If the new law is implemented, the proposal would require all parents or legal guardians to provide proof of their citizenship or evidence of their immigration status when submitting a passport application for their children.
Limiting birthright citizenship has been one of Trump’s top priorities
The Donald Trump administration is planning to ask parents in the United States to prove their own citizenship or immigration status before applying for passports for their children as part of President Donald Trump’s latest effort to limit birthright citizenship, according to a Reuters report.
The US State Department proposal marks Team Trump’s first detailed framework for implementing the Republican president’s August 6 executive order targeting what it calls “birth tourism” and broadening historical exceptions to birthright citizenship.
“President Trump has been unequivocal that this Administration will protect the meaning and value of American citizenship, full stop, and that includes making sure our passport adjudication process fully reflects that standard,” the State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said in a statement to Reuters.
What’s the New Proposal?
The existing US passport rule requires parents, who are applying for passports of their US-born children, to establish their relationship with the minor and provide government-issued photo identification.
Even in the current structure, parents are asked to declare their citizenship status on application forms, but they are not routinely required to submit documents proving their immigration status.
The State Department’s draft guidance proposed to change this process. Under the new rule, “the Department will require parental information and evidence of parental citizenship or immigration status as part of its determination whether the applicant is subject to EO 14418,” the State Department draft guidance read, citing the executive order number.
If the new law is implemented, the proposal would require all parents or legal guardians to provide proof of their citizenship, such as a valid US passport or birth certificate, or evidence of their immigration status, such as an I-94 form or a legal permanent residency card, when submitting a passport application for their children.
The information would be used by the government to determine if the child qualifies for citizenship under the new order, the State Department proposal said.
The Goal
According to the Reuters report, the new directive would withhold citizenship from children with a parent who works for a foreign government in the US, is engaged in fraud or a commercial transaction to obtain citizenship, or is classified as an “alien enemy.”
The proposed passport rules come amid an ongoing legal battle over Trump’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship. Lawyers pursuing class-action lawsuits on behalf of babies who would be deprived of citizenship under Trump’s initial order have asked two different federal judges to prevent his latest order from taking effect.
One of those lawsuits is before US District Judge Deborah Boardman, who was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden.
At a hearing on Friday in Greenbelt, Maryland, Boardman voiced skepticism about what she called Trump’s unprecedented order and allowed the plaintiffs to revise their lawsuit so she could consider whether to block it.
Justice Department attorneys have argued that a restraining order would be inappropriate and that the legal challenge was premature, as federal agencies had yet to issue public guidance on how the president’s directive would be implemented.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters on Wednesday that schools would halt the current use of about 40 educational tools in New York City classrooms.
Students need to develop skills alongside their peers, Zohran Mamdani told while imposing ban on AI.
New York City officials announced a one-year moratorium on students using artificial intelligence in public elementary and middle schools, the latest step by public officials to set guidelines around new technology in the classroom.
The move by the nation’s largest school district is the most restrictive to date across the US, though other districts, including Los Angeles, have said they are reviewing AI policies.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters on Wednesday that schools would halt the current use of about 40 educational tools in New York City classrooms.
“Children need teachers and human connection in order to learn and grow. They need to develop skills alongside their peers, build relationships with educators and wrestle with tough problems on their own,” Mamdani said at a press conference.
While US forces aim to suppress Iran’s leverage in the region, concerns remain regarding the safety of shipping routes, with energy companies wary of risks and high costs.
US fighter jets have escorted oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz.
The US military has escorted 40 commercial vessels carrying about 18 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, in what US officials described as a wartime high. The operation took place on Tuesday as the US and Iran exchanged a new round of strikes, according to a report by CNN.
Before the war began more than six months ago, about 20 million barrels of oil a day passed through the strategically important waterway. US forces used air, sea and space assets to protect the vessels while continuing strikes against Iranian capabilities that could threaten commercial shipping in the strait, the officials said.
They also faced waves of drone attacks and neutralised anti-ship cruise missiles during the escort operation, one of the officials said.
The operation is part of a broader US strategy under President Donald Trump aimed at increasing economic pressure on Iran. It includes strikes on Iranian military capabilities around the strait, escorting commercial vessels and maintaining a naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Despite the successful operation, US officials acknowledge that an end to the conflict is not close.
Energy companies remain concerned about the risks of sending vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, even under military escort. Oil prices also remain elevated, contributing to volatility in global bond markets.
US Focuses on Strait of Hormuz
The Trump administration has increasingly focused its military strategy on the Strait of Hormuz, with US Central Command directed to prioritise operations there and prevent oil exports from entering or leaving Iranian ports, according to the first US official.
Other priorities, including operations aimed at eliminating parts of Iran’s nuclear programme, have effectively been “backburnered” for now, the official said.
President Trump has recently suggested that he is willing to leave Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium buried and monitor it using satellite imagery. The material was not completely destroyed during previous US strikes on three key Iranian nuclear facilities.
On Tuesday, US forces struck nearly 60 military targets around the strait, including air defence sites, radar systems, maritime assets, mine-laying capabilities and communications facilities, while escorting the commercial vessels, the officials said.
The US military expects to continue carrying out strikes near the waterway because Iran has shown it can rebuild its capabilities, the second official said.
The official described the strategy as “mowing the grass” or a game of “whack-a-mole”, aimed at repeatedly degrading Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping.
US Says Iran’s Leverage is Weakening
The strikes and escort operations form part of a wider effort to reduce Iran’s ability to use the Strait of Hormuz as leverage, US officials said.
The US blockade has prevented Iran from exporting any oil since July, the second official said.
President Trump said on Wednesday that the latest US strikes had targeted more than Iranian radar systems, with the aim of limiting Tehran’s ability to track ships passing through the strait. “They were trying to see the ships,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “They can’t see it because they have no radar, because we blew it up, and we blew up much more than their radar last night.”
He did not specify what other targets had been hit.
Trump again said the US controlled the Strait of Hormuz and had demonstrated that it could strike Iranian positions along the coast while protecting commercial vessels from attacks.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this week that more than 17 million barrels of oil had passed through the strait on Monday, which he described as a wartime record. “That is not Iranian control of the strait,” Bessent told CNBC.
US officials told CNN they believe the strait is becoming a less effective source of leverage for Iran, pointing to increased shipping volumes as evidence.
Iran, however, is still likely to regard its ability to threaten commercial shipping and disrupt traffic as an important bargaining tool. Shipping companies remain sceptical about whether the US can maintain a sustainable system of escorted transit.
Shippers Remain Wary
Trump administration officials have repeatedly said that more oil is passing through the strait than publicly reported because vessels are increasingly switching off their transponders to avoid detection.
Most, if not all, of the 40 vessels escorted on Tuesday turned off their transponders during the journey, according to the first official.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright also claimed in August that Middle Eastern oil exports had temporarily returned to pre-war levels.
However, shipping companies and industry analysts remain sceptical of claims that the US has achieved “total control” of the Strait of Hormuz. “Safe to say the administration has not covered itself with credibility,” one person familiar with the industry told CNN.
The person added that even if the reported daily increases in shipping were accurate, “I don’t know anyone who thinks the average is that much.”
Commercial shippers are largely deciding whether to use the strait on a case-by-case basis, according to two people familiar with the industry.
The cost of chartering an oil tanker through the waterway has also surged, with some estimates putting it at more than $500,000 a day. That has provided an additional financial incentive for companies prepared to take the risk.
Insurance costs for vessels remain high after rising sharply at the beginning of the war. Reports of Iranian attacks on ships transiting the strait have also continued to deter operators.
A day after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 last year that claimed 26 lives, India took a series of punitive measures against Pakistan, including suspending the Indus Water Treaty.
The Indus Waters Treaty was designed to govern the sharing of the Indus River system between India, Pak
India is firm: The Indus Waters Treaty’s suspension remains in force and the Hague-based Permanent Court Of Arbitration “has no jurisdiction on India’s sovereign decisions” after it urged New Delhi to uphold the water-sharing treaty with Pakistan.
The Court of Arbitration, the world’s oldest permanent forum for international dispute, further said that India had no justification for ending or suspending the agreement and that the treaty between the two subcontinent arch-rivals remained fully in force.
Executed in September 1960, the Indus Waters Treaty was designed to govern the sharing of the Indus River system between India and Pakistan.
A day after the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 last year that claimed 26 lives, India took a series of punitive measures against Pakistan, including suspending the water-sharing framework.
Reaffirming its long-standing principle that “blood and water cannot flow together,” New Delhi has made it clear that treaty operations will remain suspended until Islamabad takes verifiable, irreversible action to dismantle cross-border terror networks operating from its soil.
“This so called Court was constituted by the World Bank in patent breach of the terms of the Treaty and India categorically rejects its so-called award, just as it has firmly rejected all prior pronouncements by this illegally constituted body,” the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
The statement further underscores that India has never recognised the existence in law of this “illegally-constituted body”, and has “consistently maintained that the very establishment of this alleged arbitral body constitutes a grave violation of the Indus Waters Treaty”.
Pakistan had sought arbitration over disagreements concerning the design of India’s Kishenganga and Ratle hydroelectric projects on the western rivers of the Indus system.
India has objected to the arbitration process from the start.
New Delhi argues that disputes of this nature are technical and should be examined by a Neutral Expert, as provided for under the treaty. Allowing a Court of Arbitration to simultaneously examine the same issues, India says, goes against the dispute-resolution mechanism laid down in the agreement.
“We have to move from a situation of ‘endless war’ to ‘end of war’… It is humanity’s wish that the end of this war happens soonest,” PM Modi said during a joint statement with the Russian President Vladimir Putin
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today that India supports all peaceful efforts to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and will continue to do so. His message reinforced his “Not the era of war” remark issued a few years ago and is seen as one of the strongest to emerge from India on the matter.
“We have to move from a situation of ‘endless war’ to ‘end of war’… It is humanity’s wish that the end of this war happens soonest,” PM Modi said during a joint statement with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin following their bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the SCO meet in Kyrgyzstan’s Bishkek.
“We keep discussing the matter of Ukraine and the last time we met too, you had explained the situation to me in great detail. As you know, India supports all peaceful methods (to resolve the impasse),” he said. “India advocates for resolving all problems peacefully, which is necessary for all of humanity,” he added.
PM Modi’s comment reinforces his “not the era of war” comment made in 2022 during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin – again, on the sidelines of the SCO meet — had resonated across the world at the time.
In dialogues with Putin and Ukraine’s President Volodimir Zelensky, India has consistently underscored the need for dialogue to resolve the conflict.
“India is an advocate of permanent peace in this region. Our stand is very clear – this is not an era of war. This is the time to come together against those challenges which threaten humanity. Therefore, India believes in diplomacy and dialogues,” PM Modi had said in 2022.
Describing India as the “land of Buddha”, he had added: “Empathy is one of the identities of Indians. Whenever any trouble mounts in any country, India is the first country to extend help… India believes in Buddha’s tradition, therefore, believes in peace not war… India is an advocate of peace in this region and it is clear that this is not time for war. We need to be together to fight challenges. India focuses on diplomacy and dialogue,”
Rescue teams are working to reach around 100 hydropower workers believed to be trapped inside several tunnels in Nepal’s Rasuwa district.
Damaged houses lie deluged in sludge after flash floods at Trishuli Center in Nepal’s Nuwakot district on August 31. (AFP photo)
Rescuers battled mud, debris and treacherous terrain as the death toll from devastating flash floods in Nepal and Tibet climbed to more than 950, with over 4,400 people still missing — as the disaster entered its second week with no end to the crisis in sight.
The floods, triggered by a glacial collapse near the China-Nepal border, sent a huge surge of water, rocks and debris through villages and towns last Wednesday. At least 17 bodies have also been recovered from rivers downstream in India.
Rescue Teams Race To Reach Trapped Workers
Rescue teams are working to reach around 100 hydropower workers believed to be trapped inside several tunnels in Nepal’s Rasuwa district.
Three bodies have so far been recovered from two tunnels, while mud and debris have blocked access to the affected areas. An Indian Army officer involved in the tunnel rescue operation said teams were digging through thick sludge but remained hopeful of finding survivors.
Nepal has deployed around 20,600 personnel for rescue and relief operations, while more than 3,100 people have been rescued from affected areas.
The scale of the disaster has left entire communities devastated, with roads destroyed, bridges swept away and power plants damaged.
Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah has called the disaster as “unimaginable and heartbreaking”.
Bodies Recovered As Families Search For Missing
With mortuaries overwhelmed, Nepal has begun burying unidentified bodies after collecting DNA samples so they can potentially be identified and returned to families later.
Relatives have been gathering at community centres to look at images of recovered bodies in the hope of finding missing loved ones. Nepal has also appealed for international assistance, saying it needs more than 1,000 freezer units to store bodies.
Among those listed as missing in Nepal are 592 foreigners, including trekkers and Hindu pilgrims travelling to Tibet’s Mount Kailash.
In Tibet, China has reported 16 deaths and 546 missing people. More than 2,000 personnel are involved in rescue operations there, but access to the disaster’s epicentre remains difficult.
Tibetan advocacy groups have questioned China’s casualty figures and called for more information. Beijing has rejected claims that it is underreporting deaths, saying the release of information has been “open, transparent and timely”.
The first committee meeting under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement is set to bring the three countries together for technical and operational discussions.
Mecca Joint Defence Agreement. File image/ANI
Pakistan is moving towards a larger military role in the Middle East and South Asia as Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia prepare for key defence discussions in Istanbul.
Field Marshal Asim Munir has arrived in Turkey ahead of the first committee meeting under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement, which is scheduled for Monday. The meeting will focus on joint defence cooperation between the three countries.
Asim Munir In Istanbul For Trilateral Talks
Munir’s arrival in Istanbul comes ahead of a high-level meeting involving Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The first committee meeting under the Mecca Joint Defence Agreement is set to bring the three countries together for technical and operational discussions. The talks are expected to place trilateral defence cooperation at the centre of the partnership.
The Istanbul meeting follows the formalisation of what is being described as a historic defence triad involving Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The three countries are set to discuss joint defence cooperation as they seek to strengthen military links under the agreement.
Pakistan’s New Defence Position
According to top intelligence sources, Pakistan is shifting away from traditional defence postures and positioning itself as a core military pillar across the Middle East and South Asia.
The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement has brought Pakistan’s armed forces into a framework with Turkey, which has NATO’s second-largest military, and Saudi Arabia, described as the Gulf’s premier economic powerhouse.
The agreement also includes a collective defence clause under which an attack on one country is treated as an attack on all three.
This provision marks a different phase for Pakistan, according to the intelligence sources, as Islamabad seeks a more prominent role in regional security.
Turkey, Saudi Arabia And Pakistan’s Military Triangle
The emerging partnership combines different strengths of the three countries.
Turkey brings defence technology, while Saudi Arabia provides financial backing and Pakistan contributes military power. The arrangement is aimed at establishing a strong foothold for each country in the territories of the others.
The partnership therefore extends beyond political cooperation and focuses on building deeper military and strategic links between the three nations.
The Istanbul meeting is expected to provide a platform for discussions on the technical and operational aspects of this cooperation.
The SCO summit’s priorities include counter-terrorism, regional stability and coordination on cross-border threats.
PM Modi, Xi, Putin at SCO Summit 2025 (File Photo)
The 26th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit will be held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, from August 31 to September 1, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping among the leaders attending the gathering.
Modi arrived in Kyrgyzstan on Sunday, August 30, to attend the summit and hold bilateral meetings with leaders on the sidelines. He was received at the airport by Kasymaliev Adylbek Aleshovich, chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers. A traditional Kyrgyz dance performance was also organised to welcome him.
Modi is visiting Kyrgyzstan at the invitation of President Sadyr Zhaparov for the 26th SCO Summit.
Modi To Meet SCO Leaders
PM Modi is expected to meet several SCO leaders, including Zhaparov and Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the sidelines of the summit, PTI reported.
In his departure statement on Saturday, Modi said he looked forward to advancing India’s vision for the region, based on “security, connectivity and opportunity”.
He also said India would work with SCO members towards a region free from “terrorism, separatism and extremism”.
Modi will also attend the opening ceremony of the 6th World Nomad Games.
He said the visit would strengthen India’s strategic partnerships in Central Asia, deepen its civilisational connect with the region and advance the shared pursuit of peace, stability and prosperity.
