levels. ING estimates that the halt of traffic on the Rhine alone will lower the GDP of Germany, the world's third-largest economy, by 0.3 percentage points this year. More than a half dozen nuclear generators have shut or curtailed production due to cooling difficulties. Hungary's MBH Bank sees a 0.1 percentage point GDP hit for every week the country's largest nuclear generator is offline. Agricultural yield estimates have been cut with crops harvested late, such as maize and sunflower, suffering a 6-7% loss already in July. Meanwhile, the costs of the emergency response, like fighting fires or curtailing power use, further stretch budgets. Heat curtails human productivity and has already claimed tens of thousands of lives. Germany alone is reporting more than 10,000 heat-related deaths. The German insurer Allianz estimates the two-week June heatwave alone will cut the GDP of Europe by 0.3 percentage points, and climate will shave 5-7% off growth by 2030 for the most exposed economies like Spain, France and Italy. This figure doesn’t account for the fires, droughts, different flood events or the expected El Niño, said Krichene, an economist at Allianz. Given that the euro zone is expected to grow just 1% this year, the hit is sizable. The economic impact grows over the following years because the extreme weather set off a chain of slow economic consequences. Southern Europe could take the biggest hit as temperature spikes are the largest there, cutting tourism income, exacerbating crop failures and inducing outward migration. Vacationers move north, hitting the southern hospitality industry. The south will also take a bigger food price hit from extreme weather, complicating life for the European Central Bank which is already struggling to keep inflation at target. Extreme heat in 2022 lifted euro zone inflation by 0.34 percentage points via higher food prices, with the south taking a disproportionate hit. Meanwhile, a halt in river transport is making it harder for fuel to reach parts of Europe, widening regional price differences. Reductions in annual tax revenue from lost output could reach 1.8% in France, 1.3% in Italy and Spain as progressive tax systems mean revenues fall faster than output, it estimates. Business profit margins will also decline, depressing investment and exacerbating the economic loss. Costs meanwhile surge, both because governments have to fund the emergency response and must invest, such as in future-proofing power generation or transportation routes. A key concern is that countries still rely far too much on ad hoc emergency response, which is both expensive and also often quite inefficient, said Grabbe, a senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank. Debt levels are already high - especially in France and Italy – ’and countries need to invest in defence and the green energy transition’. The dilemma could draw in the ECB, which bought up trillions of euros worth of countries' debt in the past decade to keep borrowing costs depressed when inflation was too low. With such a long list of spending needs, the trend will be towards higher government debt, ING's Brzeski said. This will then mean pressure on the ECB to step in and do more quantitative easing, if there is a sudden selloff in bond markets. (Source: Telegraph India / Reuters - United Kingdom)

Globalization

August 10, 2026  Mapping the alliances threatening the West. Published in Italy in July 2026 by Armando Curcio Editore, The New Evil Empire: An Alliance Among Extremists (Il nuovo impero del male. Alleanza tra estremisti) is the first book by Bertoldi, Executive Director of the Milton Friedman Institute, as well as a consultant, analyst, and commentator inspired by liberal-libertarian thought. The book, approximately 250 pages long, is a documented journey through the major geopolitical crises of recent years, built on analysis, documentary evidence, and, above all, direct conversations with leading figures. Bertoldi argues that a new ’evil empire’ exists today - no longer monolithic, but networked: a de facto alliance among authoritarian regimes, Islamist movements, and various strands of left-wing extremism which, despite starting from very different ideological premises, converge around a shared objective: weakening liberal democracies, individual freedoms, and the international rule of law. In the Middle East, the author examines the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, post-Assad Syria, the Israel–Hamas war, the role of Iran and terrorism, and wider regional tensions. Among the prominent voices featured are Ailam, former head of counterterrorism at Mossad; Pahlavi, heir to the last Shah of Iran; Ribal, cousin of the former dictator Assad; Geagea, leader of the Lebanese Christian Forces; Monsignor Gaid, an Egyptian prelate and former secretary to Pope Francis; and other political and religious observers. The underlying argument is clear: these crises are not isolated, but part of a broader pattern that, almost spontaneously, tends toward the erosion of democracy. Iran emerges as a central hub in a network connecting Tehran with armed groups and regimes hostile to the West across the Middle East, Europe, and South America. Turning to Latin America, Bertoldi examines Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua as examples of socialist authoritarianism whose governments maintain dialogue with and support one another, as well as Islamist organizations and regimes. The book features figures such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Machado, Argentine President Milei, Venezuela’s President-elect Urrutia, and other regional dissidents. The expansion of state power at the expense of individual liberty is consistently presented as the means through which this project is pursued. A significant chapter is devoted to what the author calls the red-green phenomenon: the convergence, in Europe and the wider West, between political Islamism and factions of the radical left. The book includes analyses by prominent experts such as Del Valle and Sbai, among others, who explain the influence the Muslim Brotherhood now wields within Western societies. Bertoldi goes beyond description, seeking to demonstrate how these alliances also manifest themselves at the heart of liberal societies through ideological networks, propaganda, and cultural pressure. France, the United Kingdom, and Belgium are portrayed as the countries where the enemy has gained the greatest strength. Bertoldi has experienced the transformations of recent years first-hand, including by visiting the places where they originated and listening to the sentiments that emerged from them. The foreword by Capezzone, editor-in-chief of Il Tempo, highlights precisely this pragmatic approach: an explicit defense of liberal democracies against what the author perceives as a systemic threat. The book also reflects on possible responses, paying particular attention to models for countering extremism - including what it describes as the successful example of the United Arab Emirates - and to the need to distinguish between a religion and a radical political project. The book’s dedications and acknowledgements, in addition to the Argentine President and the author’s mother, are addressed in particular to Il Tempo editor-in-chief Capezzone and the Italian newspaper’s publisher, Angelucci, in recognition of the space the newspaper has devoted over the past year to interviews and major exclusives produced by Bertoldi in his role as a columnist. Several French and Arab media outlets have already published highly positive reviews. The New Evil Empire is a book that regards alliances between authoritarian regimes and extremist movements as the principal threat to Western freedoms. Readers looking for a multipolar analysis or an equally weighted critique of the West’s own mistakes may be disappointed. Those, however, who want a clear map based on first-hand testimony and a forcefully argued thesis - that very different forms of extremism can cooperate when they share a common enemy - will find the book useful, accessible, and up to date. Bertoldi offers an unequivocal interpretation: the danger does not come solely from individual regimes or groups, but from a strategic convergence operating simultaneously across multiple fronts. It is an invitation not to underestimate these shadow alliances - and a call to respond. (Source: EU Reporter - based in Brussels, Belgium, owned by an Irish company)

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Africa

Egypt
06:03-14 August 2026  The Arab Parliament, marking five years since the launch of the Global Development Initiative (GDI) proposed by Chinese President Xi praised the positive and tangible results achieved, the Saudi Press Agency reported yesterday. In a statement, President of the Arab Parliament, Yammahi said the achievements of the GDI over the past five years demonstrate the importance of the vision on which it was launched. He said the initiative places development at the heart of the international agenda, supports the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, and strengthens cooperation among countries. This contributes to addressing the economic, social, and development challenges facing people around the world, particularly in developing countries and the Global South. The Arab Parliament renewed its full support for the GDI. It expressed its aspiration to continue joint work with the People's Republic of China and various international partners to boost Arab-Chinese cooperation in the economic, development, investment, technological, scientific, and cultural fields in a manner that serves the shared interests of both sides. (Source: Asharq Al Awsat - headquartered in London, England, owned by a member of the Saudi royal family)

Asia

China
Aug 14, 2026, 02:23 PM  China today rejected allegations that it is conducting widespread espionage on New Zealand, saying the claim in the country’s latest security assessment stemmed from a Cold War mentality. The Chinese embassy in Wellington said the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service’s annual threat report fabricates and hypes claims of Chinese interference and threat, and accused unnamed domestic and foreign forces of trying to damage ties between the two countries. China is New Zealand’s largest trading partner, which had delivered trade, jobs and people-to-people exchanges, with two-way trade reaching record levels in recent years. The allegation appeared in the agency’s Security Threat Environment 2026 assessment, released on Aug 13, which said China was the only country New Zealand had detected conducting espionage at scale. The intelligence agency’s Security Threat Environment, released annually, said China remained the most active foreign-interference actor in New Zealand, while warning that foreign states’ espionage and covert efforts to acquire sensitive technology, influence policy and gather information were becoming more common. The embassy said the timing of the report was no coincidence and suggested it could itself be the product of foreign interference. It urged New Zealand to work with Beijing to deepen political trust and practical cooperation. (Source: The Straits Times - Singapore)

