The African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) expired on Tuesday. For 25 years, the trade pact offered many African countries duty-free access to the U.S. market. Its termination could impact more than a million jobs across the continent.

“I won’t do it again,” Putin responded to accusations against Russia of launching drones into EU airspace.

Recorded Future uncovers new details of a CopyCop operation (widely known as Storm-1516). Since March, the network has launched more than 200 fake websites (totalling over 300 domains).

ISD reveals how a Czech-language community of 70 accounts on X systematically spreads Kremlin-aligned messages ahead of the parliamentary elections.

A suspected scam network operating out of Serbia duped an estimated 70,000 people worldwide into making bogus investments, profiting €250 million in the process. The transnational scheme involved a former Premier League team sponsor and a convicted money launderer.

Read this text carefully. www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/202...

Europe’s favourite farmed fish, such as salmon and sea bass, are carnivorous and most are fed fishmeal made from other species through complex and opaque global supply chains. For instance, Senegalese sardinella is a staple fish for local communities.

😐 Because this is precisely what we all need right now.

De Standaard, Paper Trail Media, and ARIJ uncovered how Glock pistols ended up with Houthi rebels in Yemen despite a UN arms embargo.

Lighthouse Reports and Democracy for Sale, in collaboration with the New Statesman, reveal how Larry Ellison’s foundation has pledged £257m to the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) – making it one of the richest and most influential think tanks in the UK and beyond, with 900 staff across 45 countries.

The Swiss weekly WOZ has published the 2025 edition of its annual armaments report, containing the names, addresses, and backgrounds of 150 Swiss exporters of weapons, other military goods, and surveillance technology.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime warned that scam compounds are expanding to new territories, including East Timor and Papua New Guinea.

Two Russian Tu-95 and two Su-35 entered Alaska's air defense identification zone (ADIZ), prompting the US to send E-3B Sentry and F-16s.

Let us not forget one detail when giving the example of Turkey, which shot down a Russian fighter jet years ago when it briefly entered Turkish airspace while bombing positions in Syria.

Over more than a decade, the EU spent millions on unsuccessful projects in a nature reserve in eastern Congo, led by a Belgian prince. These include a safari lodge in a war zone and a hydroelectric power station that, due to a lack of customers, is being used for bitcoin computers.

It is naive to ask in 2025 what Russia's motives might be for sending fighter jets and drones into NATO territory. The motives are clear – gathering information and testing defensive capabilities and willingness to respond. It is no longer a matter of provocation—these are planned offensive actions.

Al-Sharaa becomes the first Syrian president to participate in the General Assembly in 60 years, since former president Nureddin al-Atassi attended in 1967, and the first Syrian president ever to take part in the UN’s High-Level Week, held between September 22 and 30.

Russian MiG-31s flew into Estonian airspace and approached Tallinn before Italian jets were scrambled to intercept them. They should not be intercepted—the only way to stop the provocations is to do what Ankara did a few years ago near the Syrian border: shoot down the jets.

“Large areas in the Barents Sea have been sealed off as Russia and Belarus start their major joint exercise.”

"Egypt has discovered Israeli plots to target Hamas leaders in Cairo and has warned Israel that any attack will be responded to with force, senior Egyptian officials told Middle East Eye."

NATO is “preparing” defensive measures? I thought that such a strategy had already been not only discussed but also adopted and was ready for implementation? NATO exists to be a defensive alliance.

Chinese company Geedge Networks has exported surveillance and censorship technology to several repressive regimes. For its export of surveillance and censorship technologies, Geedge Networks partly relied on Western and European technology.

Italian weekly L’Espresso reports on a child-trafficking mafia that stole children from parents in Armenia to have them adopted or “sold” abroad. 45% of the adoptions took place in Italy.

“After Kim Jong Un met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Beijing, North Korean staffers carefully wiped off items touched by the country's supreme leader, in what analysts say is part of a suite of security measures to counter foreign spies.” 🙄

A California jury found that Meta had illegally collected reproductive health information from millions of women who use the fertility tracking app Flo Health. The data had been passed on to the tech giant without the users’ knowledge or consent through a hidden tracking tool embedded in the app.

🤝

Tens of thousands of people were tortured and murdered by the Assad regime, and now dentists are helping to identify the remains.

Vague promises made under pressure have a tendency to backfire. I wrote about Britain’s recognition of Palestine and an earlier parallel for @engelsbergideas.bsky.social

TBIJ's Daniel Murphy reveals how some of the Chinese brands using the NBA to advertise actually directly own production sites linked to these human rights abuses.

Hundreds of children disappeared under the Assad regime. They were taken from their parents and secretly placed in orphanages, many under false identities.

Just 2 days after thwarting a drug smuggling attempt from S. #Syria, Jordanian forces downed another balloon carrying ~30,000 Captagon pills. The incident occurred again in the Eastern Military District, opposite #Suwayda province. www.hala.jo/2025/08/26/%...

As clashes in Sudan continue and the UAE-backed forces advance against the army, civilians are exposed to displacement and executions. Resources in areas of operations are dwindling significantly, while prices are rising: a sack of sorghum now costs around $3,000.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regularly searched more than 80,000 Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, according to data released by three police departments.

Former European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker still has an office in the EU headquarters in Brussels, where he regularly receives high-profile guests. Among his visitors are foreign diplomats from non-EU countries and former Commissioners that have since become lobbyists.

What a sad world it is when people mourn the loss of AI's "friendly voice."

HMRC (His Majesty's Revenue and Customs) has admitted for the first time that it uses artificial intelligence (AI) to spy on taxpayers’ social media posts.

Ukrainian intelligence is currently doing whatever it wants in Russian airspace, and Russian air defense systems are unable to detect drones that reach nearly 2,000 km from the Ukrainian border, as demonstrated by the latest attack on the territory of the Komi Republic.

Malaysian fugitive Jho Low, mastermind of the $7.65 billion 1MDB heist, is hiding in Shanghai's Green Hills luxury district using a fake Australian passport. He stole $2.5 billion, resulting in Malaysia's total losses of $18 billion.

Trump’s face.

If concessions are made to Moscow, they will be temporary before the next war and offensive. Now it will be eastern Ukraine, before that it was Crimea. Then it will be central and southern Ukraine, and so on until Putin's Russia achieves its main goal: transforming Kyiv into a satellite regime.

A very helpful guide by Craig Silverman on how to use bookmarklets for OSINT investigations.

Russia has made €900B from fossil fuels since invading Ukraine – money fueling its war. To dodge sanctions, it built a “shadow fleet” of old tankers. Western shipowners made $6B selling ships to this fleet.

Moscow condemned the Bulgarian National Assembly's declaration declaring the Russian Federation a state that supports terrorism. "This will not remain without an adequate response," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

“...Americans have never witnessed anything like the corruption that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have perpetrated in recent months.” ➕ - terminated the US’s new shell-company registry; - DOJ dissolved task forces that seized stolen assets - froze the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act;

Keir Starmer will this week unveil his plan for formally recognising Palestine as a state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to propose to the political-security cabinet a plan to annex areas in the Gaza Strip, in an attempt to keep Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in his government.

‼️

According to a Reuters report, Members of the European Commission will discuss a proposal to partially suspend Israel's access to the bloc's Horizon research funding program.

According to a new Reuters report, Elon Musk ordered employees to cut Starlink service over areas of Ukraine in September 2022 during a counteroffensive by Kyiv to retake territory from Russia. The decision left Ukrainian forces in a communications blackout.