Xi Jinping Arrives In Kyrgyzstan
Chinese President Xi Jinping also arrived in Kyrgyzstan on Sunday to participate in the SCO summit, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
“I look forward to attending the SCO Bishkek Summit, working with all parties to revisit the 25-year development experience of the SCO, jointly discuss cooperation plans, create the future of the organisation,” Xi said after his arrival.
He said he looked forward to working with other members to “promote the continuous new development of the organisation”.
Xi is also expected to hold bilateral meetings with several SCO leaders during his visit.
His trip comes ahead of a busy September. He is widely expected to attend the BRICS summit in New Delhi on September 12-13 and later travel to the US for a summit meeting with President Donald Trump.
SCO Marks 25 Years
The 10-member SCO is marking 25 years since its founding in 2001 by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
India and Pakistan became full members in 2017, followed by Iran in 2023 and Belarus in 2024.
Kyrgyzstan holds the rotating chair for 2026, with the main sessions being held at the Ala-Archa State Residence outside Bishkek. Leaders’ events run from August 30 to September 1, while the Council of Heads of State plenary is scheduled for September 1.
The summit theme is “25 Years of the SCO: Together Towards Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity.”
India secured what could turn out to be one of its most important nuclear energy wins in years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi confirmed on Sunday that India and Uzbekistan would establish a long-term uranium supply arrangement.
India secured what could turn out to be one of its most important nuclear energy wins in years. Prime Minister Narendra Modi confirmed on Sunday that India and Uzbekistan would establish a long-term uranium supply arrangement, a move expected to help keep India’s nuclear power plans on track for the long haul. The announcement came after PM Modi met Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.
“We will also establish a long-term arrangement for the supply of uranium,” PM Modi said, flagging it as one of the biggest takeaways from the talks.
That wasn’t the only item on the agenda. India and Uzbekistan are also finalising three sister-city and sister-state agreements. PM Modi’s message was simple: don’t let these become another set of signed papers that go nowhere. He called for a clear roadmap so the partnerships deliver results on the ground.
Urban development came up too. Uzbekistan is currently building New Tashkent, effectively a brand-new city from scratch, and PM Modi pointed to Gujarat’s GIFT City as a model worth studying. He also offered to host an Uzbek delegation to showcase the planning, technology and implementation behind the project.
For the First Time, Trade Tops $1 Billion
Mirziyoyev also shared some notable figures. He described India as a “reliable strategic partner” and said bilateral trade crossed the $1 billion mark last year for the first time. Joint ventures have also increased sevenfold compared to a few years ago.
Travel has become easier as well. There are now 14 direct flights a week connecting the two countries, according to Mirziyoyev.
There is a cultural dimension to the relationship, too. Mirziyoyev highlighted the Lal Bahadur Shastri Centre for Indian Culture and the Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Indian Studies, saying both have played an important role in strengthening people-to-people ties. Yoga, in particular, has gained popularity in Uzbekistan. The country has had a national Yoga Federation since 2018, and hosted a yoga festival in June that attracted participants from across the region.
And Here’s the Part Travellers Will Like
Uzbekistan is set to remove visa requirements for Indian citizens for stays of up to 30 days. Mirziyoyev said the move would help boost tourism, business travel and broader people-to-people contact.
Taken together, the developments suggest the relationship has moved beyond symbolic gestures. More flights, more trade and easier travel point to growing engagement on multiple fronts.
Russia continues drone strikes against Ukrainian cities, resulting in casualties and significant damage, including fatalities from a recent attack on a warehouse near Kyiv
The destruction after the Russian attack on Kyiv. Photo : AP
Ukraine says it has intelligence that Russia is planning and preparing for possible new ground offensives against the Ukrainian cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv. Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, told reporters that Russian military commanders had been instructed by the country’s political leadership to plan and prepare attacks on the two cities.
He said the intelligence had been received and verified by Ukraine.
However, Palisa said there was currently no evidence that Russian troops were massing for the attacks. Ukraine’s priority, he said, was to “prevent the creation of conditions for the Russians to be able to launch any offensive actions at all”.
Russian forces previously attempted to advance on Kyiv during the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The assault was launched in part from neighbouring Belarus but was eventually repelled by Ukrainian forces.
The latest warning comes amid reports that Russia is testing its ability to mobilise additional troops.
A Wall Street Journal report said Russia was testing its readiness for another round of military mobilisation. The Kremlin is also reportedly losing more troops in Ukraine than it is recruiting, while concerns are growing that Moscow could announce a new mobilisation effort.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday that “escalation from Russia’s side is progressing”.
He made the comments after a briefing with Nato Secretary-General Mark Rutte. They came days after CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Moscow and warned Russian officials against escalating the conflict with America’s Nato allies.
Tusk said Ukraine needed more air support and warned that the next six months “will be decisive”. “We must be prepared as Poland and NATO for various scenarios,” he said.
Russian Attacks Intensify
The warnings over possible ground offensives come as Russia continues to launch drone attacks on Ukrainian cities. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Kyiv was facing a “virtually nonstop attack from jet-powered drones”.
In a video address on Friday, he said Ukraine needed to “significantly accelerate” production of interceptors capable of destroying Iranian-designed Shahed drones.
At least 37 people have been killed after a Russian drone struck a warehouse near Kyiv’s western suburbs that was storing “explosive objects”, according to Ukrainian officials.
The strike damaged at least 50 residential buildings and caused a large fire and a series of explosions in the Bucha district of the Kyiv region.
A care home for elderly and disabled people was among the buildings damaged.
Regional governor Tymur Tkachenko said 42 people, including four children, were injured.
More than 370 people were evacuated from the area, Zelenskyy said, adding that the evacuation operation was continuing. He said a warehouse in the town of Myla had been hit, “followed by a detonation”.
According to Zelenskyy, the facility was a Ukrainian military depot used to store shells, drones and other ammunition. “The first impact was on a place where ammunition was being stored that absolutely should not have been there – a depot of the defence forces,” he said. “[There was] detonation of shells, mines, other munitions and drones on a significant scale,” he added.
Zelenskyy said criminal proceedings had been opened over alleged official negligence. “There are regulations in place; ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas,” he said.
Ukraine remains cautious, fearing an impending escalation from Russia.
Trump Putin Zelenskyy Meeting
CIA Director John Ratcliffe proposed a trilateral meeting between US President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a covert visit to Moscow earlier this week, according to a report by Axios. The proposal was made as the Trump administration seeks to revive efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
It was the first time Ratcliffe had become personally involved in the diplomatic effort to broker a breakthrough between Moscow and Kyiv, according to the sources. Ratcliffe’s visit was partly intended to assess whether Russia’s intelligence chiefs could help persuade Putin to resume US-mediated negotiations with Ukraine.
US officials briefed Zelenskyy on Friday about Ratcliffe’s discussions in Moscow, including the proposal for a three-way summit.
The Trump administration has previously raised the possibility of such a meeting. Zelenskyy has supported the idea, while Putin has rejected it.
Ratcliffe travelled secretly to Moscow on Tuesday, where he met Russia’s foreign intelligence chief Sergey Naryshkin and Federal Security Service (FSB) director Alexander Bortnikov.
President Trump described the CIA chief’s visit as “standard business” and said it was not intended as a warning to Russia against attacking NATO territory.
According to the sources, Ratcliffe also discussed the possibility of restarting peace negotiations during his meetings in Moscow. The New York Times reported that Ratcliffe gave Bortnikov “a bleak assessment” of the war and urged Russia to reach an agreement before its position deteriorated further.
The Axios sources said Ratcliffe came away from the meeting believing Bortnikov could be a constructive figure in efforts to restart diplomatic contacts.
Ukraine remains sceptical about Putin’s willingness to pursue peace. Ukrainian officials have said they have intelligence suggesting Russia is preparing for a major escalation of the war.
Pavlo Palisa, Zelenskyy’s deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Friday that Putin had ordered the Russian military to prepare several operational scenarios for an offensive in northern Ukraine. He said Kyiv and Chernihiv had been identified as key areas.
PM Narendra Modi thanked Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev on social media for the “special gesture” of welcoming him at the airport
PM Modi greets the Indian community at an event in Tashkent. (X/@MEAIndia)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Tashkent on Saturday for Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, where he will hold bilateral meetings and participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit to bolster India’s strategic partnerships in Central Asia.
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev received Modi on his arrival in Tashkent late on Saturday. The PM’s special aircraft took a longer route through Chinese airspace since Pakistani airspace remains closed to Indian aircraft, people familiar with the matter said.
Modi thanked Mirziyoyev on social media for the “special gesture” of welcoming him at the airport and said his fourth visit to Uzbekistan reflected the depth and growing momentum in bilateral relations.
Landed in Tashkent to a warm welcome by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Grateful to him for the special gesture.
This is my fourth visit to Uzbekistan, reflecting the depth and growing momentum of our bilateral relations.
Following his two-day trip to Uzbekistan, Modi will travel to Kyrgyzstan to participate in the SCO Summit and hold bilateral meetings, including with Russian President Vladimir Putin, on the margins of the gathering.
“I am confident that this visit will strengthen India’s strategic partnerships in Central Asia, deepen our civilisational connect with the region, and advance our shared pursuit of peace, stability and prosperity – values that lie at the heart of India’s engagement with the world,” Modi said in a statement ahead of his departure from New Delhi.
Soon after his arrival, Modi laid a wreath at Yangi Uzbekistan Park in Tashkent, emphasising the deep-rooted friendship between India and Uzbekistan.
Trade, defence, energy on agenda with Uzbekistan
Modi said in his statement that the India-Uzbekistan strategic partnership has witnessed significant advancement in recent years, and he looked forward to discussions with Mirziyoyev on Sunday that will focus on deepening cooperation in trade, investments, digital connectivity, defence and energy, and on advancing the shared visions of “Viksit Bharat” and “Yangi Uzbekistan”.
He will also visit the Shastri Memorial and the Mahatma Gandhi Centre at the Tashkent State University of Oriental Studies.
Uzbekistan is a partner country in the BRICS grouping, which is currently chaired by India. India is among Uzbekistan’s top 10 trade partners, and bilateral defence cooperation has grown over the years, with the seventh edition of the Dustlik joint exercise held in April this year.
Uzbekistan is also the third-largest source country for medical tourism in India and is home to more than 18,000 Indians, including 16,000 medical students.
VLADIMIR Putin has flexed his nuclear arsenal by launching an intercontinental ballistic missile in a chilling warning to the West.
It came after CIA chief John Ratcliffe flew to Moscow and reportedly issued the Kremlin a stern warning not to attack Nato members.
Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile at a test site in the northern wildernessCredit: East2West
But just days later Putin has defiantly engaged in more nuclear sabre-rattling by firing a ballistic rocket at Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia.
Ominous footage showed the thunderous blast-off as the missile took to the skies under a ball of fire and smoke.
The rocket reportedly hit the Kura test site 4,300 miles away in Russian Pacific region Kamchatka.
“All assigned tasks were completed in full,” said the Defence Ministry’s TV channel Zvezda.
“The purpose of the launch was to confirm the missile system’s performance and flight characteristics.”
The Russians did not immediately disclose the type of missile.
It carried multiple “training warheads” and was a solid fuel missile from a ground-mobile complex consistent with a RS-24 Yars rocket.
The launch came soon after a visit to Moscow by CIA Director John Ratcliffe, when he reportedly gave a “bleak assessment” of the Russian war effort.
Donald Trump‘s chief spy is said to have urged the Putin regime to cut a deal to end the conflict before his military and economic crisis worsens.
Ratcliffe reportedly took his stark message directly to Aleksandr V. Bortnikov, head of Russia’s FSB security service.
No threats of consequences were made if Putin ignored the warning and chose to continue fighting, officials said.
Trump has now insisted Putin wouldn’t attack any Nato territory whilst he was in charge.
He said: “I’ve had good talks with him. He’s not going to be attacking a Nato territory.”
But Russian sources say Putin has since doubled down on the war despite suffering daily costly setbacks.
The latest launch appears a symbolic move intended to convey Putin’s power.
The CIA has long questioned whether Putin’s circle has given him “honest assessments of the war’s trajectory and toll”, The New York Times reported.
They suspect Putin is cocooned from the grim truth as his commanders report constant gains despite a lack of objective evidence.
Ratcliffe hoped that Putin – as an ex-KGB spy – would see a warning as more “urgent and credible” than communications through normal diplomatic channels.
Over 14,000 security personnel have been mobilised for search and rescue operations and about 3,742 people have been rescued.
This has been the deadliest disaster for Nepal since a 2015 earthquake
The devastating Nepal floods have claimed at least 579 people and left more than 977 people missing, Nepal’s disaster authority said on Friday. The Chinese state media said that the disaster that happened on Wednesday killed at least five people, taking the total casualties to 584. Together, the two countries have said that almost 2,500 people are missing.
Over 14,000 security personnel have been mobilised for search as rescue operations continue for the third day of the tragic incident and about 3,742 people have been rescued.
This has been the deadliest disaster for Nepal since a 2015 earthquake. The US Geological Survey said that the floods were caused by a glacial collapse that triggered a vast flow of icy debris.
After a dam on the Tibet side burst, the Nepali police issued a fresh alert on Friday. Security personnel and rescue and relief workers were told to stay on high alert and immediately move to a safe location if necessary.
China temporarily stopped rescue work when a lake made of debris started spilling over, but state media later said the danger was dropping and rescues were back on track. Officials are still trying to figure out if this lake is the same debris dam that Nepal warned had already burst.
320 Indians Still Missing
The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a press briefing that 21 Indians had arrived yesterday from the flood-devastated area in Kathmandu.
#WATCH | Delhi: On Nepal flash flood, MEA Official Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal says, “… First good news, 21 Indian nationals who had arrived yesterday in Kathmandu from the area that was affected by this flood have today landed in Delhi. These 21 Indian nationals are from… pic.twitter.com/QQU5lmSEMw
Tankers anchor near Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA’s Jose terminal while waiting to load and discharge, in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela August 9, 2026. REUTERS/Leonardo Fernandez Viloria Purchase Licensing Rights
Trump administration officials are working on a deal to secure long-term access to a portion of Venezuela’s crude reserves, sources with knowledge of the negotiations said on Thursday, a move that could ultimately lower the cost of oil imports.
The agreement, which could be signed and made public soon, is expected to operate in a way that would let the U.S. government lock in a group of Venezuelan oilfields to be developed by American companies, the sources said, adding that the resulting supply would be guaranteed for the United States.
“This is real and being discussed at the highest levels of the U.S. and Venezuelan governments,” one of the sources said.
A separate source said a “lease” was in consideration as the legal model to make the deal work, with a further auction or tender to allocate each one of the fields among U.S. producers.
A list of 17 fields in negotiation seen by Reuters includes green fields in the vast Orinoco Belt combined with mature areas in Lake Maracaibo, some of which are currently operated by a small Chinese firm whose contract was signed during Maduro’s administration.
The White House referred questions to the U.S. Department of Energy. Venezuela’s oil ministry, state oil company PDVSA and the Energy Department did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Venezuelan oil minister Paula Henao could not be reached for comment.
Venezuela is considering leaving the OPEC oil production group as it strengthens ties with the U.S., Bloomberg reported late on Thursday. Venezuela, which joined the group as a founding member in 1960, has not met OPEC quotas for years as its state-run oil industry suffered from neglect and corruption. The U.S. has long been at odds with OPEC for its influence on oil prices.
Current hydrocarbons regulation in Venezuela, which has the world’s largest crude reserves, does not include acreage leases for oil areas, while the Constitution reserves the industry’s core activities to the state. CHALLENGES
Recently reformed oil legislation allows oilfield operation through joint ventures and production-sharing contracts. For decades, the Venezuelan government has prevented foreign producers from booking the country’s oil reserves.
While full details of the prospective deal between Washington and Caracas have yet to emerge, it could raise constitutional questions and face legal challenges, according to experts.
Axios first reported on the talks on Thursday and said U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is planning a trip to Caracas as soon as next week.
Since the U.S. captured and removed former President Nicolas Maduro from power in January, Washington has been trying to secure a stable flow of Venezuelan crude for U.S. refineries while promoting American investment into the OPEC country’s deteriorated energy industry, which currently produces some 1.25 million barrels per day of crude.
Delhi has recorded 2,308 H1N1 cases so far in 2026, while cumulative Influenza A and B cases have crossed 3,000, with H1N1 currently the predominant influenza subtype in the city, according to an official statement issued on Tuesday.