11:48, 10/08/2026, Monday  Local authorities have relocated more than 1.5 million residents across eastern China in Zhejiang province and Shanghai as Typhoon Dolphin made landfall with maximum winds of 150 kilometers per hour, disrupting flights and transport while authorities warned of severe flooding and landslides. Aviation operations ground to a halt across the region, canceled more than 1,000 flights today alone. Maritime authorities in Taizhou ordered 3,815 fishing vessels to take shelter and suspended all 18 passenger ferry routes. Coastal railways and shipping lanes faced severe disruption. Meteorological agencies warned that parts of Zhejiang could receive between 250 and 500 millimeters of rainfall in coming days. (Source: Yeni Şafak - Turkey)

August 10, 2026 10:42 AM  Hong Kong recorded its highest temperature recorded of 36.9 deg C at 3.30pm on Sunday (Aug 9), the highest since 1884 when records began. The Hong Kong Observatory said the heat is a result of subsiding air in the periphery of Typhoon Dolphin. Across Hong Kong, the Home Affairs Department opened up 19 community halls and centres as temporary heat shelters. At night, it will also provide beds and a place to sleep for those in need. Temperatures are expected to remain high till Wednesday or Thursday, with some areas expecting the mercury to top 37 deg C. (Source: AsiaOne - Singapore)

Gaza
Monday 10/08/2026  Concrete plants built along the Gaza border in recent months are raising questions that go beyond their stated military purpose of producing material to seal tunnels discovered by Israeli forces. in areas inside Gaza around what Israel calls the Yellow Line. Responsibility for financing and operating the facilities is set to shift from Israel’s Defence Ministry to the United States, now being transferred to the US headquarters in Kiryat Gat, southern Israel, which oversees the Civil-Military Coordination Centre established by US Central Command. Is Washington simply assuming part of the security and logistical burden from Israel, or could the transfer eventually allow the same infrastructure to be used for civilian reconstruction? Homes, schools and hospitals will need to be rebuilt, while water and sewage networks, roads and other critical infrastructure have suffered extensive damage. The reconstruction of the territory will depend not only on funding but also on reliable supplies of construction materials, transport networks, storage facilities and production capacity. The existing concrete plants could potentially form part of such a logistical network in the future. The transfer to US management, however, gives the arrangement a potentially wider political significance. Washington ’is no longer confined to providing military and political backing to Israel.’ Through the Civil-Military Coordination Centre in Kiryat Gat, the US has acquired a direct role in monitoring ceasefire arrangements and efforts to stabilise Gaza. The broader issue is consequently less about the plants themselves than about who decides how they are used and who controls the supply chain around them. Any move towards reconstruction, however, would face major political and security obstacles. Israel has maintained extensive restrictions on the entry of construction materials into Gaza, arguing that they could be diverted towards rebuilding tunnels and military infrastructure. (Source: The Arab Weekly - based in London, United Kingdom)

Indonesia
August 14, 2026 at 06:50  Indonesia's biggest unrest since President Subianto took office in 2024 came last August and September, when nationwide protests over lavish perks for lawmakers spiralled into anger after a police vehicle ran over a delivery driver and killed him. A footage circulating online does show some of those demonstrations - but it is not recent, as social media posts allege, and local media covered all of them. And hundreds of Indonesian students demonstrated in Jakarta on June 12, 2026 to demand the government correct its course as the Southeast Asian country grapples with worsening economic conditions. The months-old footage of demonstrations in Indonesia has resurfaced in social media posts falsely claiming it shows recent protests in the capital Jakarta that news organisations have deliberately ignored. The posts circulated online following protests that erupted in several Indonesian cities in June after the government hiked prices of non-subsidised gasoline, seeking to alleviate budget pressures as the Middle East war chokes global oil supplies. The demonstrations were the latest in a youth-led movement sparked by public anger over the economy, the handling of corruption cases, and suspicion of expensive state-funded projects - such as the Free Nutritious Meals programme and the establishment of village cooperatives. ’Protest today,’ says Indonesian-language text overlaid on an August 11 TikTok video, which appears to show a huge crowd of protesters while police and security personnel use barriers to hold them back. The false post goes on to criticise Indonesia's legal system, the cost of fuel and basic necessities, and decries costly government initiatives as ’useless and merely breeding grounds for corruption’. Comparable protest footage, including dramatic video of a building on fire, spread in other YouTube, Instagram and TikTok posts insinuating large-scale demonstrations were going unreported in Indonesia. A reverse image search using keyframes of the footage depicting a building on fire found it was also not taken recently - a regional news outlet shared the video on Instagram in late August 2025. The narrative spread online despite local media continuing to cover months of demonstrations over the country’s perceived government waste, which showed no sign of abating ahead of Independence Day on August 17. (Source: AFP - France)

Iran
Friday - 14 August 2026  The regime created by Ayatollah Khomeini built its legitimacy around its claim of fighting against the ’Great Satan’ and its ’little’ acolyte. For the first time in 48 years what is left of the Khomeinist leadership is taking the possibility of regime change seriously and is trying to deal with it. Trump is the first US president to believe that the desired regime change may be achievable during his tenure. And that, paradoxically, is why he may have unwittingly delayed that change with his erratic strategy. ’We need to focus on the internal front,’ warns Rabi’ie, a veteran regime insider. By that he means what Islamic Majlis Speaker Qalibaf refers to as the street. The latest phase of the 47-year war has weakened the regime to the point that it fears that an end of hostilities could reignite the street. A cocktail of explosive problems has taken shape. More than four million people have lost their jobs and thousands of businesses have been busted. The government admits that over 5,000 public projects have been frozen for lack of funds or personnel to supervise them. President Pezeshkian says there isn’t enough money to import petroleum from India, causing a 15 percent shortage that could bring hundreds of thousands of vehicles including military ones to a halt. The regime spent its money building tunnels to hide its projectiles rather than refineries to process its crude oil. The regime has lost control of the political narrative of returning to the pre-revolution era. And the constitutional form of government seems to be in the ascendancy. Just over a year ago, the then Supreme Guide Ayatollah Khamenei warned against a return to constitutional government (mahruteh in Persian) as a serious threat against Iran. In August 2025 dozens of activists were arrested on a charge of organizing events related to the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. This month, however, Pezeshkian himself issued a long statement in praise of the once cursed mahruteh. That gave the green light for a series of events across Iran with some universities breaking the summer recess to mark the 120th anniversary of the Constitutional Revolution. All that may be dismissed as a tribute that vice pays to virtue or a cheap political gimmick by clueless politicians. Highlighting an alternative narrative is of crucial importance because society like nature abhors a vacuum. People want to know that by ending the status quo they won’t be jumping into the unknown head first. The elimination of Khamenei senior has created a vacuum that his anointed successor Mojtaba isn’t able to fill if only for physical reasons. Khamenei was a Madison Avenue expert in public relations and self-promotion. Like Trump, he wanted to be constantly in the headlines, and he was always in the news; One day he was receiving poets, another he was addressing muezzins from all over the country; foreign dignitaries and ’axis of Resistance’ leaders lined up for a photo-op with him. On quieter days, he would send cables to this or that mullah or other public figure for real or imaginary success in the service of the regime. On Fridays, some 5,000 preachers acting as their master’s voice across Iran would read the text he had dictated during mass prayers. Military commanders were not allowed to hold meetings on their own even in an informal gathering with orange juice served. The beyt could summon any official, including the president, for briefing or instructions. Referred to as ’Agha (a Turkish word meaning master), Khamenei had his personal representatives in every ministry, army division, major public company and even embassies in more than 40 capitals. He made sure that, as the Persian poet said, not a single insect moved on a leaf without him knowing about it. Having created more than a dozen councils, each headed by one of his acolytes - The Council of the Guardians of the Constitution, the Expediency Council, the Islamic Convergence (taqrib) Council, the Islamic Awakening Council, the Axis of Resistance Council, the Foreign Policy Strategic Board, the High Council of National Security, and the Assembly of Experts of Leadership - haven’t had a session since Agha was assassinated by the Israelis. With Agha gone, those councils have gone into an eclipse that may never end. With its speaker engaged in a power struggle, even the Islamic Majlis (ersatz parliament) hasn’t held a full session for months. Some octopus arms have either lost their heads or some key figures in ’elimination’ operations by Israel or the US. In some cases individuals tapped to fill posts left by loss of military and/or political leaders have politely declined the invitation. Among them were a number of younger generation officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard which is now subject of speculations about its merger with regular army, a scheme prepared in 1999 but vetoed by Agha. Under Agha with one or two exceptions in four decades, no senior military or political official was allowed to keep his post for more than a decade. The undeclared rationale was that in a system whose center is fixed for ever, its satellites ought to change within fixed periods. It took Agha 30 years to design and build a system that suited him. Mojtaba isn’t able to bud his beyt, let alone the system shaped around it. Today, by the best count, the position of at least 20 provincial governors out of 31 and more than 20 ambassadors and at least 100 military and security commanders need to be filled either because traditional terms are over or because occupants have been ’eliminated.’ Thus, the phrase ’we are at war’ is a good prop to hide the regime’s impotence. By prolonging this peculiar pseudo-war Trump or whoever advises him may be helping Mojtaba or whoever plays his role to keep the street quiet with feigned patriotism. (Source: Asharq Al-Awsat - headquartered in London, England, owned by a member of the Saudi royal family)
by Taheri, who published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. 