The Delhi Medical Association has issued an advisory amid a rise in H1N1 cases in the national capital, urging people to follow respiratory and personal hygiene measures, avoid crowded places and seek timely medical advice if they develop flu-like symptoms.
Delhi has recorded 2,308 H1N1 cases so far in 2026, while cumulative Influenza A and B cases have crossed 3,000, with H1N1 currently the predominant influenza subtype in the city, according to an official statement issued on Tuesday. H3N2 was the predominant subtype in Delhi last year, Delhi health minister Pankaj Singh said on Tuesday.
The association advised people to cover their mouth and nose while coughing or sneezing, wash their hands frequently and avoid touching their eyes, nose and mouth with unwashed hands.
It also advised people to maintain distance from those suffering from H1N1 or influenza-like illness and avoid spitting in public places.
The DMA has recommended wearing an N95 mask while experiencing flu symptoms, while health care professionals have been advised to wear masks in clinics, hospitals and OPDs.
It also cautioned people against taking antibiotics or antiviral medicines without consulting a qualified physician and advised those with flu-like symptoms to avoid meeting relatives, friends and others to prevent the spread of infection.
The association further advised people returning from travel or areas witnessing increased influenza activity to monitor their health for at least 10 days and report to the nearest health facility if they develop symptoms. It also recommended using face masks in crowded areas, markets and public transport.
Nepalese rescuers are racing against time to find survivors and bodies buried under the slush, with Prime Minister Balendra Shah pledging all government resources to relief work.
Entire settlements have been “wiped out”, aid workers have claimed
At least 162 people have been killed and hundreds remain missing after flash floods hit the Nepal-Tibet border region Wednesday morning. Among those missing are at least 142 Indians, including pilgrims to Kailash Mansarovar.
Nepal police have recovered 162 bodies, and officers are working towards moving families from flood-risk areas.
Some 403 tourists, 341 of them foreigners, were unaccounted for several hours after the disaster struck, according to the tourism ministry.
The missing foreigners included 142 Indians, as well as others from Australia, Britain, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea and the United States, the tourism board said.
Nepalese rescuers are racing against time to find survivors and bodies buried under the slush, with Prime Minister Balendra Shah pledging all government resources to relief work.
The flood surged through the Bhote Koshi River around 9 am (local time) as it crossed over from the Tibet side. Rasuwa and Dhading, bordering Tibet, and Nuwakot were among the affected districts.
India jumped into humanitarian assistance soon after, with the Air Force deploying a transport aircraft with 10 tonnes of relief materials and medical supplies.
Entire settlements have been “wiped out”, aid workers have claimed.
Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah vowed a maximum response.
“The pain and loss you have suffered is not small,” he said in a statement on social media. “But I want to assure you that you are not alone in this difficult time — the state is with you with all its means and resources.”
U.S. and Chinese flags are seen in this illustration taken March 20, 2025. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
The U.S. said on Wednesday it had disrupted a Chinese hacking operation responsible for break-ins and attempts on the Justice Department, NASA, the Federal Reserve, the Senate, and other sensitive government agencies.
In a statement, opens new tab, the Justice Department said it had seized domains used by two hacking platforms, dubbed QScan and QTRouter, which it said had been used as part of the campaign.
An affidavit, opens new tab identified the U.S. Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, and four unnamed companies in the U.S. and South Korea as being among the hackers’ victims.
A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington said in an email that while they were not familiar with the specifics mentioned in the DOJ statement, the “Chinese government firmly opposes and combats all forms of cyberattacks in accordance with the law.”
The U.S. uses cybersecurity issues to “smear or discredit China,” the spokesperson said, and China “opposes the U.S. overstretching the concept of national security and using it as a pretext to impose discriminatory restrictions on Chinese companies and will firmly safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.”
The Justice Department said the platforms were run by a China-based firm, the Nanjing Xinjiuwei Network Technology Company, whose clients it said included China’s civilian intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security, and its military, the People’s Liberation Army.
Nanjing Xinjiuwei did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside normal business hours. HACK ATTEMPTS STARTED IN 2018
The affidavit said the hackers used tools they developed to compromise critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks in the U.S. and worldwide since at least 2018.
The affidavit said that not all their attempts to gain access were successful. The hackers unsuccessfully attempted to gain access to NASA networks in August 2019 by targeting a virtual private network vulnerability.
In September 2024, the hackers carried out intrusions at three unnamed Energy Department laboratories, the NIH, an unnamed HHS agency, and a U.S. security device manufacturer, according to the affidavit.
A joint cybersecurity advisory, opens new tab issued by the FBI, NSA and U.S. Cyber Command’s Cyber National Mission Force detailed multiple hacking efforts over the years. These included successful data theft from unnamed defense contractors, financial institutions and universities in May 2024.
The hackers also scanned for vulnerabilities and made unsuccessful attempts to access networks of the U.S. Senate and a U.S. hospital in March 2026.
A NASA spokesperson said the agency does not comment on specific incidents, and the Department of Health and Human Services referred questions to the DOJ. The DOJ did not respond to a request for additional detail.
Chinese-linked hacking campaigns have compromised a string of sensitive U.S. government and private networks in recent years. In March, the FBI notified Congress that hackers had penetrated certain agency networks related to people under FBI investigation, with public reporting later attributing the compromise to China. Chinese-linked hackers have also been tied to a compromise of certain U.S. House of Representatives committee networks, as well as multiple major telecommunications companies in recent years.
A woman holding a child waits to fill out a U.S. visa application form at a consultancy that assists with visa paperwork in Kathmandu, Nepal, November 28, 2025. REUTERS/Navesh Chitrakar Purchase Licensing Rights
President Donald Trump’s administration has issued a pause on visa appointments for applicants around the world during an ongoing immigration crackdown by the U.S. government in the Republican leader’s second term in the White House.
A U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday that it launched a global training initiative at all U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide and that appointments for visa services will be adjusted to accommodate the training.
Trump has pursued an aggressive deportation drive and immigration crackdown that includes revocations of visas and green cards and rejection of applications over a. range of reasons like political opinions and pro-Palestinian protests against U.S. ally Israel’s assault on Gaza.
He says the crackdown aims to improve domestic security.
The crackdown has faced some legal setbacks. A U.S. judge on Friday struck down a Trump administration policy suspending the issuance of immigrant visas to applicants from 75 countries, saying that the policy exceeded Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s statutory authority.
The State Department did not specify details on the training and its timeline, beyond saying the training aimed to help consular officers screen out applicants deemed likely to become dependent on U.S. public benefits and to ensure evaluation of visa applicants “comprehensively and consistently.”
The pause on visa appointments was reported earlier by the Financial Times, which said immigrant visa applicants with scheduled interviews at U.S. embassies and consulates have received emails that their appointments were being rescheduled and that they would receive future notice of a new date.
Trump’s immigration crackdown has been widely condemned by human rights groups as being discriminatory and in violation of free speech and due process rights. Rights groups also say the crackdown has created an unsafe environment in the U.S., especially for ethnic minorities who have raised concerns about racial profiling.
Iran said it had restarted talks with neighbor Oman to manage the Strait of Hormuz as it faces heightened economic pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump in the wider conflict.
Iran and Oman have been in on-and-off talks for weeks about controlling traffic through the strategic waterway, which handled one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas shipments before the war began in February.
[1/3]Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi meets with Oman’s Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr al-Busaidi in Tehran, Iran, August 25, 2026. Iranian Foreign Ministry/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS Purchase Licensing RightsMost shipping has been shut down since then.
The two countries said on Tuesday that they discussed “a joint temporary navigational corridor” through the strait and agreed to clear it of mines.
Trump said all mines in the strait had been cleared, repeating comments that he has previously made.
Though active hostilities between the U.S. and Iran have largely subsided, diplomatic efforts to reach a peace deal have stalled and passage through the waterway remains perilous.
An oil tanker was struck on Tuesday by an unidentified projectile and disabled about 9 nautical miles (17 km) northeast of Oman’s Ash Shishah, which lies at the entrance to the strait, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said.
Separately, the U.S. Secret Service said on Tuesday that it was aware of a video broadcast by Iranian state television discussing a potential plot to assassinate Trump’s youngest son, Barron.
A three-minute video broadcast by Iranian state TV discussed a potential plot to assassinate Barron Trump, 20, claiming that he was being monitored and alleging that a $10 million bounty had been offered for his killing. SANCTIONS
Despite the ongoing tensions, the U.S. is beginning to send personnel back to some diplomatic missions in the Middle East that were evacuated or downsized amid tensions with Iran, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The move suggests Washington sees a lower risk of the conflict with Iran escalating in the near term, though some embassies will initially operate below full capacity.
In an effort to hobble Iran’s economy, the United States earlier this week threatened to punish countries that continue to do business with Iran, but said it would not impose penalties immediately.
Oil prices fell for a second day as traders brushed off the impact of the U.S. sanctions, while Iran denounced the U.S. effort to isolate its economy as an act of “gross lawlessness”, expressing confidence that many countries would not join the pressure campaign.
IIT-Delhi has initiated an external investigation into the suicide of MSc Physics student Rishikesh Kumar, following student protests.
IIT Delhi sets up external panel to investigate alleged suicide by a student
IIT-Delhi has set up an external panel to investigate the circumstances that led to the death of a student allegedly by suicide, officials informed. An external ombudsperson will be appointed to address student grievances that remain unresolved through existing internal mechanisms, the institute said.
IIT Delhi Director Rangan Banerjee announced the external inquiry committee. The announcement was made following a day of student protests over the death of MSc Physics student Rishikesh Kumar. The protest by the students is still continuing.
Committee to Probe Death, Submit Report in Two Weeks
The external panel comprises Ashok Kumar, former Uttarakhand Director General of Police who is an IIT-Delhi alumnus and Vice Chancellor of Haryana Sports University and Pratap Sharma, Head of Department of Psychiatry, AIIMS, New Delhi.
Besides, two student representatives and IIT-Delhi registrar will also be part of the external probe panel.
“The committee will speak to relevant students and faculty members, examine the functioning of the concerned administrative offices, review existing protocols and processes and make recommendations. The panel has been given two weeks to submit its report,” an official said.
“The institute will ensure that the committee is given the necessary mandate to examine the matter comprehensively and to identify any further measures that may be required to strengthen student support systems,” the official said.
“In addition, an external ombudsperson is proposed to be appointed to address student grievances that remain unresolved through the existing internal mechanisms,” the official added.
The institute also informed that they will reimburse medical costs, use a benevolent fund, and open a new voluntary fund for the family.
IIT Director Banerjee also said that Rishikesh Kumar had joined the MSc Physics program in July 2025 and was staying in the Shivalik hostel. He performed well academically in his first semester before developing mental health issues in March 2026.
Ford backed Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and warned Canada could use electricity, fuel, potash and uranium to put “massive pain” on the U.S. in retaliation.
Doug Ford Fires Back At Trump Amid Escalating Trade War
Ontario Premier Doug Ford has sharply escalated his criticism of US President Donald Trump amid the latest fallout from the Canada-US trade war, calling Trump a “dictator,” a “bully” and the “king of bankruptcies.”
Speaking at a news conference in Hamilton on Monday, Ford doubled down on his earlier remark that Trump could “kiss my ass” after the US president’s latest tariff threats. Ford also said he fully supports Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to walk away from trade negotiations with the United States.
The latest exchange comes after 50% US tariffs on about $28 billion worth of Canadian goods took effect early Saturday. Carney has said Canada will impose dollar-for-dollar retaliatory tariffs on US goods starting September 8.
Ford Warns Trump That Canada Can ‘Put Massive Pain’ On US
Ford said Canada should consider a wide range of retaliatory measures, including electricity, fuel, potash and uranium, arguing that the country has the ability to put significant economic pressure on the United States.
“We need to throw everything and the kitchen sink at them,” Ford said, adding that Trump “underestimates us.”
Ford also attacked Trump’s leadership style, saying he would not take advice from someone he described as the “king of bankruptcies.”
“I don’t respond to a dictator like President Trump,” Ford said, comparing the president to a school bully who takes away other children’s belongings.
Earlier Monday, Ford had told Toronto radio station Newstalk 1010 that Trump was “arrogant” and “cocky” while reiterating his “kiss my ass” comment.
Trump responded by attacking Ford online, referring to him as “Flunky Ford” and describing him as a less charismatic and intelligent version of his late brother, former Toronto mayor Rob Ford.
Tehran also threatened both a possible military response and further reduction in oil exports from the Gulf even before any US economic measures were announced.
Almost six months have passed since the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran.
Iran has threatened retaliation against the expansion of the United States’ economic sanctions, with Tehran expressing confidence that major trading partners would resist Washington’s pressure campaign. Taking to social media, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf downplayed the impact of new US restrictions, claiming Washington is in no economic position to further restrict its relations with other nations.
The remarks came after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent unveiled the so-called measures on Monday to “cut off Iran’s economic lifeline.” The Team Trump member, however, stopped short of the most punishing sanctions, saying countries that continued trading with Iran risked being forced out of the dollar-based financial system.
Bessent declined to identify which of Iran’s trading partners would be targeted or reveal when those penalties would take effect. Instead, he said that the US would provide them time to comply with the new directive. The Treasury Department did announce new sanctions on 60 individuals, entities and vessels, but the list did not include any of the Chinese financial institutions — Tehran’s biggest trading partner– suspected of facilitating Iran’s oil trade.
What Iran Said
After the United States’ announcement, Ghalibaf said, “Americans know that no one buys their bombast; the United States is not in an economic position to further restrict its relations with other countries.”
“Iran’s trading partners, both in the media and through messages sent to us, have made it clear that they don’t take these statements into account anywhere,” he added in a post on X.
Iranian Economy Minister Ali Madanizadeh also said Tehran was “fully prepared for the US sanctions.”
“Naturally, the enemies intend to launch an economic terrorist attack on us, but we also have our own tools and know how to play the game. Our defence is no longer so defensive; the enemies should wait for an attack,” Madanizadeh told state television.
He also said neither China nor Russia had “accepted” the US measures and predicted other countries would resist them.
Tehran also threatened both a possible military response and further reduction in oil exports from the Gulf even before any US economic measures were announced.
Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesperson for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, vowed heavy blows to US vital interests and energy chokepoints if Iran’s infrastructure is threatened, Press TV reported.
Where the War Stands
Struggling to resolve an unpopular war that has pushed energy prices higher, President Donald Trump’s administration in the US appears to be counting on further economic pressure, even though Iran has spent decades under layers of American and international sanctions that have battered its economy but have not deterred its leadership.
Jaishankar said PM Modi hopes that President Vladimir Putin would attend the Brics Summit in New Delhi on September 12-13
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, and Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar shake hands during their meeting at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. (AP/PTI) (Sergei Karpukhin/Pool Sputnik Kr)
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday assured India of supplies of energy and fertilisers amid disruptions caused by the West Asia conflict, even as external affairs minister S Jaishankar highlighted the need to address the growing imbalance in two-way trade that has soared to $50 billion.
Putin’s expected meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the margins of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Kyrgyzstan this month and on the sidelines of the Brics Summit in New Delhi in September figured in a meeting between the Russian leader and Jaishankar in Moscow. Jaishankar is in Russia to co-chair a meeting of the Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC).
Putin pointed out that bilateral trade has increased this year, after declining slightly in 2025, and said Russia is increasing fertiliser supplies to India. He noted that any important issues had figured in the IRIGC-TEC meeting and said: “One of these issues is not only energy – it is, of course, the supply of fertilisers…We are doing everything to resolve this issue for Indian farmers, for agriculture. We are increasing these supplies and are ready to do so further.”
The two sides are also making progress on cooperation in nuclear energy and high-tech, Putin said.
Jaishankar said Modi hopes Putin will attend the Brics Summit in New Delhi on September 12-13. “Prime Minister Modi looks forward to meeting you at the SCO Summit and also hopes that you will have the opportunity to come to the Brics Summit and host this annual summit,” Jaishankar was quoted as saying by state-run TASS news agency.
He also handed over a personal message from Modi to Putin. People familiar with the matter said Putin is expected to attend the Brics Summit, along with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The summit is expected to focus on global economic and political challenges, and expanding multilateral cooperation among Brics member states.
While co-chairing the IRIGC-TEC meeting with Russia’s first deputy prime minister Denis Manturov, Jaishankar pointed out that a more than four-fold increase in bilateral trade in goods — from $13 billion in 2021-22 to nearly $60 billion in 2025-26 — had been “accompanied by a significant widening of the trade imbalance” from $6.6 billion to more than $50 billion.
“Addressing this imbalance is today one of our foremost priorities. Progress on market access, removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers, strengthening payment mechanisms and stronger business-to-business engagement will be critical for addressing this imbalance and achieving our shared objective of $100 billion in bilateral trade by 2030,” Jaishankar said at the start of the meeting.
Jaishankar made three proposals for the next phase of the India-Russia economic partnership – focusing on implementation and outcomes to prioritise deliverables and solving problems, strengthening engagement with businesses by aligning institutional mechanisms with industry priorities, identifying bottlenecks and improving policy responses, and exploring new possibilities to address the needs of de-risking and diversifying.
The discussions between Jaishankar and Manturov also encompassed cooperation in trade, investments, energy, fertilisers, nuclear energy, connectivity, technology, space and mobility of professionals. The two sides also reviewed the progress in discussions between India and the Eurasian Economic Union on a free trade agreement.
Manturov said Rosatom’s involvement in building the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu could be the basis for expanding cooperation in nuclear energy, including the “creation of new power generation facilities in India, including small-scale ones, as well as the localisation of equipment and nuclear fuel production”.
Russia also sees potential for new joint projects in the extraction and processing of non-ferrous and rare earth metals, Manturov said. Russia and India are also discussing cooperation in space exploration, including manned spaceflight, rocket propulsion and satellite navigation, he said.
The prototype of a high-speed electric train jointly produced by India and Russia will be assembled by the end of the year, after which serial production is expected to begin, Manturov announced at the meeting. “Within this framework, the flagship project in transport engineering — the development and production of the Vande Bharat electric trains — is systematically developing,” he said.
In March 2023, a consortium led by Russia’s Transmashholding won a $6.5-billion tender for the development, production and 35-year service of 1,920 Vande Bharat electric train cars.
Manturov also prioritised cooperation in energy security, including the supply of oil, petroleum products and coal, as well as joint investment projects in hydrocarbon production and processing. Russia is currently among the top two suppliers of energy to India.
Carney claimed that the US proposed new terms that were “uneconomic” and “unfair” and said that they undermined the net benefits for Canada.
Canada PM Mark Carney accused US President Donald Trump of launching a trade “war”
After the negotiations between Washington and Ottawa broke down on Friday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that he walked away because of a ‘bad trade deal’ and vowed to slap retaliatory tariffs on the US on Saturday.
Carney claimed that the US proposed new terms that were “uneconomic” and “unfair” and said that they undermined the net benefits for Canada.
He accused US President Donald Trump of launching a trade “war” and said, “You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked.”
“We cannot accept what they’ve offered, and we will not give what they’ve asked,” Carney said.
Negotiations between the neighbouring countries broke down on Friday in Washington, allowing new 50-per cent US tariffs impacting some $20 billion worth of goods, or 5.5 per cent of Canadian exports to the United States, to come into force.
Impacted products range from hockey sticks to cement.
Although Trump said that the US should be able to crack a trade deal with Canada because of his “good relationship” with Carney, the Canadian prime minister claimed that Washington’s conditions were ultimately unacceptable.
Carney promised to retaliate against US tariffs “dollar for dollar”.
“Canada will match the U.S.’ new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses. We take this step confident that it is in the best interests of Canada,” he wrote in a post on X.
For over a year, Canada has worked intensively and in good faith with the United States to negotiate a new comprehensive trade deal. We have been pragmatic, patient, and persistent. Our goal has always been to get the best deal for Canadians, never a deal at any price or on any…
New Canadian tariffs will notably target the US steel and dairy industries and take effect on September 8. Carney said further details would come next week.
Canada will impose tariffs on some U.S. goods in retaliation for 50% levies ordered by President Donald Trump on Canadian products, Prime Minister Mark Carney said on Saturday, after trade talks collapsed between the two neighbors.
The “dollar for dollar” tariffs on imports of U.S. steel, electronics and other products, to take effect on September 8, mark a further worsening of relations between the longtime allies and major trading partners.
The two countries failed to reach a trade deal late on Friday, with each side blaming the other for derailing three days of intensive negotiations. The breakdown complicates the future of a U.S.-Mexico-Canada free-trade pact.
Trump’s new tariffs hit sectors including wine, furniture, dairy products, cement, clothing, fishing rods and hockey equipment, covering some $20 billion of Canadian exports to the U.S. These duties do not exempt Canadian products under the three-nation trade deal, which has shielded most Canadian exports to the U.S. in the last 18 months.
‘WE GOT ATTACKED,’ CARNEY SAYS
“Canada will match Washington’s new tariffs dollar for dollar in order to protect Canadian workers, farmers, families, and businesses,” Carney told a press conference.
“You’re at war when you get attacked. We got attacked,” Carney said when asked a question about whether Canada was engaged in a trade war.
Carney is one of the few global leaders to retaliate against U.S. tariffs and has pledged to forge new trade and military alliances, despite Canada’s dependence on the United States for nearly 70% of its exports.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer called the breakdown “a missed opportunity for Canada to partner with the United States,” saying no new talks were planned with Canada.
“We’re moving forward with measures that respond to Canadian retaliation,” Greer told Fox News. “They’ve always had the best deal, and they still would have an even better deal, but they didn’t want that.”
The White House, the U.S. commerce secretary’s office and the U.S. trade representative’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Canada will impose tariffs on U.S. steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, and electronics, along with some products the U.S. previously targeted in Canada, Carney said from Ottawa’s Parliament building. The government will release details on its response in the coming days, he said.
“We cannot accept what they have offered, and we will not give what they have asked,” Carney said.
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks with the news media after he suspended trade negotiations with the United States, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada August 22, 2026. REUTERS/Chris Tanouye Purchase Licensing Rights
Trump had expressed hope that a deal with Canada could happen on Friday.
But Carney said the U.S. administration’s last-minute demands halted progress.
“In recent days, the U.S. proposed new terms that were uneconomic, unfair, and undermined the net benefits to Canada, calling into question the reliability of any deal,” he said, adding these demands included curtailing Canada’s ability to forge new trade deals.
LARGER VEHICLES, OTHER STICKING POINTS
Carney said Canada would announce support measures next week for industries hit by the new U.S. duties, adding these measures could last years.
The new U.S. tariffs cover around 5% of Canada’s exports to the U.S. They could expose some vulnerable industries such as softwood lumber and wine to severe damage and lead to job losses and business closures, trade experts have said.
“We will be mobilizing our network of businesses in all regions and all sectors to brace for impact and make the best of a bad situation,” said Candace Laing, CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, one of the most vocal opponents of U.S. tariffs, supported Carney’s decision to retaliate.
“I’m glad he didn’t sign that deal because it was a bad deal. It was a bad deal for Ontario. It was a bad deal for the auto sector, the steel sector, and manufacturing sector,” Ford told reporters on Saturday.
One of the main sticking points was the treatment of larger vehicles.
Three sources said Canada wanted favorable tariff terms proposed for light-duty vehicles to extend to medium- and heavy-duty trucks, something the U.S. resisted. Carney said the U.S. position would have excluded Canadian-made models, including Ford’s F-350, F-450 and F-550 trucks and General Motors’ Silverado, making Canadian production less competitive.
U.S. Navy sailors work on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington as it transits the Arabian Sea to support U.S. military operations in the war with Iran August 20, 2026. U.S. Navy/Handout via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
Iran on Saturday denounced U.S. plans to announce new sanctions that could put further strain on the Islamic Republic’s economy and have an impact on its most important trading partners including China.
After nearly six months of war since the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes against Iran on February 28, the sides are not firing at each other but also showing no sign of pursuing peace talks.
Oil shipments are at a virtual standstill in the Strait of Hormuz, with Tehran threatening to strike any unauthorized oil tankers that try to transit the vital waterway, and Iran’s economy is already under immense pressure from sanctions.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is due to hold a press conference at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Monday after threatening “the toughest sanctions in history” on Iran.
Bessent has also urged cooperation with Washington by China, which buys more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil, according to 2025 data from analytics firm Kpler. Beijing has urged diplomacy.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baghaei, said on Saturday the imminent U.S. announcement of new economic sanctions was an “assertion of extraterritorial sovereignty over every independent member state of the United Nations.”
“Such secondary sanctions find no foundation in international law,” he said in a post on X.
The secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Mohsen Rezaei, told state television that Tehran would target the interests of countries helping the United States.
“We are telling all nearby countries not to join the U.S. economic war, otherwise we will consider them as enemies,” Rezaei said.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has warned of economic consequences against any country that provides “any type of lifeline to Iran,” said on Friday that Washington was observing “what happens” in the conflict.
“They would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal, in my opinion,” Trump said of Iran.
HORMUZ TRAFFIC HALTED
While the U.S. has effectively blockaded Iranian vessels in their ports, the Strait of Hormuz remained bottled up with thousands of seafarers stranded on hundreds of vessels.
Only four commodity ships sailed along the strait on Thursday, none of them large crude carriers or liquefied natural gas tankers, ship-tracking data showed.
However, Iran has granted permission for a number of Iraqi oil tankers to pass through the Strait following repeated requests from Baghdad, Iran’s state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.
IRNA said obtaining special permission for Iraqi tankers was one of Baghdad’s main requests during a visit to Iraq by Parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the U.S. military helped move a seven-day average of 8 million barrels a day of oil through the strait. That’s down from more than 20 million per day before the war or about one of every five barrels consumed worldwide.
U.S. attacks have severely diminished Iran’s economy and devastated its navy and air force, but Tehran maintains enough missile and drone capability to impede oil tanker traffic and attack regional rivals.
Abdollahi, the armed forces chief of staff, sought to underline Iran’s missile capabilities during a visit to an underground plant manufacturing ballistic missiles that was reported by state television on Saturday.
“This plant has been able, much better than in the past, to produce equipment superior both in capacities and quality and in quantity,” he said.
Qalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, said Tehran had received “numerous messages” from neighbouring countries about establishing new regional security arrangements and economic cooperation.
Search and rescue operations are underway after Russian strikes hit a shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih, with at least six people killed and nearly 100 injured.
Ukrainian authorities have yet to provide a full account of the damage and casualties, as rescue operations remain ongoing. The death toll could rise as emergency workers continue clearing debris and searching damaged areas.
At least 14 people were killed and 121 injured, including 22 children, after Russian drone strikes hit Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Friday, Ukrainian authorities said. Zelenskyy accused Russia of carrying out a suspected “double-tap” attack, in which a second wave of drones struck as emergency workers responded to the initial assault.
The attack targeted a shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih, as Russia intensified its aerial campaign against Ukrainian cities.
“Attacks like these are nothing less than terrorist acts,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post, while rescue teams continued to search the damaged area.
Deadly Russian attacks intensify
Kryvyi Rih has repeatedly been targeted since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One of the city’s deadliest attacks took place in April 2025, when 20 people, including nine children, were killed.
Friday’s strike came a day after a major Russian barrage against Kyiv and surrounding areas killed at least 16 people and injured dozens. The assault continued for several hours and involved ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones.
Ukrainian officials said around 38,000 people, including more than 2,000 children, sought shelter in Kyiv’s underground metro stations during the attack.
Residential buildings, a school, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten were among the structures damaged.
Zelenskyy said Russia had been preparing the assault for some time and had combined different types of missiles and drones to inflict extensive damage on civilian infrastructure.
Ukraine’s Air Force said it had shot down or suppressed 107 of the 135 Russian drones launched overnight.
In another Russian drone attack in the Kharkiv region, two women aged 73 and 66 were killed, while two other people were injured, regional authorities said.
The continued strikes have highlighted Ukraine’s air-defence challenges. Kyiv has repeatedly called on Western allies to provide additional US-made Patriot interceptor systems, which are among the few weapons capable of countering Russia’s ballistic missile attacks.
Ukraine strikes targets deep inside Russia
As Moscow continues its attacks on Ukrainian cities, Kyiv has expanded its long-range drone campaign against strategic targets inside Russia.
Zelenskyy said Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery in Perm, more than 1,600 kilometres from Ukraine’s border, as well as the Marinovka military airfield in Russia’s Volgograd region.
Russian authorities confirmed damage at an industrial facility in Perm, without specifying the site. Russian outlet Astra reported that a refinery operated by Lukoil caught fire.
Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian oil facilities in an effort to disrupt fuel production and exports, a key source of revenue for Moscow.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air-defence forces intercepted 325 Ukrainian drones across 15 Russian regions and Crimea.
The External Affairs Ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said that the US body has been making “disparaging and inflammatory remarks” about India.
The US body also asked Washington not to extend diplomatic courtesies
India has criticised the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for urging sanctions against Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), calling it a “biased organisation”.
The External Affairs Ministry spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, said that the US body has been making “disparaging and inflammatory remarks” about India.
“It is a biased organisation. I would say that we should keep away from such organisations as they have their own agenda and lack any credibility…We do not expect that the USCIRF will engage with the reality of India’s pluralistic framework or acknowledge the harmonious coexistence of its diverse communities,” Jaiswal said.
USCIRF chair Asif Mahmood – a Pakistan-born American citizen who has maintained close ties with his homeland’s political and diplomatic leadership – had opposed RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s upcoming visit to the US and called upon the US government to impose sanctions on the RSS. Bhagwat is scheduled to visit New York on August 29.
The US body also asked Washington not to extend diplomatic courtesies to its leaders, and described RSS as an “umbrella organisation” whose sub-groups have “perpetrated attacks on religious minorities”.
“Instead, the USG (US Government) should focus on imposing sanctions on RSS members found responsible for FoRB (freedom of religious belief) violations,” the US body said.
Earlier in March, the USCIRF annual report criticised India for alleged “violations of religious freedom” and backed “targeted sanctions” on individuals and entities such as the RSS and Research and Analysis Wing, holding them responsible for the matter. In its recommendation, the USCIRF also called for designating India as a “country of particular concern”.
The USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan US federal government agency. It makes policy recommendations to the US President, the Secretary of State, and Congress, and tracks their implementation.
Iran warned other nations that US sanctions targeting Tehran threaten their sovereignty too, cautioning that yielding to such pressure could mark return to “full-scale colonialism”
Esmail Baghaei, from Iran’s Foreign Ministry, has said that Trump’s economic coercion efforts amount to a ‘return of full-scale colonialism’. (Image source: X/ @TheCradleMedia; AFP)
Iran has warned that new US sanctions targeting Tehran are not just an issue for Iran but threaten the sovereignty of all independent nations, with the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei describing them as a possible return to “blatant, full-scale colonialism”.
Baghaei said the measures went beyond an economic war against a single country. Instead, he said, they represented an attempt by the United States to extend its authority over other independent UN member states. The Iranian spokesperson said Washington was seeking to dictate how governments, banks, businesses and airports in other countries conducted trade with Iran.
“No government has the right to force foreign banks, enterprises, or airports, each operating under the exclusive jurisdiction of their own sovereignty, to refrain from engaging in legitimate trade with a third country,” Baghaei said, according to Iran’s Fars news agency.
He warned that countries giving in to such pressure risked losing control over their own economic and political decisions.
The Oxford Dictionary defines colonialism as, “the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically.”
Iran Says Sanctions Threaten Sovereignty Of All Nations
Baghaei said secondary sanctions imposed by one country on entities in other sovereign states had no basis in international law.
“Such secondary sanctions have no basis in international law,” he was quoted saying. He also said that they “violate the fundamental principle of sovereign equality enshrined in Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the UN Charter”.
He described economic coercion as an “international offence and a wrongful act” and said the use of sanctions alongside a naval blockade would further threaten the sovereignty of other countries.
According to Baghaei, such measures could make the sovereignty of states conditional on the decisions of another power. He said this would be a broader threat to the international system, rather than merely a dispute between Washington and Tehran.
Somali pirates have hijacked two ships in four days, raising concerns that piracy is making a major comeback in waters off Somalia and Yemen amid growing regional instability.
The latest incidents include the seizure of the Cameroon-flagged M/V LUTUF off Somalia’s Puntland coast and the hijacking of the Eritrean-flagged SIBU 1 tanker off Yemen. The LUTUF was reportedly carrying Turkish weapons and equipment bound for a military training facility in Mogadishu.