10:21, 10/08/2026, Monday  The US military says its forces have redirected 55 commercial vessels as part of efforts to enforce a Washington-led blockade against Iran, while two other vessels were disabled and two were boarded. CENTCOM’s latest announcement indicates that the maritime dimension of the confrontation remains active, with US forces continuing to enforce restrictions on commercial shipping connected to the Iran blockade. (Source: Yeni Şafak - Turkey)

Israel
(Monday), August 10, 2026 at 9:23 am  A poll by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster on emigration from Israel published on Sunday evening found that one-third of respondents know someone who has left the country, while 12 per cent said the outcome of the next election could determine whether they stay in Israel or leave. Asked whether they had considered leaving Israel over the past two years, 18 per cent said they had considered leaving. /Source: Middle East Monitor (MEMO)- located in London, United Kingdom/

Japan
Friday 14 August 2026 12:26 BST  Japanese prime minister Sanae Takaichi said disasters caused by heavy rain had become increasingly frequent in recent years. She said authorities would remain vigilant to protect the lives and livelihoods of the people, seeing that the Japan Meteorological Agency issued, for the first time, its highest level of heavy rainfall warning for more than a dozen municipalities in the Chiba prefecture bordering Tokyo. Eight people died. "I offer my deepest condolences to those who have passed away, and on behalf of all, I humbly extend my sympathies to their bereaved families," she added. The prefecture saw 367mm of rain in 24 hours in some areas, surpassing the record of 309mm set in October 2013. The unprecedented rainfall floods roads, rail lines and homes east of the Japanese capital during one of the busiest holiday weeks of the year in Japan. More than 80 homes were flooded and nearly 230,000 residents across the prefecture were advised to leave for safety, according to Chiba officials. Soldiers have been sent to the area to help with the disaster response. Some 23,000 households, the vast majority in Chiba prefecture, were still without power today morning. Hundreds sheltered overnight at the Chiba prefectural government building, sleeping under foil blankets. 7,000 travellers were left stranded at the Narita, one of Tokyo's international airports. Japan Airlines said some delays were possible but no cancellations were expected. The flooding comes at the end of a fortnight of severe weather across Japan. Temperatures hit new historic record. A run of typhoons and extreme heat, which brought the first recorded cruelly hot day. Scientists say a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, making the heaviest downpours heavier. (Source: The Independent - United Kingdom) 

Lebanon
11:46, 10/08/2026, Monday  The Israeli military shelled several towns in southern Lebanon today as truce violations continued days after the seventh round of US-brokered Lebanese-Israeli negotiations in Rome concluded. The talks focused on implementing a framework agreement signed on June 26 that stipulates a gradual Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese territory in exchange for the deployment of Lebanon's army and the disarmament of armed groups - a reference to Hezbollah. According to Lebanese officials, the Israeli offensive has killed 4,335 people and wounded 12,277 others since March 2. The violence has also displaced over a million people, compounding an already dire humanitarian situation in the country. (Source: Yeni Şafak - Turkey)

North Korea
(Friday), 11:37 August 14, 2026  North Korea today denounced an upcoming joint military exercise between South Korea and the United States, warning it will respond to the drills with a new level of a deterrent. Pyongyang has strongly denounced the allies' drills as war rehearsals and conducted its own weapons tests around the exercise in protest. It is our consistent principle of ensuring security to respond to a new level of a threat with a new level of a deterrent, a spokesperson at North Korea's foreign ministry said. It launched missiles toward the East Sea last Thursday and again on Wednesday. South Korea and the U.S. are set to begin the annual Ulchi Freedom Shield (UFS) exercise starting Monday until Aug. 27. (Source: Yonhap News Agency - South Korea) 

Strait of Hormuz
Aug 14, 2026 1:14 pm KST  Shipping traffic at the Strait of Hormuz fell below the month average toward the end of the week. The United States and Iran both are making competing claims over its control. The Strait of Hormuz is under Iran's control and management, the recently appointed head of Iran's Basij paramilitary unit said yesterday. Meanwhile, the United States yesterday said it could maintain a naval blockade of Iran indefinitely and would ratchet up economic pressure on Tehran as ceasefire talks have floundered. A total of nine vessels transited the strait yesterday – five entries heading into the Gulf and four exits into the Gulf of Oman, mostly via the Iranian shipping route. Shipping risk persisted. Abu Dhabi National Oil Company said two of its vessels were attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz yesterday evening, with no injuries reported. The United Arab Emirates accused Iran of carrying out the attack. Meanwhile, 19 commodity vessels passed through the Bab el-Mandeb strait yesterday with their transponders on, Kpler data showed. Some vessels may be sailing at the key waterways with their transponders turned off, which is not considered in the counts. (Source: The Korea Times - South Korea / Reuters - United Kingdom) 

Syria
August 14, 2026  According to Syrian state television Al-Ikhbariya, the Israeli army opened fire towards civilian homes in several sections of the village of Maariya, in the Daraa province from areas it also occupies in southern Syria. The incident comes amid months of recurring Israeli incursions and attacks in southern Syria., including raids, searches and arrests. The Israeli violations intensified following the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, when Israel declared the 1974 Disengagement Agreement void and seized control of the Syrian buffer zone. (Source: TRT World - Turkey)

04:56-14 August 2026  Syrian Justice Minister Wais and Ahmad, adviser for Arab affairs at Syria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates received Zidan, head of Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council, in Damascus yesterday for talks aimed at deepening judicial cooperation, and the fate of Syrian isis detainees transferred to Iraqi prisons from al-Hol camp. The Iraqi delegation visited Damascus at the Syrian justice minister’s invitation. The two sides agreed to form joint judicial committees that would meet regularly to resolve issues linked to the detainees’ trials. Sources following the visit said Zidan was expected to meet Syrian President Sharaa and hold separate talks with the justice and foreign ministers and other Syrian officials. (Source: Asharq Al-Awsat - headquartered in London, England, owned by a member of the Saudi royal family)

07:38-12 August 2026  International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will soon remove nuclear material stored at a clandestine Syrian nuclear site. The Trump administration reached understandings with Syria and Israel to secure the material and prevent an escalation involving Israel, Syria and possibly even Türkiye over the sensitive site, to neutralize a potential crisis. The Assad's regime had developed a secret nuclear program centered on the clandestine Al-Kibar reactor. Israel bombed the reactor in 2007, the Syrian nuclear program was mostly destroyed, but several research-and-development and storage sites remained and were mostly inactive. After the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, the IAEA signed an agreement with the new Syrian government that allowed it to visit the Al-Kibar reactor and several other sites connected to Syria's past nuclear activity, to resolve sensitive issues inherited from the Assad regime that could damage its efforts to rehabilitate the country's international standing. The Assad regime stored nuclear material there that was part of the Al-Kibar nuclear reactor project. A US official said the material included yellowcake, a powder from uranium ore that can later be further processed and eventually enriched as part of a nuclear fuel cycle. The US official said the regime stored other residue and leftovers from the al-Kibar site at Site 99. The material at the site can be used for a dirty bomb- a conventional explosive device that disperses radioactive material to contaminate an area rather than produce a nuclear explosion. The Israeli officials said the Israeli army bombed the entrances to the site shortly after the fall of the regime to prevent access to it. They said Israel even threatened to bomb the site again if the nuclear material was not removed or if there were signs that Syria was trying to access the material. When the Trump administration raised the issue with the Damascus government, Syrian officials said they didn't know there was nuclear material at the site. Several weeks ago, Israelis monitoring the site detected movements in the area that led them to suspect the new Syrian government was reneging on understandings and trying to access the nuclear material. ’The Israelis were even concerned that Türkiye was helping the Syrian government get hold of the nuclear material’. The Trump administration asked Israel not to take any action and brought the IAEA into the picture. An agreement was signed three weeks ago between the IAEA and the Syrian government to remove the nuclear material from the site. The material hasn't been removed yet. US officials say the work on Site 99 is still an ongoing operation , to end it before the end of the year. (Source: Asharq Al Awsat - headquartered in London, England, owned by a member of the Saudi royal family)