The LUTUF was seized Monday about 3½ nautical miles off Marraya in Puntland’s Eyl district, according to a Somali official. The vessel, owned by Polar Movement Shipping, was carrying weapons as well as communications and satellite equipment. Its 10-member crew included six Indians, one Turkish national, one Georgian and two Serbian security guards.
Eight pirates reportedly took the vessel toward the Nugaal coast near Garmaal in Puntland’s Dangoroyo district. Two Turkish-owned vessels later approached the ship, while Turkish helicopters and drones monitored the area.
Airstrike Kills Four After Pirate Ship Seizure
A small boat carrying two men later approached the hijacked vessel and delivered khat. After the boat returned to shore, an airstrike killed four men and wounded two others, according to the Somali official. The origin of the strike and whether those killed were involved in the hijacking could not be independently verified.
The SIBU 1 was separately hijacked off Yemen by seven armed pirates and diverted toward Somali waters. The tanker is believed to be part of Iran’s shadow fleet and had routinely transported fuel to the Yemeni port of Ras Isa, controlled by the Iranian-backed Houthi militia. The condition of its 20-person crew was unknown.
Somali officials said six ships are currently being held by pirates, including the two seized this week, with more than 100 crew members being held hostage across those vessels.
PM Modi chaired the third high-level meeting with Secretaries to the Government of India at his residence on Thursday.
File photo of Prime Minister Narendra Modi with school children after delivering his 80th Independence Day speech from Red Fort on August 15, 2026. (Raj K Raj/HT Photos)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked the top government official to engage with the youth more during a high-level meeting with top government officials.
PM Modi chaired the third high-level meeting with Secretaries to the Government of India at his residence. He discussed the future action agenda of ministries and departments dealing with infrastructure and connectivity, security and external affairs, and governance, according to a press release.
“Noting that deliberations had already been held with two groups of Secretaries, Prime Minister said that Secretaries, in addition to thinking about immediate issues and statistics, should also think with a long-term perspective on how the country’s future should be shaped,” the release stated.
During the meeting, Modi stressed that silos are not merely an organisational problem but also a problem of mindset, according to the government statement.
“He said silos can be both horizontal and vertical. He stressed that officials must take ownership of their responsibilities and work with a spirit of belongingness,” it added.
He also called for ‘greater engagement’ between government departments, universities and young people to bring fresh perspectives in policymaking. “He said wider engagement with universities and young people can bring new and unconventional ideas,” the statement noted.
Modi also stressed on the importance of collective effort, citing the example of Covid-19 pandemic and challenges created by the West Asia war where officials worked together effectively. “He said that such coordination mechanisms should become a natural part of the government’s work culture,” the statement added.
Effective use of Artificial Intelligence was also discussed in the high-level meeting with PM Modi calling for effective use of the technology while ensuring human intervention and judgement. He called for exploring innovative ways of combining the capabilities of AI with human expertise, the statement added.
Modi termed data as a national asset and a resource for the future, while noting that the government invests resources in collecting, storing and managing data. However, he noted that its full potential is not always realised because of departmental silos and fragmented systems.
PM Modi has lately been prominently mentioning youth-related issues in his speeches and statements. While delivering the 80th Independence Day speech from Red Fort on August 15, he referred to the youth of the country roughly 50 times.
A woman walks by a mural depicting Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on a street in Tehran, Iran, August 13, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
U.S. Treasury chief Scott Bessent said the United States will impose “the toughest sanctions in history” on Iran, a move he suggested would lessen the need for new major military operations.
Bessent’s comments on Thursday followed President Donald Trump’s threat a day earlier of “Economic Warfare” and warning of economic consequences against any country that provided “any type of lifeline to Iran.” Bessent promised details next week.
Oil prices rose to more than a three-week high on Thursday following those U.S. threats of financial penalties aimed at forcing an end to a nearly six-month-old war that has stranded millions of barrels of Middle Eastern oil.
“I’m not sure why oil has popped up on this,” Bessent told CNBC. “If we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large-scale kinetic restart,” he said, using a term referring to military force.
Thousands have been killed in the conflict, which drew in Gulf nations and shocked markets as Iran flexed its ability to curb shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway that carried about a fifth of all traded oil before February.
The U.S. and Iran have twice announced ceasefire deals, in April and June, aiming to restore the free flow of shipping through Hormuz on a path towards ending the conflict, but both quickly crumbled.
SANCTIONS DETAIL TO COME
Iran has weathered near-continuous, punishing economic sanctions for nearly 50 years, since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Before Bessent spoke, Iran’s foreign ministry said it condemned U.S. economic and trade sanctions, calling them “economic terrorism” that would not “create even the slightest hesitation in Iranians’ determination to safeguard Iran’s independence, dignity and national sovereignty.”
Bessent told CNBC he would share more details on the latest package and “talk about exactly what we’re going to do” on Iran at a press conference on Monday.
“It is a one-two punch. We have the blockade (on Iran), and we are going to have the toughest sanctions in history,” he added, referring to a U.S. naval blockade imposed on Iran in April and paused for a month in mid-June.
“It is going to work in Iran and we are going to collapse this regime. It is time for our allies and the rest of the world to make a decision,” he said.
China buys more than 80% of Iran’s shipped oil, according to 2025 data from analytics firm Kpler, but engaging in further economic warfare with China, a major exporter to the U.S. including vital rare-earth minerals, risks retaliation against Washington.
When asked if the United States could target China for doing business with Iran, Bessent said many conversations were best to have in private.
“Keep in mind that the Chinese get 50% (of their) energy… from the Gulf. So it would do them a big service to get with the program,” he said.
China’s embassy in Washington said “sanctions and pressure do not help resolve the problem.”
“China calls on the relevant parties to take responsible actions and resolve the issue through political and diplomatic means,” according to an embassy spokesperson.
The Fatah family has emerged as a key component of Pakistan’s effort to build an indigenous conventional precision-strike capability
People look at unmanned combat aerial vehicles and the Fatah-I missile system on display at a military exhibition in Islamabad. (AFP)
Pakistan has issued a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) restricting a large stretch of airspace over August 19-20, triggering speculation that the country could be preparing for a test involving its Fatah-series missile systems.
The NOTAM covers an area extending roughly 750 km, an unusually extensive airspace restriction that has drawn attention among defence observers. While the notification itself does not specify the nature of any planned activity, its timing and range have fuelled speculation of a possible long-range missile or multiple-launch rocket system test.
The Fatah family has emerged as a key component of Pakistan’s effort to build an indigenous conventional precision-strike capability. The systems are associated with the Pakistan Army Rocket Force Command (ARFC), which has been established to strengthen the military’s ability to conduct long-range conventional strikes.
Pakistan currently operates the Fatah-1 and Fatah-2 systems, while the Fatah-4 has also been reported as part of the country’s evolving rocket force. The Fatah-3 and Fatah-5 have been announced but have not been publicly unveiled, leaving considerable uncertainty over their specifications, operational status and deployment.
The Fatah-1 is understood to be a shorter-range guided rocket system, while subsequent variants have progressively expanded Pakistan’s strike range and precision. The development of the series reflects Islamabad’s broader push towards systems capable of delivering conventional effects at greater distances without relying exclusively on aircraft.
The latest NOTAM has therefore led to particular interest in whether an upcoming activity could involve the Fatah-3 or another advanced variant.
The speculation of a missile test also comes against the backdrop of US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor’s recent remarks on Jammu and Kashmir. During his visit to Srinagar, Gor described Jammu and Kashmir as an “important part of India”, a position that prompted a sharp reaction from Pakistan.
“It’s a pleasure to be here… This is an important part of India. I am here, visiting for the first time. It is an incredibly beautiful place. I am thrilled to be here, thrilled to see this place,” Gor said as he met J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Wednesday.
The US Department of the Treasury Building in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 11, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Heuer/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Total U.S. debt has topped $40 trillion for the first time, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday, drawing fresh warnings that a fiscal crisis is brewing as ballooning costs for social safety-net programs and interest payments far outstrip revenues held back by tax cuts.
The Treasury’s latest daily cash and debt balances statement showed total public debt outstanding at $40.047 trillion on Tuesday, a total that includes Treasury securities held by the public of $32.266 trillion and intra-governmental debt holdings of $7.782 trillion.
The federal government’s IOU has now more than doubled in less than a decade, from $19.95 trillion when President Donald Trump was sworn in for the first time in January 2017. Roughly one-third of that increase occurred during two years of frantic government borrowing to fund the COVID-19 pandemic responses undertaken by Trump and former President Joe Biden, while the fiscal policy choices of both presidents combined with long-running tax-and-spending imbalances account for the rest.
Budget watchdog groups have anticipated crossing the threshold for weeks and issued stark warnings that a full-blown debt crisis could erupt unless lawmakers confront an unsustainable fiscal outlook and raise taxes, cut spending or both.
“Forty trillion dollars of debt doesn’t exist solely on the government’s ledgers; it is felt throughout the economy and finds its way to the pocketbooks of people one way or another,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
“The more we borrow, the more we exacerbate inflation, squeeze out other priorities in the budget, and leave ourselves vulnerable to emergencies at home and turmoil abroad,” MacGuineas said in a statement just after the Treasury data was released.
She said the $40 trillion figure was reached less than five months after debt reached $39 trillion, and has quadrupled in less than 20 years after taking until 1981 to reach $1 trillion for the first time.
“It is staggering how predictable the fiscal decline of a global power can become,” MacGuineas added.
Global U.S. creditors may already be growing wary, with demand from foreign investors holding nearly one third of Treasuries declining over the past year.
Days after a $25-billion auction of 30-year Treasury bonds went off at the highest yield since 2021, yields on so-called long bonds on Tuesday hit their highest levels in nearly two decades as investors demanded greater compensation in the face of hefty U.S. government bond issuance. Yields move inversely to bond prices.
On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took a bold step to push long bond yields back down, announcing a doubling of buyback sizes for 10- to 30-year Treasuries to at least $4 billion per operation.
Higher Treasury yields at the longer end tend to push up interest rates for mortgages, car and commercial loans. With the mountain of debt showing no signs of abating, Trump on Wednesday repeated his frequent demand for lower rates.
Asked at the White House whether Americans should worry about bond market volatility, Trump said: “I don’t think so at all. I think we have a very powerful country, and we’re powering through these ridiculous interest rates — they’re ridiculous. Look, when our country is strong, interest rates should go down.”
PANDEMIC SPENDING, AND THEN SOME
The Treasury last week reported the fourth-highest monthly deficit in U.S. history — $432 billion for July — as tariff refunds turned customs receipts negative for the third month in a row and outlays for Social Security and Medicare benefits for seniors continued to grow. The deficit for the first 10 months of fiscal 2026 has already exceeded the total gap for all of fiscal 2025 with two months to go in the current fiscal year.
Trump has largely ignored the dwindling number of fiscal hawks in his Republican Party, championing heavy spending across his two terms. Public debt rose by $7.8 trillion during Trump’s first term, with more than half of it accumulating during the pandemic response over his last nine months in office.
Since Trump took office a second time in January 2025, the U.S. debt load has increased by $3.8 trillion, for total growth of $11.6 trillion across his two terms so far.
Public debt increased by $8.4 trillion during Biden’s term, also marked by heavy COVID-19 recovery spending, but driven as well by big-ticket outlays for infrastructure investment, clean energy subsidies and other priorities championed by his Democratic Party.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the policy choices of Trump and Biden have increased the federal debt trajectory beyond what would have accumulated under the existing spending statutes when each took office.
Firefighters work at a site hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine August 20, 2026. REUTERS/Anatolii Stepanov Purchase Licensing Rights
Russian ballistic missiles killed 12 people and injured more than 30 in Kyiv early on Thursday, authorities said, damaging buildings and severing power supply to some parts of the Ukrainian capital.
A fire broke out and the upper floors of a nine-storey residential block were destroyed in the city’s Solomianskyi district, where seven people were killed, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, calling for Friday to be observed as a day of mourning.
Two other districts also suffered damage, Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging app, with non-residential facilities, warehouses, a school and a children’s hospital hit.
Power company DTEK said it restored electricity to more than half of the roughly 90,000 homes left without power in the capital following the attack.
Russia has stepped up air attacks on Ukraine in recent months, trying to exploit its smaller neighbour’s critical shortage of interceptors to down ballistic missiles.
The Russian defence ministry said Moscow attacked Kyiv and the surrounding region with airstrikes and drones, hitting facilities producing drone components, a military depot and a logistics hub, as well as other targets.
EXPLOSIONS REAP THROUGH THE CITY
A Reuters witness reported hearing more than a dozen explosions. In the region around the Ukrainian capital, another person was killed, an official said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s emergency service showed video of servicemen battling a blaze in a building and helping people to escape facilities destroyed during the night in Kyiv.
Ukraine has also increased its attacks on Russia, targeting oil facilities and logistics infrastructure to try to undermine Moscow’s ability to wage war.
Diplomatic efforts have failed so far to yield a lasting ceasefire in the war, which started with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
A drone crashed into NATO and European Union member Romania during the Russian attack on Ukraine, the Romanian defence ministry said on Thursday. A drone also crossed Moldova’s airspace, the country’s military said.
A large amount of “damning” new evidence against convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his imprisoned accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell could soon come to light after a federal judge ordered a trove of case files to be unsealed.
Miami Herald reporter Julie K. Brown, whose reportage is credited with catalyzing the disgraced financier’s downfall, wrote on her Substack Tuesday about Manhattan Federal Court Judge Loretta Preska’s decision to unseal the “voluminous” documents.
Heaps of new “damning” Epstein evidence is expected to be released soon, pertaining to accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell’s 2015 defamation suit again Virginia Giuffre. Tribune News Service via Getty Images
The documents stem from a 2015 court case in which Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, who died by suicide last year, sued Maxwell for defamation after she accused her of fabricating sex-trafficking allegations against Epstein and others, including former Prince Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
Brown wrote she and The Herald fought a nearly decade-long court battle to have the documents released, arguing that they weren’t properly sealed. The case was settled in 2017.
“Judicial records by law are supposed to be open to the public. In this case, the former judge (Robert Sweet, now deceased) issued a blanket sealing on all the documents because they contained “sensitive” and “private” information,” Brown wrote.
“Sweet placed a protective order on massive amounts of material, including hearings and judicial decisions made in the case — and voluminous evidence that Virginia presented to show that Epstein and Maxwell were operating an underage sex trafficking operation,” she continued.
A massive fire at a hotel on Kolkata’s Free School Street claimed nine lives, including that of a child.
Representative Image: Nine people, including a child, were killed after a massive fire broke out at a hotel on Kolkata’s Free School Street.
Nine people, including a child, were killed after a major fire broke out at a hotel on Mirza Ghalib (Free School) Street in Kolkata in the early hours of Wednesday, August 19. Six others were injured in the blaze and are undergoing medical treatment.
According to the police, the fire was reported at around 2 am at Shika Inn, located at 15, Mirza Ghalib Street under the jurisdiction of New Market Police Station.
After receiving information about the blaze, a team from New Market Police Station immediately reached the spot. The Fire Brigade and CESC authorities were also alerted and called in to assist with the rescue and firefighting operations.
Four Fire Brigade tenders from the Fire Brigade Headquarters and Free School Street Fire Station reached the hotel and launched an intensive rescue operation.
Police personnel simultaneously worked to control the crowd and traffic, maintain law and order and assist in evacuating people trapped inside the building.
During the operation, around 60 people were rescued from the hotel and brought to safety.
However, nine people, including two women and a child, were found unconscious inside the premises. They were immediately taken to Medical College and Hospital, where doctors declared them brought dead.
According to the Fire Department, all nine deceased were Bangladeshi nationals who had reportedly travelled to Kolkata for medical treatment.
The rescue and firefighting operation continued for several hours and was completed at around 4:30 am.
Police said the situation in the area is currently peaceful and under control. Adequate personnel have been deployed at the site, while the hotel premises have been secured and preserved for further investigation.
The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it had suspended all trade and financial dealings with Iran.
United has suspended all trade and financial dealings with Iran.
The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it had suspended all trade and financial dealings with Iran.
“In light of regional escalations… all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran have been halted until further notice,” UAE foreign ministry communications director Afra Al Hameli said.
The first UAE statement came nearly two hours after a brief phone alert warned residents of a “potential missile threat”.
“Due to the current situation, potential missile threats, immediately seek a safe place in the closest secure building,” the interior ministry said in the phone alert, which was lifted shortly afterwards.
It was the first such alert since a false alarm in June and an alert in July for an attack that ultimately did not enter UAE territory. Before that, the last missile warning came in early May.
Tankers belonging to state-owned oil company ADNOC have been repeatedly targeted in the past few weeks.
When the Middle East war began on February 28, the UAE bore the brunt of Iran’s attacks, with nearly 3,000 missiles and drones directed at the country — more than anywhere else in the region.
After a memorandum of understanding came into effect in June between the two parties, which has since collapsed, the UAE reported no attacks, unlike other Gulf states.
The United Arab Emirates on Tuesday accused Iran of firing two ballistic missiles at shipping in the Gulf, an allegation later denied by Tehran.
“UAE air defenses detected two ballistic missiles launched from Iran toward the country, with the first falling outside the country’s territorial waters, while the second fell within the territorial waters,” the ministry said, in a statement posted to social media.
Trump noted that not even one per cent of voters in India used postal ballots in the recent general elections, and every voter had a valid photo identity document.
The Republican leader has been insisting on passing the SAVE America Act
US President Donald Trump has cited India’s election system and voter identification requirements as he renewed his call for the passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act, which seeks stricter citizenship requirements to vote in US elections.
Taking to his Truth Social platform, Trump recalled that India’s Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, recently asked the US administration about why elections in America are held without a valid photo identification card, as he made a case for mandatory photo IDs for every US voter to curb “electoral fraud”.
Trump noted that not even one per cent of voters in India used postal ballots in the recent general elections, and every voter had a valid photo identity document.
“Earlier this month, India’s Chief Election Commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar, asked our Administration — How can you have Elections in the US without a valid Photo ID,” Trump wrote.
Trump made these remarks to drum up support for the SAVE America Act, which would require Americans to show proof of citizenship to register to vote, impose a nationwide voter identification requirement and severely limit voting by mail.
“India’s last election had 646,000,000 voters! Less than one per cent voted by mail, and every single Voter had to have a VALID Photo Identity Document.” “We need to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT, now,” he asserted.
Sergio Gor’s Backs Trump
US Ambassador to India Sergio Gor endorsed President Donald Trump’s renewed push for strict nationwide voter identification laws under the SAVE (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) America Act.
Citing India’s 2024 general election as a global benchmark for voter authentication, Gor backed Trump’s stance that robust, universal photo identification is essential for maintaining election integrity and to revamp American election procedures by explicitly pointing to the scale and mechanics of India’s voting system.
In a post on X, Gor said, “President Donald J. Trump is absolutely correct! 646 MILLION voters, every single one required an ID in India’s last election. Congress should pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT!”
President Donald J. Trump is absolutely correct! 646 MILLION voters, every single one required an ID in India’s last election. Congress should pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT! pic.twitter.com/lqQHSZvWk7
The Republican leader has been insisting on passing the SAVE America Act, claiming the move would curb electoral fraud. The Bill to pass the law was introduced on January 29. However, both Democrats and Republicans are divided over the issue, and the US Senate adjourned for a five-week recess earlier this month without any concrete steps for its passage.
According to the White House, the legislation is aimed at ensuring that only US citizens participate in deciding federal elections.
“American citizens — and only American citizens — should decide American elections,” the White House said, describing the SAVE America Act as a “common sense, bipartisan bill.”
The White House said the proposed legislation would require voters to provide valid identification before registering to vote in a federal election, along with proof of citizenship.
“Today marks a huge victory for Jharkhand. While I am now suspending my protest, my struggle for reform will continue,” Mahto said.
Student leader Devendra Nath Mahto being carried during a march towards Jharkhand Assembly amid a protest over alleged irregularities in the 14th JPSC examination. (PTI)
Student leader Devendra Nath Mahto on Monday ended his 16-day hunger strike at Sadar Hospital in Ranchi after the Jharkhand government announced the cancellation of the JSSC-CGL examination and all recruitment tests conducted by private firm TSR Data Processing Private Limited (TDPL).
Mahto ended his fast in the presence of Jharkhand ministers Dipika Pandey Singh and Irfan Ansari, following the state cabinet’s decision chaired by chief minister Hemant Soren. The government also ordered a probe by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations conducted in Jharkhand since 2014.
Speaking to reporters after ending his fast, Mahto thanked Soren, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, state ministers Dipika Pandey Singh and Irfan Ansari, fellow students, the media and others who supported the agitation.
“Today marks a huge victory for Jharkhand. While I am now suspending my protest, my struggle for reform will continue,” Mahto said.
He called for stringent laws and comprehensive reforms to prevent paper leaks and irregularities in recruitment examinations.
“Every examination must be monitored, every examination must be audited, and there must be a clear certificate for every examination and at every stage. We will continue to struggle for this,” he said.
Mahto said the government’s decision to cancel the JSSC-CGL examination was a significant step, particularly because the recruitment process had already progressed to the joining stage and several candidates had secured government positions.
He also thanked the state government for ordering the CID investigation, saying the probe had not spared even senior officials and former office-bearers.
“Today marks the 16th day of the hunger strike. This struggle began on July 2. Following a meeting with the Chief Minister on July 20, a CID inquiry was initiated on July 28. The investigation is being conducted thoroughly, sparing no one,” Mahto said.
Jharkhand cancels JSSC-CGL, TDPL exams
Earlier on Monday, Soren announced that the JSSC-CGL examination and all other recruitment examinations conducted by TDPL would be cancelled.
“There have been some startling revelations in the ongoing CID and SIT probes. After much deliberation in the cabinet, it has been decided to cancel the JSSC CGL. All other exams conducted by TDPL will also be cancelled,” Soren said.
He also directed the CID to examine alleged irregularities in all recruitment examinations conducted in the state since 2014.
The government announced the formation of an examination reforms committee headed by senior IAS officer Amitabh Kaushal.
TDPL has conducted several recruitment examinations in Jharkhand, including the 14th JPSC civil services preliminary examination and two civil services backlog examinations.
The JSSC-CGL examination was conducted in 2024, with around 1,800 successful candidates already appointed to various state government departments.
The controversy intensified after the CID registered a case on July 22 over alleged irregularities in the 14th JPSC civil services preliminary examination. The investigation has so far led to the arrest of 21 people, including former JPSC chairman L Khiangte, TDPL directors and executives, and alleged middlemen.
The probe subsequently indicated the alleged involvement of a TDPL-linked network in the JSSC-CGL examination as well.
Students continue to seek CBI probe
Job aspirants began a sit-in protest at Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium in Ranchi following the allegations. The agitation had continued for more than three weeks, with several students joining a hunger strike.
The JPSC-JSSC Reforms Manch, which has been leading the protest, had maintained that the agitation would continue until the government agreed to a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe.
While the government has now ordered a wider CID investigation, the protesters have sought further assurances on an independent probe and examination reforms.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had also urged Soren to personally meet the protesting students.
In a letter dated August 14 and released on Monday, Gandhi said the protest had remained peaceful and described the students’ demands as legitimate.
“The youth of India is its future. We owe them our solidarity and support at this moment of crisis. Please do your utmost to hear them out and take appropriate action towards the resolution of this issue,” Gandhi wrote.
Congress is a constituent of Soren’s Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led government.
Three protesters end hunger strike
Minister Irfan Ansari said Mahto, Umme Habiba and Rahul Kranti had voluntarily ended their hunger strike after the government accepted the protesters’ major demands.
The three were given juice to break their fast and underwent medical examinations at Sadar Hospital.
“We have arrived; a full medical check-up has been conducted, and they are being discharged. All three are healthy; there are no issues. Their blood pressure and blood sugar levels are normal,” Ansari said.
Student protester Rajesh Prasad said the students’ prolonged agitation had reached a successful conclusion following the government’s announcements.
“The struggle we waged over the past 23 days has now reached a successful conclusion. The Chief Minister has proven today that, in a democracy, the voice of the youth is heard and the voice of the people is validated,” he said.
Prasad said the government had also announced the cancellation of the 11th to 13th JPSC examinations and other examinations, including the CDPO and FSO exams, conducted by TDPL.
He said the students had faith that the government would ensure an impartial investigation and urged Soren to meet student representatives.
Meanwhile, Umme Habiba, who also ended her hunger strike, urged the government to withdraw legal action against students who participated in the protests and protect their right to peaceful and democratic protest.
Smoke billows from the burning Wildberries warehouses following a Ukrainian drone attack, according to the regional governor, in the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Koledino, Moscow Region, Russia. REUTERS/Stringer Purchase Licensing Rights
Russia carried out a wave of airstrikes on Ukraine overnight, killing two people at a steel plant, and Kyiv launched a heavy drone attack on the Moscow region that killed one person and set ablaze a warehouse used by Russia’s leading e-commerce retailer.
Romania, which borders Ukraine, said an F-18 fighter on a NATO air policing mission had shot down a drone that breached its airspace during the latest attacks. It did not specify the origin of the drone, which entered from Moldova, but a NATO spokesperson said it appeared to be Russian.
Russia struck Ukraine’s largest grain export port on the River Danube near the Romanian border last week after stepping up attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks. Ukraine has also intensified attacks on Russian targets including oil refineries, and both sides have struck commercial vessels in the Black Sea.
In the latest attacks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian forces struck Ukraine’s biggest steel plant overnight in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s home town.
At least two people were killed and 14 injured, Ukrainian officials said.
“As a result of the attack, key production facilities in the power generation and blast furnace sectors have been damaged, and the plant’s production processes have been partially halted,” ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (MT.LU), said on Telegram.
A Russian missile strike on Kyiv early on Sunday caused fires in at least two districts of the capital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The city’s military administration said three people were injured.
Tymur Tkachenko, the Kyiv region’s governor, said three others, including a child, were injured in drone attacks across the region.
DRONE SHOT DOWN OVER ROMANIA
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had downed 822 Ukrainian drones throughout the country in the latest attacks.
Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said an 83-year-old man had been killed in what he described as one of the largest Ukrainian drone attacks on the Moscow region since the start of the conflict.
He said several people were also injured in the Podolsk area, and that a warehouse belonging to Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries, had been struck.
Video filmed by Reuters after the strike on Wildberries’ Koledino warehouse showed a large plume of smoke over the site, about 45 km (28 miles) south of Moscow.
Ukraine earlier launched hundreds of drones across Russia, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial attacks of the war.
A firefighter works at a site of a book market hit by a Russian missile strike
Indian-origin billionaire Lakshmi Mittal’s ArcelorMittal mining and metallurgical complex in Kryvyi Rih — Ukraine’s largest integrated steel unit — came under a missile attack by Russia. The strike, which came in retaliation for a Ukrainian drone barrage, killed two people, injured 14 workers, and forced a partial halt to production after damaging core energy and blast-furnace operations.
Ukraine earlier launched hundreds of drones across Russia, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial attacks of the war. Moscow’s regional governor Andrey Vorobyov described the assault as “one of the most massive drone attacks in recent memory”. Russia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted 822 drones across the country overnight.
An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, Vorobyov said, adding that another Ukrainian attack had sparked a blaze at a Wildberries warehouse –Russia’s largest online retailer and a company controlled by the country’s richest woman, billionaire Tatyana Kim– in the town of Podolsk.
Some 600 drones were detected headed toward the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with a third of those destroyed over the Moscow region itself.
Another drone attack targeted three towns in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, killing five people, local Governor Yury Slyusar said. The attack, with more than 150 drones, damaged several homes and a railway station and sparked a forest fire.
New Front in War
Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russia this year, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones targeting military industries and energy facilities.
It has also increasingly attacked logistics giant Wildberries’ depots, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise. Those attacks have brought the war home to the Russian public nearly 4 and a half years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
With fighting at the front at a near standstill and talks frozen, the warring countries have significantly stepped up long-range attacks deep behind each other’s lines, pushing the civilian deaths to their highest levels since the war’s first months in 2022.
Russia’s Retaliation
In Ukraine, a barrage of Russian drones and missiles killed two people at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, on Sunday.
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s largest steel producer, confirmed that one of its sites had been hit in a missile attack and that operations had been partially suspended.
Another strike on Kryvyi Rih on Sunday killed one person.
Strikes also hit other regions, killing two people in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, one in the border region of Sumy and another in Donetsk in the east.
Russian attacks also sparked fires throughout Kyiv, wounding six people. A blaze took hold at one of the city’s largest book markets, tearing through kiosks huddled close to the Pochaina metro station.
In a social media post on the overnight raid, Zelensky said that “wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure.”
Over the past week, he said, Ukrainian cities had been pummelled by “more than 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided aerial bombs, and 62 missiles,” as he renewed his appeal to allies for more air defence.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence has claimed that it had targeted a metallurgical plant in Kryvyi Rih and several military-industrial sites in Kyiv, including a manufacturing facility for Ukraine’s Flamingo missiles. The domestically produced missiles are increasingly key to Ukraine’s long-range attacks on Russia, with Zelenskyy announcing last week that Kyiv had used the weapons to attack a rocket research and production center in Samara, approximately 900 kilometers (560 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
The decision came after the sub-divisional officer met the students at the protest site in Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium.
Student leader Devendra Nath Mahto being carried during a march towards Jharkhand Assembly amid a protest over alleged irregularities in the 14th JPSC examination, JSSC-CGL and other recruitment tests, demanding resignation of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and CBI probe on paper leaks. (PTI)
The Jharkhand government has invited job aspirants protesting alleged irregularities in state recruitment examinations for a fresh rounds of talks on Monday, officials said on Sunday.
The development comes a day after JPSC-JSSC Reforms Manch — which is spearheading the protest — announced they would gherao chief minister Hemant Soren’s residence on August 20, demanding his resignation.
“We will definitely go for the talks as we want to resolve the issue through dialogue. But, we are firm on two demands – a CBI probe into irregularities in recruitment tests and cancellation of the JSSC-CGL (Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission-Combine Graduate Level) exams,” Manch leader Ravindra Paswan said.
The decision to invite the students for the 7th round of talks came after the sub-divisional officer and additional district magistrate, law and order held a meeting with the students at the protest site in Ranchi’s Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium. “The protesting students have been invited for a discussion on August 17 at 2 pm. They have been offered the option to participate in the talks accompanied by their legal advisors,” the statement issued by the Ranchi district administration said.
Protesters burn effigies of leaders
Meanwhile, on the 23rd day of the stir on Sunday, protesting students burnt effigies of chief minister Hemant Soren, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, and RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in Ranchi’s Albert Ekka Chowk, alleging that their “demands continue to fall on deaf ears”.
The protesters expressed anger over the “administrative misconduct” directed at fasting student leader Devendra Nath Mahto on August 15, who was allegedly physically prevented by the police from leaving Sadar Hospital to participate in an Independence Day Tiranga Yatra. The action triggered widespread outrage, prompting four more people to join the indefinite hunger strike.
The MoU was designed as a framework for ending the conflict, with the two sides declaring “immediate and permanent termination of military operations” and a final deal in 60 days.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei and US President Donald Trump (R). (Photos: Reuters/X)
The 60-day window created by the US-Iran memorandum of understanding (MoU) expires on Monday, August 17, but the deadline arrives with the agreement already badly frayed and neither Washington nor Tehran showing much appetite for simply extending it. Instead, the final hours of the agreement have been marked by sharper rhetoric, a near standstill in negotiations and a growing dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supply moved before the war.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said over the weekend that Tehran had “not yet made a decision to restart negotiations with the United States.” At the same time, President Donald Trump has been warning that Iran faces continued pressure, while threatening to assert US control over Hormuz.
That leaves the immediate question less about whether the June deal will be extended and more about what replaces it.
What Was The June Deal Supposed To Do?
The MoU was signed on June 17 by Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian after months of war. It was designed as a framework for ending the conflict, with the two sides declaring the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations” and agreeing to work towards a final agreement within 60 days. The period could be extended if both sides agreed.
The framework went beyond simply stopping the fighting.
Washington was expected to end its naval blockade within 30 days, ease sanctions, issue waivers for Iranian oil exports and allow Tehran access to frozen funds. The agreement also envisaged a reconstruction and development package for Iran of at least $300 billion.
Iran, meanwhile, was supposed to clear mines in the Strait of Hormuz and allow commercial ships to pass without charge for 60 days. Tehran also reaffirmed that it would not pursue nuclear weapons and agreed to negotiate the more complicated questions surrounding uranium enrichment.