Turkey
(Friday), Aug 14, 2026  On Washington’s 16th Street, overlooking Meridian Hill Park, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is transforming the former French Embassy into a permanent base for its growing influence operation in Washington. The party bought the Beaux-Arts mansion for roughly $4.9 million in 2024, and another $1.3 million has since flowed from AKP headquarters, much of it going toward renovation work at the property. The office is run by Mutlu, President Erdogan’s cousin and the AKP’s registered representative in the United States. The latest July 12th Foreign Agents Registration Act filing lists 85 political activities over six months from December until May of this year, including meetings with State Department officials, congressional staff and some of Washington’s most prominent Turkey and Syria think tank experts. Since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, the relationship between Ankara and Tel Aviv has gradually moved from surface-level diplomatic hostility toward something closer to an open strategic rivalry, with Syria becoming the most visible flashpoint between the two regional powers. Much of this tension is airing out in President Trump’s Washington. A March discussion at the Brookings Institution, which the filing cited, captured this shift. Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey, Bass discussed rhetoric from Israeli political figures describing Turkey as the ’future Iran,’ while Brookings fellow Aydıntaşbaş, referencing statements by former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, said the idea that Türkey could emerge as a greater threat than Iran had moved from the fringe in Israeli security circles into mainstream political discussion. Against this backdrop of escalating tension, Mutlu’s meetings offer a glimpse into the Washington policy circles the AKP has been cultivating. On January 29, the filings show separate meetings with Atlantic Council fellow Outzen and Washington Institute senior fellow Borshchevskaya. Five days later, the party attended a Helsinki Commission hearing on Syria where Outzen and Borshchevskaya testified alongside the Hudson Institute’s Doran. On February 9, the filings report a private meeting between Mutlu and Doran. These three experts approach Turkey from different perspectives, but their public work has generally envisioned a significant positive role for Ankara in the emerging regional order. Outzen has argued that U.S.-Turkey relations are poised to improve as their interests increasingly align; Doran has described Turkey as a key U.S. partner in stabilizing Syria and balancing Israeli security concerns; and Borshchevskaya has called for deeper American engagement in Syria to displace Russian influence, identifying Turkey as one of the regional actors capable of providing Damascus with alternatives to Moscow. In testimony before Congress, Doran argued that pushing Russia out of Syria depended on balancing Turkey and Israel. He later described Turkey as the arm of NATO into Syria and said Ankara could help build Syria’s new security forces. Outzen similarly called for a larger Turkish role in Syria’s stabilization and military training, while warning that Israel’s preference for a weak, fragmented Syria could collide with Ankara’s desire for a unified state. That rivalry is already shaping policy on Syria and the sale of advanced U.S. weapons. Erdogan said in June that Israeli attacks on Syria and Lebanon had reached the point of threatening Turkey itself. Israel, meanwhile, has fought Turkey’s return to the F-35 program, with Israeli officials warning that selling Ankara advanced fighters could threaten Israel’s qualitative military edge. That fight has landed directly in the Oval Office. At his July 28 meeting with Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brought a map of Syria to argue that Turkey controlled more Syrian territory than Israel. According to an Israeli official, the map claimed Turkey effectively controlled 5% of Syria compared with a mere 0.1% held by Israel. Trump has been moving in Ankara’s direction. At the NATO summit in Ankara earlier in July, he announced that he would lift CAATSA sanctions imposed over Turkey’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 air-defense system, and he signaled openness to selling Ankara F-35s. Turkey’s push in Washington also comes as Israel’s political standing in the United States is weakening. A March Pew survey found that 60% of Americans held an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 42% in 2022. Gallup similarly found that Americans no longer sympathized more with Israelis than Palestinians, ending a pattern that had lasted more than two decades. Israel’s loss of popular support is bound to open some political space for other regional powers to make their case in Washington, and Turkey is trying to occupy some of it. The mansion on Meridian Hill gives the competition a physical address. It’s headquarters gives the AKP a permanent base, while Mutlu’s meetings place Erdogan’s party inside the policy circles debating the very questions on which Ankara and Jerusalem are clashing. The larger shift now extends far beyond Washington. On Friday, Erdogan joined Saudi Crown Prince Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Mecca to sign a mutual defense agreement declaring that an attack on one would be treated as an attack on all three. The pact brings together NATO’s second-largest military, nuclear-armed Pakistan and the Gulf’s most powerful Arab state at a moment when regional governments are reassessing the post-Iran war Middle East geopolitical landscape. (Source: Responsible Statecraft - U.S.)
by Aboukhater, who has interned with the Democratizing Foreign Policy and Middle East programs at the Quincy Institute. Before, he worked with the United Nations's Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.

West Bank
Aug 14, 2026 3:37 pm KST  For five nights, Israeli settlers surrounded three Palestinian homes on the outskirts in the northern town of Qusra, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank - which Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war, and which would make up the main part of a future Palestinian state - preventing the families from leaving safely as their food and water supplies dwindled. On Sunday, dozens of Israeli settlers arrived at the homes in Qusra, they blocked doors, cut the water and electricity, erected tents outside - in the latest in a wave of settler violence convulsing the territory. Rights groups have long accused Israeli forces of turning a blind eye to settler violence or of intervening to protect the settlers. Israeli troops have intervened multiple times. The settlers keep returning. On Tuesday, Israel’s military condemned the siege as illegal, reprehensible, and unacceptable, and declared Qusra a closed military zone. The next day, dozens of settlers returned, tried to block the road with rocks and clashed with Israeli soldiers, according to video shot by village residents. Israel’s military said the families had basic supplies like food and water when it checked in on them on Wednesday. Yesterday, the military said troops dismantled two illegal outposts in Qusra and a nearby village, detained one Israeli. It said more soldiers were sent to carry out defensive missions and patrols. Qusra Mayor, Wadi said that Israeli forces evacuated more than a dozen homes to take up positions in the village. It's still not clear when families in the besieged area will be able to get basic supplies and what would happen to their homes. Yesterday, in his post about the events in Qusra, U.S. Ambassador Huckabee, a longtime supporter of the settlements, referred to the settlers as terrorists - a word American officials usually reserve for Palestinian militants - an unusually sharp rebuke from the administration of U.S. President. He said the embassy has been coordinating with the Israeli military and police. Trump has given unprecedented support to Israeli settlement over the years. During Trump's first term, he signaled broad acceptance of the settlements. At the start of his second term, he lifted sanctions imposed by the Biden administration on settlers accused of violence. The U.N. humanitarian office in April said it had recorded more settler attacks in Qusra than in any other West Bank community in 2026. A 25-year-old resident was shot and killed by an off-duty Israeli reservist in March, and eight others have been wounded in the attacks, according to the U.N. Violence between settlers and Palestinians last month left two Israelis and four Palestinians dead in a nearby northern West Bank village. In the aftermath, a mosque in Qusra was set on fire and the word revenge was graffitied on its wall in Hebrew. Palestinian officials have reported 1,476 attacks by Israeli settlers in 2026, including several instances in which settlers seized Palestinian homes and property. A total of 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers this year, according to the Palestinian Authority's Health Ministry. Palestinian authorities do not distinguish between militants and civilians when recording deaths in the conflict. Israel says some were involved in terrorism, which it defines broadly to include militant attacks and rock-throwing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to maintain good relations with his country's closest ally as he mobilizes ultranationalist voters ahead of a tough battle for reelection in October. Netanyahu's government views the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. It has presided over a surge of settlement construction in the West Bank. Yesterday, members of Netanyahu's Cabinet joined in celebrating the rebuilding of a settlement elsewhere in the West Bank that had been dismantled in 2005. The era of withdrawals and expulsions has ended. The era of construction and Zionism begins, Defense Minister Katz said at the ceremony. The military says it works to maintain law and order in the territory. Israeli Cabinet ministers have blamed the attacks on a small group of young extremists acting outside the law. Some 2.8 million Palestinians live under Israeli military rule in the West Bank, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in population centers. The settlers, who now number over 560,000, are Israeli citizens. There have been no Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in over a decade. (Source: The Korea Times - South Korea / AP - U.S.)

14 Aug 2026  Taybeh, the last all-Palestinian Christian town in the occupied West Bank, the quaint town filled with centuries-old churches, well-built homes, and street-corner statues of Mother Mary and Jesus is targeted by settlers in coordinated attacks, similar to the majority-Muslim rural Palestinian communities besieged by settler attacks and nighttime military raids for years. The town is traditionally identified with biblical Ephraim – the place Jesus is said to have withdrawn to before his final journey to Jerusalem - home now to roughly 1,200 people and to the ruins of the fifth-century Church of St George, one of the oldest Christian sites in the Holy Land. For more than 20 years, Basir built up a stone quarry and concrete-block factory on the edge of town, investing an estimated $5m in the business. Things began to change as Israeli settlers, after driving Bedouin and herding communities from areas to the east, increasingly turned their attention to the hills around Taybeh itself. In the past three years – and with the situation deteriorating even more severely this past year – Basir and his workers were frequently chased off by settlers at gunpoint, with his quarry’s heavy-machinery equipment set on fire. Employing 40 local Palestinians, he has found his life’s work snatched by marauding settlers, both armed adults and some barely teenagers commencing attacks within the town last year. In March, some 30 to 40 settlers stormed the quarry site in a coordinated mass incursion. Videos and photos show them raising Israeli flags over the grounds and performing prayers on the land. Before leaving, they smashed his office, destroyed electrical panels, and pulled cameras from the walls. He documented everything on video, filed complaints with the liaison office, the police, and every institution he could reach. All his efforts to mobilise help to protect his land, however, were for naught. The settlers were back the next day, with their attacks continuing ever since. Basir also alleges that stone taken from his land was registered under a settler’s name and resold. This past week, he finally stopped trying to continue operations, leaving his stone quarry business all but abandoned. Mayor Khourieh estimates roughly seven settler outposts now surround the town – four or five, by his count, sitting directly on Taybeh’s municipal land. Last year, Christian leaders say fires were deliberately set near the church and its adjoining cemetery. Repeatedly, settlers graze cattle, sheep and camels on private agricultural land. A couple of months ago, armed settlers set large fires along the village’s farmlands and prevented firetrucks from reaching them, according to local residents who drove to the scene. Residents of Taybeh now face routine restrictions on accessing their farmlands and resources, including the now depopulated Ein Samiya spring, which supplies all the water to Taybeh Brewery and other Palestinian communities in the area. Ssettlers have taken control of it. The newest outpost, established just last week, sits on the western edge of town, in Area B of the West Bank – nominally under Palestinian civil administration, though security in these hills has long since fallen to whoever is willing to enforce it on the ground. On his own land in Area B, Mayor Khourieh has watched a settler take over his vineyard and its well over the past month, following the establishment of a settler outpost nearby, cutting his locks, bringing sheep there to graze, at one point pitching a tent by the well and furnishing it with sofas, and even bathing in the water meant for his vines. ’We still don’t know whether I’m even allowed to go to my own vineyard or not,’ says the town mayor inside his office. According to him, the army eventually removed the settlers’ tent, but the settlers still come back daily to water their flock from Khourieh’s own well. Israeli officials have, at least on paper, acknowledged the problem. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this year that outposts established in Area B should be evacuated. But despite reported pressure from career military officials to remove the outposts over security concerns, enforcement has frequently been blocked amid opposition from officials in Netanyahu’s ’far-right’ government. By Peace Now’s latest count, of the approximately 390 illegal outposts and farms across the West Bank, at least 21 sit in Area B. In August 9, the Israeli army declared Taybeh, along with the neighbouring village of Rammun, a closed military zone. The order bars entry to Israelis and foreigners without a specific connection to the village. Tourism is gone; a well-known hiking trail sees almost no visitors any more. The removal of visitors adds to the town’s growing isolation. According to Basir, the day the military zone closure was announced, settlers broke into his office at the stone quarry and smashed cabinets, equipment, and anything they could reach inside. The following morning, he tried to go back to what remains of his quarry, but settlers confronted him again. He called the police; two and a half hours later, he says, they arrived, but the settlers had already left. Father Fawadleh, priest of Taybeh’s Christ the Redeemer Church, put it bluntly: ’We don’t feel that they’re actually forbidding the settlers from coming to Taybeh’. Emigration of Palestinian Christians has been an issue in Taybeh and elsewhere for years, as the Palestinian Christian population has shrunk to about 40,000 in the West Bank, or just more than 1 percent of the entire population. Fifteen families have already left Taybeh in the past two years, according to Father Bashar, along with dozens of individuals who left parents behind and moved on alone, mostly to the United States and Europe. Mayor Khourieh, whose own vineyard now sits behind a settler’s fence, put it in starker terms. “We are Palestinian Christians,” he says. “We have been in this town since the Lord Christ walked in it. This is our town. We will not leave it. Even if we die, we’ll be buried in it, because it’s holy ground.” “For me, our cause, our problems, are the cross we have to carry on our shoulders,” Father Bashar says. “This land is ours,” he says. “We cannot leave it easily … we want to resist by staying rooted in this land, to be part of this land, for dignity, for security, for peace, and for justice.” „Inside our hearts, we have to put hope instead of the fear.” (Source: Al Jazeera - Qatar)

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North America

United States
09:20, 12/08/2026, Wednesday  US President Trump has asserted yesterday, that Washington exercises full control over the Strait of Hormuz adding that the United States effectively 'owns it,' while openly questioning the possibility of trusting Tehran. The continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz has disrupted established energy and shipping routes. Tensions remain high, with continued disruption around the strategic waterway raising concerns over energy supplies and international shipping. (Source: Yeni Şafak / Anadolu Agency = Turkey)

Aug 12, 2026 3:40 pm KST  After a day of social media memes portraying him as hiding out in the catering truck, U.S. President Trump said today he secretly switched planes in Turkey last month, following a NATO summit in Ankara, at the direction of the U.S. Secret Service, but that the plane he ultimately flew on was still more vulnerable than Air Force One. He often promotes memes of himself as a bold and courageous leader. The White House said at the time that the president was flying aboard Air Force One from Turkey to Britain. Some media commentators questioned whether the operation left Trump's aides and journalists traveling with him at risk aboard the plane presumed to be carrying the president. (Source: Korea Times - South Korea / Reuters - United Kingdom)

Aug 11, 2026, 08:56 PM  During an audit of Pacific Command infrastructure, IG investigators visited 11 PACOM bases in May 2025. They examined operations and communications infrastructure, as well as base housing. According to a Pentagon watchdog, investigators with the Defense Department Office of Inspector General found ’visible corrosion, visible mold, visible fire damage, visible cracks on the building exterior and interior, visible concrete spalling and exposed rebar, water intrusion, lead based paint, asbestos containing material and inoperable communication connections at the U.S. military’s Pacific bases Camp Courtney and Kadena and Yokota Air Bases in Japan.’ A 50-year-old water pipe at Kadena had a 12-foot crack. One Kadena building had eight inches of standing water on the roof, asbestos and cracked pillars and walls. Broken pipes at Kadena and Yokota have caused flooding. The descriptions - and the photographs - show some structures on the verge of collapse, including two photos of homes at Kadena with crumbling ceilings and living room furniture strewn with debris. Dozens of Kadena residents were forced to move due to mold and concrete concerns. At Kinser Tower base housing at Kadena, concrete damage has affected 544 homes, according to the IG. The audit was originally aimed at assessing the state of mission-critical systems, such as operations and communications infrastructure. DoD officials told IG investigators that aging infrastructure, construction choices, or environmental conditions caused accelerated degradation. In addition, facilities in Japan experience the effects of typhoons, earthquakes and tsunamis. DoD officials also blamed the problems on a lack of funds and the high cost of services in places like Japan. They said that while the Japanese government provides host-nation funding, often it can’t be used to fix infrastructure. Instead, these funds tend to be allocated to new construction, or to broader strategic objectives, such as reducing the impact of U.S. forces on the people of Okinawa. The IG recommended that various base commanders in mainland Japan and Okinawa submit a list of priority repairs. The IG also recommended that the secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force - as well as the commanders of PACOM and U.S. Forces Japan - conduct a root-cause analysis of infrastructure problems and find funding to fix them. Dilapidated military facilities are not confined to the Pacific. Housing on military bases in the United States has long been afflicted by issues like toxic mold. A 2022 Government Accountability Office report estimated an infrastructure maintenance backlog of $137 million as of 2020. (Source: Military Times - U.S.)