But the two sides quickly began interpreting the agreement differently. The US accused Iran of failing to reopen Hormuz. Iran accused Washington of failing to lift the blockade and honour its commitments on sanctions and frozen assets.
By July 7, Trump had declared the agreement “over”. Iran subsequently said Washington had violated and suspended its commitments and that Tehran had done the same.
So Monday’s expiry is, in practical terms, the end of a framework that had already largely stopped functioning.
Hormuz: The Biggest Obstacle
If there is one issue that captures the current US-Iran standoff, it is the Strait of Hormuz. Iran insists that it controls the waterway and has made clear that commercial shipping will not return to normal simply because the 60-day deadline passes.
On Saturday, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said, “This strait will be opened and closed only under Iran’s command.” He also demanded that Washington accept what he called the reality of US defeat.
Trump, meanwhile, has gone in the opposite direction. On Friday, he said: “After we finish defeating Iran, pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States.” He has also described the US naval blockade as a “Wall of Steel” and insisted that Washington has “total control” over the waterway.
Iran’s response was equally blunt. Gharibabadi said Hormuz “cannot be seized by a tweet or an aircraft carrier”, while insisting that the strait had been, and would remain, Iranian.
The disagreement is not merely rhetorical. Shipping through Hormuz has fallen sharply. Reuters reported that only five commodity vessels crossed on Saturday and none were recorded on Sunday, compared with 31 vessels the previous weekend. The UAE has also accused Iran of attacking three ADNOC-operated vessels in recent days, allegations Tehran has not accepted.
What Trump’s Recent Statements Tell Us
Trump’s messaging over the past two weeks has followed a familiar pattern: pressure on Iran, warnings of military escalation and, at the same time, an insistence that diplomacy remains possible.
On August 3, Trump called ongoing negotiations Iran’s “last chance” and warned Tehran that it could face “decapitation” if it failed to reach an agreement. He also said the US blockade would remain until there was a deal or “Total Surrender.”
Days later, his rhetoric shifted towards the economic consequences of the conflict. Speaking in New York on August 14, Trump told Americans that paying “a tiny little bit more for your gasoline” was worth the cost of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. At the same event, he again said he would declare Hormuz US territory after defeating Iran.
This suggests Washington is preparing the US public for the possibility that the confrontation, and its economic consequences, may continue rather than being resolved immediately after the MoU deadline.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also signalled additional economic measures against Tehran. He said the US would combine economic isolation with the continuing blockade of Iranian ports.
Iran Hardens Its Position
Tehran’s recent statements suggest little interest in returning to the negotiating table simply to revive the June framework. Iran Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s statements provide one of the clearest indications of Tehran’s current thinking. When the MoU was signed in June, the Supreme Leader made clear that he was not an enthusiastic supporter of the arrangement.
In a written statement carried by Iranian state media, he said he had “a different opinion” about the agreement but had ultimately authorised it after President Masoud Pezeshkian and other Iranian officials assured him that the country’s interests would be protected. He specifically warned that Iran would not accept additional US demands.
“If the American side wants to be greedy, we will not accept it,” Khamenei said. He nevertheless endorsed negotiations, stressing that face-to-face talks would not amount to accepting the American position.
His position hardened considerably after the agreement began to collapse. On July 18, Khamenei said repeated US breaches of the MoU had demonstrated that Trump’s signature was “utterly worthless and devoid of credibility.” He also warned Washington that Iran and its regional allies had “unforgettable lessons” for the United States. He accused the US of revealing its “true face” and described Washington as deceitful, irrational and unreliable.
Araghchi, too, has repeatedly argued that there was no ceasefire to extend because the June agreement was intended to end the war, not establish a temporary pause.
On Friday, he said, “We did not have a ceasefire in the first place that we would now want to extend. We had ‘the end of the war,’ and now there is a new situation.”
On Saturday, he went a step further, saying Iran had not yet decided whether to restart negotiations with Washington. Qatar and Pakistan are exchanging messages with Tehran, he said, but that did not amount to negotiations.
At the same time, Iran is working with Oman on a possible new system of shipping routes through Hormuz. Araghchi said the old routes were no longer functional and that a temporary route was being designed, but stressed that the reopening of shipping remained dependent on Washington meeting Iran’s conditions.
What Happens After August 17?
Back-channel diplomacy is likely to continue
The expiry of the MoU does not mean that all diplomacy stops. Qatar, Pakistan and Oman have all been involved in communicating with the two sides. Iran has explicitly said that messages are still being exchanged, even while denying that formal negotiations have resumed.
A new arrangement could therefore emerge outside the original 60-day framework – potentially starting with shipping and humanitarian issues before tackling the much harder questions of sanctions and Iran’s nuclear programme.
Hormuz will remain the immediate test
The most visible sign of whether tensions are easing will be shipping. If US and Iran can agree on a mechanism allowing commercial vessels to move safely through the strait, it could create space for wider negotiations.
If attacks, interceptions or competing blockades continue, however, the dispute could become harder to contain.
For the global economy, the stakes are substantial. Before the war, Hormuz handled about one-fifth of global oil and LNG flows. Reuters reported that Brent crude was around $88.72 a barrel early Monday, after gaining more than 5 per cent the previous week.
More US sanctions are likely
The US has already indicated that it intends to increase economic pressure. That could mean additional sanctions on Iranian financial networks, oil exports and entities accused of helping Tehran circumvent existing restrictions.
The objective would be to make the economic cost of continuing the confrontation increasingly difficult for Iran to absorb.
Military escalation remains a risk
There is no indication that the expiry itself automatically triggers a new military operation. But the conditions for escalation are clearly present. The US maintains its naval blockade, Iran continues to restrict shipping through Hormuz, and both governments are publicly warning the other against testing their resolve.
Iranian Army chief Major General Amir Hatami, responding to Trump’s comments on Hormuz, said joking about such a move was a mistake and warned that Iran had defenders who would “break your legs.” He also said US forces had been effectively driven out and would not be allowed to return to their previous position in the Gulf.
What about Iran’s nuclear programme?
This remains the biggest unresolved issue beneath the immediate Hormuz dispute. The June framework had pushed the nuclear question into negotiations for a final agreement. Iran had reaffirmed that it would not seek nuclear weapons, while Washington wanted restrictions on enrichment and stronger guarantees.
But the failure to even agree on the basic terms of the June MoU means that the nuclear question has effectively been pushed back.
That makes any future agreement more complicated: it would have to address not just a ceasefire and shipping, but sanctions, oil exports, frozen Iranian assets, the US military presence, nuclear restrictions and guarantees that neither side will simply walk away.
The significance of the Indian flag in Kashmir, especially during national celebrations, highlights the complex socio-political landscape of the region.
Flag hoisting anywhere and everywhere is par for the course on August 15 and January 26 every year. ‘Har Ghar Tiranga’ campaigns and ‘Tiranga Yatra’ may be seen as fodder for friendly political banter and squabble leading up to these days, but practically harmless even by the Opposition’s standards.
But the mandated unfurling at Srinagar’s Lal Chowk, the celebrations at Bakshi Stadium last couple of years, the women-led tiranga yatras now. Why is the Indian flag, rather its visibility, so significant when it comes to Kashmir?
When one types into the web browser: “national flag and Kashmir”, Wikipedia pops up still displaying the old red and white state flag with the plough, years after it was rendered obsolete. On the right it is accompanied with images of a flag often seen across the border in the Pakistan-occupied territory, where it the Pakistani state continues to rain atrocities on civilians.
Few would remember Mehbooba Mufti’s protest vis-à-vis the abrogation of Article 370 two weeks ago. Leading a sit-in protest outside her party office in Srinagar, pictures of the demonstration went viral, not for the cause, that raga is sung all year every year. She held the national flag upside down. If one didn’t know better, it could be chalked up to an accidental faux pas. But one does. The national flag and the defunct state flag were taped together, and the PDP chief was holding it herself. At the expense of quoting Mr Rahul Gandhi on the unrelated issue, either she was complicit or she is incompetent.
Before one takes an educated guess, remember the likes and likings of this Gupkar Alliance. When the abrogation was still a notion, Mr Farooq Abdullah said: “Hum iska muqabala karenge, 370 ko kaise khatam karoge? …Allah ko yahi manzoor hoga, hum inse azad ho jayen… Dekhta hun phir kon inka jhanda khada karne ke liye taiyar hoga…”
The state flag also has a contested history with a complicated narration of the events in 1931. The red flag is supposedly a signifier of the bloodshed seen at the time of the agitation against Maharaja Hari Singh. But the sequence of what the mob trying to catch a glimpse of the instigator (one Abdul Qadeer who is said to have given a passionate speech during tension amid the Muslim population with the Dogra ruler) was really up to remains contentious.
Under Sheikh Muhammad Abdullah the day came to be observed as Martyrs’ Day until the abrogation. More than what thousands of Hindus killed and driven away from Kashmir ever received.
Be that as it may, in 1952, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah signed the Delhi Agreement, which states: “the State flag would not be a rival of the Union flag; it was also recognised that the Union flag should have the same status and position in Jammu and Kashmir as in the rest of India”.
Therein perhaps lay the problem… in missing some Is and Ts. And perhaps Dr Farooq Abdullah didn’t receive the complete handover. The agreement said that same status should be granted to the national flag in the valley as in the rest of India, but J&K’s special status remained just too special for some.
What some seem to see as a regular political disagreement over the tricolour, is essentially the ingrained separatist mindset. Not the one that says ‘azaadi abhi adhuri hai’; but missing the irony in the first term the mindset that makes one state: ‘PoK unka hai, yeh humara hai…’
Flags are essential when we speak of Kashmir. The so-called “Azad Kashmir” flag was seen on jerseys worn by the terrorists who massacred innocents in Pahalgam. The Delhi Agreement recognised the J&K state flag: “for historical reasons connected with the freedom struggle in the State…” Makes one wonder if Pandit Nehru would have retained the stance after January 1990.
They were supposed “to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.” All.
Kashmiri Pandits who fled at the time refuse to let me go to downtown Srinagar, still. They remember when the national flag was nowhere to be seen. When it was seen at the leadership’s feet during newscasts of Central visits. When it rained stones after any India-Pak cricket match. Some heard ‘Jana Gana Mana’ for the first time in their life after half of it had passed, when they took their kids to school for Independence Day celebrations in an elsewhere town, 12 years after the exodus.
The prime minister’s 1992 unfurling act at Lal Chowk was nothing if not audacious. Ask the exiled locals. A full attendance tiranga yatra in the heart of Srinagar now is path breaking. And Dr Abdullah saluting the Indian flag? History and hypocrisy coming full circle.
The dying embers of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism make the need to ensure the visible dominance of the flag even more urgent. Two attacks within 10 days; one killing a soldier on Amarnath Yatra duty, one conceivably Pahalgam-like on Hindu migrant labourers; refurbished threats on Kashmiri Pandits trying to return to the Valley for long-promised jobs threatening normalcy even in Jammu.
PM Modi paid tribute to the “countless freedom fighters” whose “courage, sacrifice and unwavering commitment” secured India’s independence.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (PTI file photo)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday greeted the nation on India’s 80th Independence Day, remembering the freedom fighters whose courage and sacrifice helped end colonial rule.
In a social media post on X, PM Modi paid tribute to the “countless freedom fighters” whose “courage, sacrifice and unwavering commitment” secured India’s independence.
He said the dreams of the freedom fighters continued to inspire the country as it worked towards building a Viksit Bharat (developed India).
“We remember with gratitude the countless freedom fighters whose courage, sacrifice and unwavering commitment ensured the end of colonial rule. Their dreams continue to inspire us as we work together to build a Viksit Bharat,” he wrote.
Warm greetings on the occasion of Independence Day.
We remember with gratitude the countless freedom fighters whose courage, sacrifice and unwavering commitment ensured the end of colonial rule. Their dreams continue to inspire us as we work together to build a Viksit Bharat.…
“Powered by 140 crore Indians, our nation is scaling new heights of progress across different sectors. May this journey keep progressing at an even greater pace in the times to come,” Prime Minister Modi wrote.
PM Modi is leading the main Independence Day celebrations at the Red Fort in Delhi, where he is scheduled to hoist the national flag and address the nation.
Trump said he would “soon” declare the Strait of Hormuz US territory after defeating Iran.
US President Donald Trump attends a working session during the NATO leaders summit in Turkey. (Reuters file photo)
US President Donald Trump on Friday said he would “soon” declare the Strait of Hormuz a US territory after defeating Iran, escalating his rhetoric over the vital waterway.
“After we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated — pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States,” Trump said at a rally in New York state. “It’s true,” he added.
The remarks came as shipping through the strategic waterway has fallen sharply amid attacks on vessels and a US naval blockade of Iranian ports.
Hormuz Traffic Nears Standstill
The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world’s most important energy routes, carrying a significant share of global oil and gas shipments. Traffic has slowed dramatically since the war began in late February, with only a handful of vessels recorded crossing the waterway in recent days.
Reuters, citing ship-tracking data from Kpler, reported that only two commodity vessels crossed the strait on Friday, while no crude oil shipments were visible. Nine commodity vessels had crossed on Thursday, compared with an average of 12 a day in August.
The slowdown follows attacks on two vessels operated by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, which the UAE blamed on Iran. Tehran did not immediately comment.
US Threatens Long-Term Blockade
Trump has repeatedly claimed the US has “total control” of the Strait of Hormuz and said the waterway would remain open under US protection.
On Thursday, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had said Washington could maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports indefinitely by rotating ships in and out of the region.
VLADIMIR Putin is being pushed closer and closer towards a last-ditch attack on Nato as he fights to save face in Russia, an expert has warned.
Putin is facing a string of worrying crises on his doorstep with his national support beginning to wane, the Kremlin’s cash dwindling and the war with Ukraine now at an embarrassing stalemate for the despot.
Vladimir Putin holds a meeting aboard the Guards missile cruiser Varyag this weekCredit: EPA
With his back against the wall, Putin could choose to risk it all and attempt a World War Three-stoking attack on a Nato nation, according to longtime Kremlin critic and Brit banker Bill Browder.
The gamble would aim to test who is truly on Ukraine‘s side and would be aimed at the US with Russia hoping they would avoid being drawn into a conflict despite Article 5 of the Nato treaty.
One theory is Putin could grab a city in Poland, or one of the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – all Nato nations which have strongly backed Ukraine during the war.
A new US intelligence report even revealed this week that US officials fear Putin is plotting a small-scale land incursion to test the alliance.
Bill told The Sun: “Putin has reached a stalemate in his war with Ukraine. It’s been going on for more than four years, and he’s unable to gain more territory.
“He’s losing between 1,000 to 1,500 troops a day. His oil refineries and warehouses of online retailers are being bombed by the Ukrainians.
“And the Ukrainians are developing more and more sophisticated weapons so they’ve reached a stalemate – and, of course, he’s short on money.”
Russia’s faltering economy is one of the biggest issues hampering the war, he says.
Ukraine’s relentless strikes have focused on hitting key economic areas such as warehouses owned by Wildberries – known as Russia’s Amazon – and gas and oil sites, leaving huge parts of the nation cash-strapped.
This directly impacts the battlefield too, as Putin is known to recruit troops to fight in Ukraine by promising to pay them good money.
Bill said: “Russia is in a very weak position because they need to replenish their soldiers to carry on the war.
“But money is what Putin uses to hire more troops as he pays them to go to the frontline.”
Despite this, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky has already warned Putin is preparing for a mass mobilisation in the coming months.
Earlier this week, he said Russia is planning a “rapid mobilisation of several hundred thousand Russians by the end of the year”.
One way the Kremlin could achieve such a major uptake in fighters is to stop paying troops and instead make fighting in Ukraine mandatory.
Bill continued: “There are very strong rumours that Russia will impose a full conscription which means that all young men between a certain age will be required to go and fight in the war.
“If that happens, it will be enormously unpopular. It will bring the war home to every household in Russia.
“And that’s the dilemma that Putin is facing right now.”
Putin’s recruitment drive has raised fears he may be looking to pull off a major operation in order to gain back some control in Europe after months of dwindling success.
Bill warns there is one possible last-ditch plan Putin could try to win the war.
He said: “If Putin can’t get more troops because he doesn’t have the money then he’s in a bind.
“And so what does he do in this bind? Well, the one thing he could do is test whether Article 5 of Nato is real.
The White House report calls for firm action against countries that enable the rerouting of tariffed goods to evade US law.