August 11, 2026  US President Trump was secretly lowered from a presidential Boeing 747 in an airport catering truck and driven to a smaller military aircraft before leaving Ankara on July 8 because of an Iranian assassination threat, The Washington Post reported yesterday. Trump had been in Turkey for a NATO summit. After boarding the Boeing 747 serving as Air Force One at Ankara airport, he entered a catering container attached to the aircraft, an unnamed US official told the Post. The catering truck lowered the container and carried Trump across the airport to a C-32A, a military version of the Boeing 757, which flew him to Britain. Journalists and some officials were led to believe that he remained aboard the larger plane. After the C-32A and the larger aircraft arrived in Britain, Trump was filmed descending from the larger plane before traveling to a Qatar-donated jet. 'It remains unclear how he was transferred back to the larger aircraft, the Post reported'. (Source: Turkish Minute - Germany / Agence France-Presse)

14:11 BST, 11 August 2026  President Trump has spurned Tehran's conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran wants United States military out of the region and demands cash, compensation for the damage. Trump responded by demanding Iran must first compensate the US, pay compensation for decades of regime-backed attacks, citing deaths from roadside bombs and conflicts. 'Additionally, compensation should be paid to the families of the hundreds of thousands of innocent protesters that Iran has killed over the last 50 years, not to mention the 52,000 that have been killed in the last five months,' he wrote on Truth Social. 'I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations.' The President's comments come after US spy agencies have blamed Iran for cyber attacks over the past month. In late July, US intelligence officials believe that Iranian regime hackers hit a water utility in western Arkansas as part of the wider campaign, according to the Washington Post. Suspected Iran-linked cyberattacks have also struck water systems in a dozen states, with more than 30 community systems breached in Minnesota alone. Hackers forced Georgia authorities in the Atlanta area to issue a boil water advisory after their intrusion caused a sudden drop in water pressure. In several cases, the hackers gained remote access to pumps, valves and pressure settings and forced utilities to switch to manual mode, but officials say the attacks have had no impact on drinking water. Iran's targeted attacks on the US homeland occur as Trump's war in the Middle East approaches six months. Since the start of the Iran blockade, US Central Command has reported it has turned away 53 commercial vessels, while shipping data shows no tankers have loaded at Kharg Island. That pressure has yet to translate into concessions, even as Iranian inflation hit an annual 88.6 percent in late June and the government asks citizens to ration electricity. At home, Deputy War Secretary Feinberg gave arms manufacturers 21 days to come back with plans for significantly faster deliveries or expanded production lines, according to a memo first reported by the Washington Post. Military experts believe Patriot interceptor stocks have fallen at least 65 percent from pre-war levels, with THAAD inventories down by more than a third. Hegseth, for his part, told Republicans last month that refusing to fund the department at $1.5trillion represents the single greatest danger facing the country. His warning failed to move GOP lawmakers who are now openly splintering with the White House over a war entering its sixth month with 17 American troops dead. Trump has publicly rejected the shortage reporting, insisting on Truth Social last week that American stockpiles remain enormous and that production is running at full tilt. (Source: Daily Mail – United Kingdom)

Aug. 10, 2026 11:02 AM PT  At a forum in the Philippines, his first stop in Southeast Asia, Colby, an undersecretary of defense, today asked allies in Asia to invest more in their defense and help deter aggression in the region and said the United States remains committed to do the same with partners. Colby said Washington will maintain strong combat-credible power in the Western Pacific to deter aggression, despite its preoccupation with the Iran war and the Middle East, but insisted this security architecture must be shared with modernized, capable regional militaries. Colby also will visit Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia. ’America is definitely not disengaging from Asia - to the contrary. Our vital national interests dictate our enduring presence here,’ Colby told an audience that included foreign diplomats, generals, business executives and journalists. ’We are not leaving; in fact, we are digging in, to ensure a favorable balance of power where it matters most,’ the Pentagon’s top policy adviser said. ’We see Asia as of paramount importance.’ Colby praised efforts by the Philippines, which holds large-scale combat exercises with U.S. forces each year and cited similar efforts by Thailand, Indonesia and other security allies in Southeast Asia. Washington repeatedly has warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under armed attack, including in the South China Sea. China and the Philippines, along with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan, have been locked in territorial standoffs in the disputed waters, a key global trade route, for decades. Beijing claims virtually the entire waterway and rejected a 2016 ruling in an arbitration case initiated by the Philippines that invalidated its expansive claims. Colby repeated a vow by U.S. Defense Secretary Hegseth in a speech at the Shangri-La defense conference in Singapore in May that the U.S. will build and sustain a strong defense in the Western Pacific ’that ensures aggression is infeasible, escalation unattractive and war deemed irrational.” ’Yet this defense architecture cannot rest on American shoulders alone. It must be upheld by a network of highly capable, sovereign nations that have modernized their own forces and stepped up to secure their own territory - transforming our relationships into true partnerships of equals,’ Colby said. ’We are looking for partners, not protectorates,’ he added. (Source: Los Angeles Times / The Associated Press = U.S.)

Mon Aug 10 2026 11:32 AM  Crude oil stockpiles have fallen the lowest level since 1983. U.S. presidents have ordered massive releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), created in 1975, with growing frequency in recent years. The SPR fell by 6.1 million barrels to 298.7 million barrels last week, according to the Department of Energy. The SPR stood at around 415 million barrels before the U.S and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. President Trump ordered the release of 172 million barrels in March after Iran choked off oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz. The minimum amount of oil needed to safely operate the SPR is about 70 million barrels. an Energy Department spokesperson told. The SPR’s authorized storage capacity is 714 million barrels. The SPR’s operational capability is at risk due to aging infrastructure, according to a May report from the Government Accountability Office. More than a quarter of its inventory was ’not available for drawdown due to a combination of construction outages and cavern outages’ as of December 2025, GAO investigators found. That implied that a minimum of 103 million barrels in the SPR today are not available for use, according to a July analysis by Rapidan Energy. President Biden deployed 180 million barrels to address energy market volatility after Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022. That was the largest release in the history of the SPR. (Source: CNBC - U.S.)

South America

Colombia
August 12 2026 08:58  Regional authorities put the death toll from the Aug. 10 earthquake at more than 240, while the national government reported 188. At least 1,600 people were injured. President de la Espriella declared a state of emergency and promised rent subsidies for displaced families during a visit to Pereira. The United States announced $15.5 million in emergency assistance. (Source: Hurriyet Daily News - Turkey)

August 10, 2026  After the 7.4M earthquake. Video (Source: YouTube / Wild WeatherUS = U.S.)
3 162 694 views

(Monday, 10 August 2026) 21:22 - 16:31 CEST     At least 111 people have been killed and dozens more are injured after a powerful earthquake hits western Colombia. The magnitude-7.4 quake struck today at 07:34 (12:34 GMT) in the Chocó region at a depth of 107km. The estimated epicentre of the quake is the city of Pereira, in the heart of Colombia's coffee growing region.    At least 20 buildings collapsed in the city of Cali, with people trapped inside. The epicentre is in San José del Palmar, in the Choco region, between the cities of Cali and Medellin - recorded at 82 kilometres deep. Injuries and severe damage to buildings were reported in the cities of Quibdo and Pereira. (Source: BBC - United Kingdom)

Sun

(Wednesday), 12 August 2026 7:16am BST  Eclipses have been critical to scientific discovery throughout history. In the fourth century BC, Aristotle concluded that the Earth must be round by carefully observing lunar eclipses. He noted that the shadow of Earth when cast on the lunar surface was always curved, no matter where it was observed or from which angle, something only a sphere could do. In 1868, Janssen, the French astronomer, was carrying out spectroscopy experiments during a total eclipse in India, to find out what chemical elements were in the Sun. An entirely new gas appeared. The strange reading was also observed by Lockyer, a British astronomer, later that year. The second-most abundant element in the universe was found. He named it helium, after the word helios – Greek for the sun. The total solar eclipse in 1919 also proved crucial for confirming Einstein’s theory of general relativity. He had suggested that the intense gravitational pull of objects such as the Sun was so strong that it would bend the fabric of space 'and time'. Light should follow this curve, appearing to arc near massive bodies such as the Sun. But was far too bright to observe the phenomenon. During the same eclipse, Eddington, a British astronomer, travelled to the island of Príncipe, off the west coast of Africa, to take advantage of the Sun being covered. Eddington photographed the stars near the Sun during the eclipse, observing that they appeared slightly shifted from their original positions. It was regarded as a conclusive proof that gravity bends light rays, verifying Einstein’s work. Eclipses have also proven that Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing down. In the 18th century, Halley, the English astronomer, calculated when eclipses should have happened in the past based on the movements of the Sun and Moon. He found that they did not align with dates recorded by historians. The further back in time he looked, the larger the discrepancy became. Halley found the calculations made sense only if the Earth’s rotation was slowing down, causing the days to become longer. This finding was not explained for another 300 years, when scientists deduced the Moon was stealing some of Earth’s energy because of tidal friction. Last year, Italian and Australian scientists found that older trees in the Dolomites sent bioelectrical messages to younger spruces in the hours before an eclipse. Older trees exhibited the most anticipatory activity. Researchers say the trees cannot sense changes in light, so have theorised they may be picking up tiny gravitational changes, or even have memory of previous eclipses. As the northern hemisphere dims during Wednesday’s solar eclipse, a small plane will be chasing the darkness, photographing halo of light around Moon. NASA’s specialised high-altitude research WB-57 jet will use four cameras to take high-resolution images of the Sun, in several different wavelengths of visible and infrared light, to observe the thin halo of light that will encircle the Moon, known as the corona, capturing the ebbs and flows of the Sun’s atmosphere. Far from atmospheric water vapour, clouds and turbulence that could scupper scientific readings, it monitors the event at 50,000ft, flying over Iceland, which will experience a total eclipse. The corona is the outer atmosphere of the Sun, which extends millions of miles into space. During an eclipse, it can be seen clearly against the dark, allowing scientists to observe the superheated plasma loops that leap from the surface and measure solar wind acceleration. It will also allow researchers to investigate the heating paradox, in which the Sun’s atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than its surface for reasons that remain a mystery. Chasing the eclipse path at 460mph will extend the visibility of the corona to nearly three minutes, from just more than two minutes on the ground. As well as the plane, Nasa will deploy scientific balloons from Iceland and Spain to monitor how the sudden darkness affects the Earth’s boundary layer – the part of the atmosphere that touches the ground. (Source: The Telegraph - United Kingdom)

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Hungary (?)
Friday 15 May 2026 17:21 BST  Hungary's new Prime Minister was personally removing fencing around a historic Budapest building that 'once' served as the office of his 'autocratic predecessor', Viktor Orbán - the Karmelita, a former Catholic monastery on Budapest's Castle Hill. He opens Viktor Orbán’s former offices to the public. (Source: The Independent – United Kingdom)

Poland
May 20, 2026 3:09 pm CET  Hungary not only wants revive the Visegrad Four group as a force in EU diplomacy, but ’is looking to potentially expand it to include Austria, Romania and the Western Balkans, the Prime Minister said during a joint press conference in the Polish capital on Wednesday’. ’I am personally ready for us’ to expand this Visegrad cooperation to include other countries. ’The expanded format could include the Nordic countries, perhaps Austria, Croatia, Slovenia, Romania, or Western Balkan countries that are not part of the EU,’ Hungary’s prime minister added. The V4 currently includes Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The group has lost diplomatic heft in recent years because of bitter internal divisions, most significantly between P.M.’s ’pro-Kremlin’ predecessor Viktor Orbán and Poland’s ’anti-Russian and pro-EU’ prime minister, Donald Tusk. P.M. also said Hungary, as current president of the Visegrad Group, could try to organize a summit in Budapest before the end of June. Tusk said 'he waited many, many years' for this moment to sit down again at the same table with a Hungarian, a Slovak, and a Czech. He stressed the importance of rebuilding bilateral ties. Hungary and Poland ’will act as one fist’, whether in Brussels, in geopolitical matters, and in advancing various shared interests, Tusk said. ’Energy security is where we can strengthen our cooperation and, of course, we will gladly welcome the experience Poland has to offer,’ P.M. said. He is set to meet Polish anti-communist hero Wałęsa later on Wednesday before returning to Budapest — via Vienna — on Thursday. (Source: Politico – U.S.)

May 19 2026 13:40 As his first official visit, Hungary's Prime Minister begins a two-day visit to Poland. He is both looking to turn the page on the Viktor Orban era and also ’create’ a bloc of central European countries that carries weight within the European Union, analysts say. Poland has in recent years shifted its focus towards Nordic and Baltic cooperation, Buras, of the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank told. P.M. is hoping that Poland will again look towards central Europe. Earlier this month, he proposed merging the Visegrad Group - an informal alliance of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - with the Austerlitz format, comprising the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Austria, suggesting such an alliance could wield greater influence over the EU's cohesion fund distribution policy. In Poland, his visit is being presented by the host's deputy foreign minister who voiced hope for ’more loyal cooperation. P.M., who will be accompanied by six ministers, including Foreign Minister Orban, will meet President Nawrocki and his Polish counterpart, Donald Tusk. ’He intends to take inspiration from Tusk for the way in which he reconnected with the European Union and secured the gradual unfreezing of funds’, political scientist Dobrowiecki, of the MCC Institute, told. A European Commission delegation is expected in Budapest this week and P.M. is hoping to conclude a deal to recover billions of euros frozen ’due to rule-of-law violations’ by Orban's government during a trip to Brussels next week. On the economic front, the head of the Polish-Hungarian Chamber of Commerce, Wisniewski, said she expected momentum on bilateral ties, with trade currently amounting to 15 billion euros ($17.5 billion). En route for Warsaw, P.M. plans to stop in Krakow and meet the new archbishop, Rys, then hold a meeting in Gdansk with Poland's former president Walesa, a Nobel peace laureate and figure in the country's struggle against the USSR. He is then expected in Austria on Wednesday evening. The two countries have long shared close ties dating back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Austria is the second-largest investor in Hungary after Germany, with more than 11 billion euros. Vienna’could finally see its strategic ambitions align more closely’ with its neighbour. (Source: Hurriyet Daily News - Turkey)

19 May 2026  The Hungarian government delegation comes to Poland for three days. What to expect? P.M.'s visit to Poland ’should bring about’ stronger cooperation in energy, infrastructure, defence and ’democratic resilience’. The delegation is set to visit Kraków then travel by train to Warsaw for political meetings and follow on to Gdańsk. P.M. will be accompanied on this trip by his deputy, the Foreign Minister Orbán, Minister of Economy and Energy Kapitány, Minister of National Defense Ruszin-Szendi, Minister of Agriculture and Food Management Bóna, Minister of Transport and Investment Vitézy and Minister responsible for social relations and culture Tarr. For P.M., ’the first order of business will be Poland’s support in negotiations to unblock EU funds. Warsaw ’has the necessary political influence to help Budapest on this path. But it will not come as a free lunch’. For Poland, P.M.’s pledge to end Hungary’s dependence on Russian energy by 2035 is the most consequential thing he could have said – and Warsaw intends to hold him to it. The offer on the table is access to American LNG through the new Gdańsk terminal, due to open in 2028, which would give Budapest a ’credible alternative’ to the pipeline politics. Hungary’s MOL – itself present in Poland – makes the energy relationship genuinely reciprocal but for now quite shallowly embedded only in the distribution networks. What gives the Hungarian side ’unusual credibility’ in these negotiations is its new minister of economy and energy, a former global executive vice president of Shell Mobility Kapitány. He is not a politician learning the brief – he is someone who has managed the energy market from the inside. Warsaw intends to raise the question of the future support to Ukraine and its reconstruction effort, alongside the longer-term architecture of cooperation within the V4. A big point on the agenda is the regional V4 coordination on positions within the EU on such key questions as the next Multiannual Financial Framework. Here are three basic directions the Hungarian and Polish governments ’should stick to’. First, defence industry cooperation. Poland is the main political sponsor and beneficiary of EU defence funding with 43 billion euros in SAFE funds. It, should have its eye on the 16 billion SAFE transfer that would flow to Hungary once its frozen EU money is released – and on that front, Warsaw’s interest is well grounded. Poland has spent the past three years expanding its military-industrial base, absorbing battle-tested Ukrainian innovation and scaling up its own weapons production. ’ Now, the reasons for doing this jointly are increasingly difficult to ignore. ’ Hungary has invested heavily in domestic arms manufacturing, yet has remained oddly peripheral to the regional defence innovation ecosystem ’ that has taken shape around Ukraine’s war experience ’. Budapest has been building arms factories; it has not been building alliances. Warsaw will be watching to see whether P.M.’s government is ready to treat ’regional defence cooperation as a serious industrial and strategic commitment’, rather than a talking point. Second, infrastructure. Budapest and Warsaw pledge to reconnect via EU-funded north-south road networks and, for their own sake, they need to bring Bratislava closer in. Slovakia’s R4 expressway – the critical link between Prešov and the Polish border – remains largely in the planning and tender stage. The Via Carpathia corridor neither Warsaw nor Budapest can bridge without Bratislava’s commitment. The speed at which ’military and trade can travel’ between our countries will ultimately determine the strength of renewed bonds. Finally, the question of whether democratic societies are willing to defend themselves. The deeper work – cultivating a public culture that takes its own freedoms seriously – cannot be legislated from above, even when they rode to power on precisely that promise. The International Visegrad Fund was built, in part, to support civil society across the region. It has too often been kept at arm’s length from the harder conversations about the fragility of democratic norms and about the vectors through which autocratic pressure enters – not just from Moscow or Beijing, but from within. A bilateral track dedicated to values-driven cooperation – supporting civic institutions, independent media and ’democratic education across the V4 – would be the most durable thing to come out of this visit'. Perhap the most necessary. (Source: Visegrad Insight - Poland)
by Przybylski, Editor-in-Chief, ’an advisory board member at LSE IDEAS Ratiu Forum’, a guest lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute for the U.S. Government, Warsaw University and CEU Democracy Institute. He co-authored three books.

European Commission
(20 May 2026) 12:29 GMT+2  ’Exclusive’: ’The new Hungarian government has signalled its readiness to allow the European Union to sanction Patriarch Kirill, to be added to the bloc's blacklist’. The EU first tried to blacklist Kirill in 2022. The head of Russia's Orthodox Church was previously protected by Viktor Orbán's government, calling it an issue of religious freedom. Other Russian individuals were initially added to the sanctions list but were subsequently removed at Orbán's insistence, notably Sports Minister Degtyaryov and oligarch Kantor. They could now be put back on the table. A mini sanction package is set to be discussed by EU ambassadors this week, targeting around ten individuals and a handful of Russian vessels that Russia uses to bypass Western restrictions on oil sales. In recent months, several countries, such as France, Sweden, and Poland, have boarded suspected ships, showing a greater determination. High Representative Kallas, 4, has urged the EU to act more swiftly against the ’shadow fleet’, without waiting for a fully-fledged sanctions package. Ambassadors are scheduled to have a first discussion on the proposal on Friday, with the aim of adopting it at the Foreign Affairs Council on 15 June. The 21st package of economic sanctions is expected to be presented in June, with the aspiration of final approval by 15 July. Seizing on the post-Orbán momentum, the EU is also considering changing the period of sanctions renewal from six months to one year, something that the Hungarian prime minister vehemently opposed to retain its veto leverage. (Source: Euronews – based in Lyon, France
By Bertuzzi &  Liboreiro & ’Zsiros

19/05/2026 - 11:47 GMT+2  Hungarian Prime Minister said at a press conference in Budapest he hopes to sign a political agreement with the European Commission next week to unlock €10.4bn in recovery funds that were frozen under the previous government, as an August deadline nears. ’And these many trillions of forints’ will then arrive in Hungary on schedule, quickly, but on schedule, during the fall, he added. He is expected to travel to Brussels the following Monday. Hungary risks losing €10.4bn in recovery funding if it fails to meet the August 31 deadline to unlock the money. The funds had been blocked ’due to rule-of-law concerns’ under the Orbán government. P.M. said technical-level discussions with the European Commission were underway and would continue in the Hungarian capital through Friday. ’The August 31 deadline may not seem like such a short time, but there is a lot to do. Not only do we have to amend and agree on laws, but we also have to transform institutional systems,’ he told reporters. P.M. also said he had exchanged letters with European Commission President der Leyen regarding outstanding issues. He added that his government would reject some Commission demands related to the phasing out of windfall taxes on the financial and energy sectors. "There are requests from the Commission regarding the Hungarian budget, which we will not fulfil. Sometimes, by the way, these requests contradict each other. One day they expect us to stabilise the budget, and then they also tell us to phase out some taxes,’ P.M. said. The new Hungarian government is also expected to submit a revised spending plan for the recovery funds before the end of May. We obviously want suburban trains, railway renovation, energy-related projects and electricity grid development - those must be truly useful for Hungarian society and Hungarian companies, he said. P.M. also announced that his government was reviewing Hungary's defence loan request under the EU's Security Action for Europe (SAFE) programme. He said the Orbán government's intention had been to put the Hungarian people ’in debt to fill their crony companies with cash.’ The previous government had requested €16bn for defence projects. (Source: Euronews – based In Lyon, France)
by ’ Zsiros

European Union
May 15, 2026, 10:27 AM  Hungary’s power shift opens door for EU sanctions on Israel. Freed from Viktor Orbán’s veto, the bloc should expand its actions against Israeli encroachment in the West Bank. After Orbán’s successor, P.M. officially took office on May 9 and Hungary dropped its veto, the EU agreed to its first new sanctions package against individual Israeli settlers and organizations since July 2024. After Israel responded to the Oct. 7 attacks with a war in Gaza, that the United Nations and leading human rights watchdogs have called a genocide. In December 2023, EU foreign-policy chief Borrell proposed sanctions on Israeli actors in the West Bank. By the following April, the EU had agreed to its first-ever economic sanctions in response to violations of Palestinian rights. Until this week, the EU had formally adopted only two such sanctions packages, in April and July 2024. Those measures targeted a total of nine individual Israeli settlers and five affiliated organizations for their involvement in violence against Palestinians and the proliferation of settlement outposts - issuing travel bans; asset freezes; and broad exclusion from dealings with people affiliated with the EU, its institutions, and its financial system. The limited measures targeted low-level actors. They only came after the United States and United Kingdom took similar steps. Member states friendly to Israel, such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Hungary moved from obstructing the packages to abstaining. In August 2024, Borrell’s proposal to escalate a third sanctions package to include far-right Israeli Ministers Gvir and Smotrich for hate messages against the Palestinians was met with reluctance or outright opposition from some EU states. By early this year, Kallas said that additional sanctions on settlers had support from all but one member state: Hungary. With Orbán out, that has changed, allowing the third package to move forward after nearly two years. Orbán made Hungary into Israel’s most reliable shield in the EU. The new prime minister made it clear that Hungary will continue to block EU decisions regarding Israel and suggested a case-by-case approach. A Hungarian government that is seeking to repair relations with Brussels and reestablish itself as a credible European partner is more open to pressure than Orbán’s. The sanctions remain narrowly targeted against settlers rather than addressing the economic architecture sustaining their expansion. A targeted, list-based sanctions track would allow the EU to keep adding key individuals and entities directly involved in sustaining the occupation of Palestinian territory while expanding the class of targets with each package. This could begin with administrative bodies such as regional councils and move toward real estate firms. The approaches could disrupt not only the impunity of the settlement enterprise, but also the systems that entrench Israeli control over Palestinian land - without targeting Israel itself. Hungary’s acquiescence does not remove every obstacle to meaningful EU action on Israeli conduct that violates international law. A handful of other EU member states have also hesitated over tougher proposals toward Israel, whether out of political alignment or institutional caution. Member states that have pushed for stronger action - including Belgium, Ireland, and Spain - would prevent another country from replacing Hungary as a reliable veto. Absent U.S. leadership on sanctions, Europe has a pivotal role to play. As Israel’s biggest trading partner and the steward of one of the world’s most important currencies, the EU has sanctions leverage that few others can match. Whether Europe builds a meaningful sanctions regime against Israel upholding the rules-based order. (Source: Foreign Policy – U.S.)
by Farshneshani, the principal attorney at the Sanctions Law Center, a boutique law firm in Washington, In his legal practice, he specializes in economic sanctions administered by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and matters related to sanctions advocacy, licensing, enforcement, and the Special Designated Nationals List; Lynk, a professor emeritus at Western University’s (Canada) faculty of law. Between 2016 and 2022, he served as the seventh United Nations special rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory.

Ukraine
May 20 2026 13:14  Ukraine, Hungary FMs hold online talks on reviving their strained relations. Kiev and Budapest were locked in a bitter diplomatic dispute during the tenure of Viktor Orbán, who consistently opposed Ukraine's EU membership. Hungary depends heavily on Russian oil - most of it flowing via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline through Ukraine. 'I proposed to view Ukraine's EU accession as a strategic interest for Hungary, the opportunity to strengthen Hungarian national unity, and the best way to ensure the Hungarian minority's rights, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiga said in a statement on social media as the talks began'. Ties between Kiev and Budapest 'have thawed since the election of P.M.’, who has announced plans to meet Zelensky. He was in Poland on Wednesday for his first official trip, ’hoping to revive strained ties between Warsaw - one of Ukraine's staunchest backers - and Budapest. The status of the Hungarian-speaking minority ’in western Ukraine’ has long been Budapest's central concern. Orbán, who was voted out after 16 years in power, claimed Kiev's language and education laws discriminated against ethnic Hungarians. The consistent protection of the rights of national minorities is the first issue we must address, said Hungarian Foreign Minister Orban. "Genuine progress requires open, honest, and professional dialogue built on clear legal guarantees. I believe that today's consultations can mark the beginning of a new process,’ she added. (Source: Hurriyet Daily News - Turkey)

May 20, 2026 6:21 AM  Kyiv and Budapest began expert-level consultations online on Wednesday, the countries' foreign ministers said. They would hold talks this week about the rights of Ukraine's ethnic Hungarian minority. Budapest sees treatment of ethnic Hungarians ’in western Ukraine’ as key to improving the relationship between the countries. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Sybiha said he focused his opening statement on three key issues - bilateral relations, minority rights, and Ukraine's EU accession. The consistent protection of the rights of national minorities in our bilateral relations is our first task, Hungarian Foreign Minister Orban said on social media. The two ministers would meet tomorrow at the NATO ministerial meeting in Sweden. (Source: Miami Herald – U.S.)

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