The report traces the origins of the problem to 2018, when the Trump administration imposed Section 301 tariffs on select Chinese goods to remedy America’s growing trade deficit with China. (PTI File)
A White House report has described India as a major part of a “shadow transhipment network” that allowed Chinese goods facing high US tariffs to enter the American market by re-routing them through third countries facing lower tariffs.
In the report titled “The Great Transhipment Scam”, US President Donald Trump’s adviser Peter Navarro estimates the value of potentially illegal transhipment at roughly $60 billion. It says this cost the US government tens of billions in lost tariff revenue.
The report calls for firm action against countries enabling the rerouting of tariffed goods to evade US law, including immediate interdiction, penalty tariffs, sanctions, and potential loss of market access.
It was released amid a downturn in India-US relations and six days after the US Senate on Friday last approved, by 86 votes to 11, a bill authorising tariffs of up to 100% on countries, including India, buying Russian oil, gas and other exports. The bill’s sponsors named India as one of five target economies even as US allies in Europe were left out of its ambit despite similar purchases.
The bill permits the executive to act against China, India, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan. Its sponsors said the rate should be pitched high enough to deter Chinese and Indian buying. India was slapped with a 25% additional levy in August last year, which has since been removed after trade negotiations. India and the US have been attempting to seal a trade deal.
The White House report traces the origins of the “shadow transhipment network” to 2018, when the Trump administration imposed Section 301 tariffs on select Chinese goods to remedy America’s growing trade deficit with China. “After their imposition, Chinese exporters increasingly routed goods through third countries. Products that previously moved directly from China to the United States were shipped through jurisdictions where limited assembly, finishing, repackaging, relabeling, or documentation changes could create the appearance of a different national origin,” the report says.
The report identifies roughly 40 countries worldwide playing a key role in enabling this “transhipment network”. It sorts them into three tiers based on the extent to which they enable the movement of Chinese-origin goods into the US at lower tariff rates. India and other major US trading partners, such as Canada, Japan, the European Union, Israel, and Mexico, have been placed in Tier 1
One estimate cites American commerce department data to assert that “approximately $67 billion in US-bound goods were transshipped from China through the top hubs—Mexico, India, and Vietnam—in 2025, producing an estimated $28 billion in lost tariff Revenue.”
Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 3, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer Purchase Licensing Rights
The Strait of Hormuz is “under Iran’s control and management”, the recently appointed head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary unit said on Thursday, a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States had “total control” of the strategic waterway.
Hossein Taeb said the U.S. had sought to disrupt what he described as the Islamic Republic’s popularity in the region by launching another war in the Strait of Hormuz, but had once more been defeated despite claiming Iran had neither an air force nor a navy.
“Today you see that the Strait of Hormuz is under the management and control of the Islamic Republic,” Taeb said, according to the semi-official Fars news. He added that Iran was continuing on its course in complete security.
After the start of the war, which began with U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Tehran effectively shut the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas was previously shipped.
The U.S. subsequently imposed a naval blockade on Iranian shipping and ports, while saying it would protect freedom of navigation for vessels travelling to and from non-Iranian ports.
IRANIAN ADVISER SPEAKS OF ‘NEW REGIONAL ORDER’
Iran’s joint military command, Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, said later on Thursday that no vessel could transit the Strait of Hormuz without Tehran’s permission.
“The baseless claims made by the United States regarding the normal passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz … are nothing more than lies and falsehoods,” the command said in a statement published by state media.
In June, the two countries reached an interim agreement declaring a permanent ceasefire and calling for a swift return to freedom of navigation in the Gulf.
The deal unravelled a few weeks later, with both sides accusing the other of violations. Iran resumed limited attacks on vessels that it said were sailing contrary to the arrangements under the agreement, and the U.S. restarted strikes on Iran’s southern provinces, which Washington said were aimed at degrading Tehran’s ability to target vessels in the Gulf.
In a post on X on Thursday, Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said that Mojtaba’s strategy would be “offensive war”, if Tehran’s conditions were not met.
Australia is revamping its media laws to make major tech platforms sign deals with more local news outlets and ensure more revenue reaches Australian journalism.
Australia’s New Media Rules Put More Pressure On Big Tech To Fund News (AI-generated)
After becoming one of the first countries in the world to introduce laws to make tech giants like Google and Meta pay for publishers’ content, the country is now pushing the companies to sign more deals with the local news organisations. According to Reuters, the new legislation is expected to be introduced in Parliament for its media licensing laws on Thursday.
Under the new proposed changes, digital platforms will have to make agreements with at least eight Australian media companies. This is an increase from the six organisations required under an earlier version of the proposal.
According to the report, the government says these changes will notably make sure that more advertising-related revenue reaches Australian news organisations, including smaller and diverse media outlets.
New Limit On Individual Deals
These revised plans will also bring back a limit on how much of a technology company’s liability can be covered by a single agreement. Under the proposal, no single deal can account for more than 25 per cent of a platform’s levy liability. The levy is set at 2.5 per cent of a company’s Australian advertising revenue.
Technology companies can reduce the amount they have to pay under the scheme based on the value of the commercial agreements they reach with news organisations. According to the Aussies, the proposed system will help direct more revenue toward the local news outlets, which have been facing growing financial pressure as advertising has shifted to digital platforms.
Additionally, the revised legislation will also offer five per cent of the money raised under the scheme to Australian Associated Press (AAP).
AAP is a non-profit newswire that offers news reports, photos and videos to media organisations across the country. This organisation even faced the possibility of being shut down in 2020 before being saved through a new ownership and funding structure.
To recall, Australia is among the top countries that introduced its original media bargaining framework in 2021. The law needed major tech giants to negotiate payments with news companies for the use of their content. Meta and Google subsequently reached commercial agreements with various Australian publishers.
Demis Hassabis, who is now chief scientist of Alphabet and chair of Google DeepMind, speaks during the 56th annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 20, 2026. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Google co-founder Sergey Brin in recent months has urged key AI staff to go all in on the company’s Gemini model as parent Alphabet (GOOGL.O), seeks to close the gap with rivals, two people familiar with his remarks told Reuters.
As Anthropic raced ahead with a preview of its powerful Claude Mythos model, Brin addressed hundreds of employees in an April town hall, urging the company’s Google DeepMind AI lab to move faster, said one of the people on condition of anonymity.
Google’s Gemini model briefly overtook competitors last November, but new updates from Anthropic and OpenAI once again put it in catch-up mode. By August, Google had delayed the new flagship version of Gemini by two months after internal testing showed its performance continued to lag behind rivals in areas such as coding, one of the sources and another person familiar with the matter said.
On August 5, the Mountain View, California, tech giant announced a sweeping leadership overhaul of its Google DeepMind AI division in which its chief, Demis Hassabis, stepped aside in favor of his deputy, Koray Kavukcuoglu. Hassabis became chair, with fewer management obligations. At the same time, the two original technical co-leads of Gemini quit to co-found a startup.
While some industry observers have questioned if Google, is exiting the model race, interviews with seven people knowledgeable about Gemini’s development efforts show that Alphabet’s commercialization strategy and reorganization of ranks last week are tied to its effort to achieve model supremacy.
The changes mark a further erosion of DeepMind’s autonomy, which Google has chipped away at since buying the London-based lab in 2014 in an ongoing push for its AI to power more of its software and make more money. Alphabet’s shakeup included a revelation during an all-hands meeting on August 6 that some teams were moving out of DeepMind and into corporate Google, two sources said.
Internal meeting details and Brin’s remarks have not previously been reported. Other media outlets earlier reported on not-yet-final reorganizations, and Brin’s coding push.
Google declined to answer questions from Reuters about Brin’s recent involvement, DeepMind’s structural changes, and concerns held by staff.
Under Hassabis, Google DeepMind pursued a wider range of AI research projects than its rivals while building Gemini models that are essential to corporate commercial interests. But in past years, Hassabis worked against some efforts that could have meant new revenue for Alphabet or helped it gain better footing in the AI race, a Reuters special report last year showed. His Google allies previously told Reuters that they rejected the idea that Hassabis gave short shrift to the business or focused too much on long-term science.
In 2025, Google CEO Sundar Pichai appointed Kavukcuoglu, then DeepMind’s chief technology officer, to an additional senior post as Google’s chief AI architect. His task was to embed Gemini across the company’s products. Four of the sources told Reuters that in the months that followed, some leaders at DeepMind found their influence diminished while Kavukcuoglu became the central figure shaping Gemini’s direction.
Kavukcuoglu had Brin’s backing, one of them said.
LEADERS SEEK TO CALM WORRIED STAFF
News of the shakeup caused Google’s stock to drop 4% the day of the announcement.
At the unit-wide all-hands meeting on Thursday of last week, Hassabis and Kavukcuoglu sought to assuage concerns by staff — most of whom learned about the change as it became public — about the AI lab’s future.
The Google leaders said day-to-day work at the lab would remain the same, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the meeting. Kavukcuoglu would stay in charge of Gemini, the sources said; he had assumed oversight of model development more than a year prior, five sources said.
Hassabis gave a talk about how AI could advance science and alter society, long-term issues that would constitute the focus of his new role as chair, the three sources knowledgeable about the meeting said.
This messaging aside, the all-hands meeting surfaced fresh concerns that DeepMind’s autonomy was being subsumed by Google. Hassabis and Kavukcuoglu told staff that several nontechnical teams were being moved out of DeepMind and into the corporate reporting structure, two of the sources said. For an organization that had once encouraged employees to pursue ancillary projects, the message to reclaim model supremacy was also clear.
Executives including Pichai have said in recent months that Google considers itself to be at the frontier in certain areas like video generation, and remained committed to catching up in other areas despite setbacks.
Senior leaders in the cloud division, meanwhile, expect Kavukcuoglu’s appointment to alleviate tensions with DeepMind over allocation of Google’s constrained supply of AI chips, known as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), another source said.
BRIN PUSHES RECURSIVE SELF-IMPROVEMENT
The Google shakeup comes as Brin has worked to fire up staff, something he also did after OpenAI’s ChatGPT launch in 2022 jolted Google.
Although he no longer holds an executive title, the 52-year-old Brin has been informally influencing model training efforts. For several months now, he has been remarking to key staff that they need to catch up to the frontier, according to one of the sources knowledgeable about his efforts.
Brin has used the implicit power he holds as Google’s co-founder to push resource allocation toward specific areas, such as recursive self-improvement, the point at which the technology can improve without human intervention, this source said.
Google declined to make Brin available for an interview.
Hassabis, meanwhile, decreased his involvement in managing Gemini and passed off that responsibility to his deputies shortly after originally getting the AI model off the ground in 2023, two of the sources said.
Though Google caught up to the frontier last November with the release of Gemini 3, it quickly fell behind again. Four sources characterized its laggard status as a result of lingering structural challenges that made it fall behind in the first place.
Constraints in computing capacity, for instance, and disagreements between Gemini’s many project leaders led to fewer resources for areas that would prove critical, such as coding, two of the sources said. Google’s bureaucratic nature also caused it to release models at a slower pace than nimbler rivals, the four sources said.
Google declined to comment on these claims, but Pichai told Wall Street analysts last month that the company would continue to scale up its infrastructure to alleviate constraints around TPUs that it needed for model training, as well as consumer and enterprise products.
People walk past an anti-U.S. billboard on a street in Tehran, Iran, August 3, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
Iran and the United States remain at loggerheads over efforts to agree a permanent end to the war in the Gulf, according to a senior Iranian source, who said there had been no progress in talks to revive the interim deal agreed in June and define a time frame to implement it.
The comments came as U.S. President Donald Trump issued yet another broadside against Iran’s leaders, dealing a further blow to hopes for a resolution to the crisis, following new attacks on shipping in the region on Tuesday.
The deal agreed in June declared an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts”, but quickly unravelled, with Trump saying it was “over” on July 7 and Iran’s foreign ministry declaring it “suspended” a week later.
The U.S. accuses Iran of failing to honor an agreement under the deal to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route. Tehran says Washington has reneged on its commitments, including lifting a blockade of Iranian ports and releasing frozen Iranian assets.
“One of the issues that is being discussed via mediators is the U.S. returning to the interim agreement and defining a time frame for implementing the commitments. There has been absolutely no progress on this issue,” the Iranian source said.
Trump said on Wednesday that the U.S. has “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz.
But the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, the body Iran set up to manage the waterway, said it remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran’s conditions are accepted.
“Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
Throughout the conflict, Trump has alternated between threats of escalation and claims that a peace deal is imminent.
‘NO TALK OF EXTENSION’
Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, mainly in Iran and Lebanon, since the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran on February 28.
Iran has struck U.S. assets and infrastructure in countries including Oman, Jordan, Kuwait, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
The June interim ceasefire agreement set a 60-day period, extendable by mutual consent, within which Iran and the U.S. were expected to reach a final deal limiting Tehran’s nuclear program and lifting U.S. sanctions.
The Iranian source dismissed a report on Wednesday from Turkey’s Anadolu news agency that quoted Pakistani government sources as saying they had agreed to extend that 60-day period.
“There is no talk of an extension because, from Iran’s perspective, there is no period that began and therefore nothing to extend. The United States violated the interim agreement 48 hours after it was reached and withdrew from it a few days later,” the source told Reuters.
Damage on the cargo vessel Tihamah near Murad, Yemen, August 11, 2026. Media Office Of The Ministry Of Transport – Republic Of Yemen/Handout via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
The U.S. and Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis reported separate attacks on shipping on Tuesday as prospects for ending the Iran war appeared to dim, with Tehran saying the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed unless Washington accepts its conditions.
The attacks, in the Gulf of Oman leading to the strait and at the entrance to the Red Sea — both vital chokepoints for global oil supplies — come as the war shows no signs of ending despite repeated assertions from U.S. President Donald Trump of a deal being imminent.
Oil prices gained and global shares retreated amid renewed pessimism about a quick end to the conflict. Brent crude futures climbed 1.4% to settle at $88.91 per barrel and U.S. crude rose 1.3% to $83.20.
At the southern end of the Red Sea, four crew members were killed in a suspected Houthi attack on a small cargo vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Tuesday, Yemen’s Transport Ministry said. Two Yemeni rescuers from an anti-Houthi military group were also killed, Yemen’s Coast Guard said.
The fatalities aboard the Egyptian-owned Tihamah would be the first deaths on shipping by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis since the Iran war began.
The Houthi-run news agency Saba reported that the group, which said last month it would impose a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea, attacked a Saudi ship carrying military equipment in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. It did not name the ship, and there was no immediate Saudi response to the report.
The U.S. military, meanwhile, said a U.S. Navy MH-60 helicopter fired two Hellfire missiles to disable the steering gear of a Panama-flagged cargo ship.
The ship ignored repeated warnings to stop violating a naval blockade on Iranian ports, the U.S. Central Command said. Maritime sources told Reuters the ship was hit off Pakistan while sailing into the Gulf of Oman.
STEPPED UP RHETORIC
Both Iran and the United States have stepped up rhetoric in the past two days.
Iran’s top security official, Mohsen Rezaei, said on Tuesday that the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping route will remain closed unless the U.S. accepts Iran’s conditions to end the war – the release of Iran’s frozen assets and an end to conflicts throughout the region, including in Lebanon and Gaza.
That followed a new demand from Trump on Monday that Iran should pay compensation for people killed in 50 years of wars, attacks and protests.
Throughout the conflict, Trump has alternated between threats of escalation and claims that a peace deal is imminent.
In an interview released late on Monday, he suggested the uncertainty could last for a while, saying he might just “bop along” and let Tehran fail economically, or hit them “really, really hard.”
“I’m sort of negotiating,” Trump told Real America’s Voice. “They’re very devious negotiators.”
Speaking to reporters after a visit to Ohio on Tuesday, Trump said “Iran is going fine, going just absolutely fine.”
“We totally control the Strait of Hormuz … Nobody else, only us,” he said.
“At some point, maybe they’ll do something and then they get blown away,” he said of Iran. “But right now, we’re in a very good position. We have a country that has been the bully of the Middle East for 50 years, really 51 if you think about it … and they’re no longer the bully of the Middle East.”
Asked about an incident in which he switched planes in Turkey last month because of worries over reports of a potential Iranian assassination threat, Trump suggested the alternative aircraft may have faced greater risk.
“That would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for,” he told reporters after The Washington Post broke the story about him secretly taking a military flight instead of Air Force One in an operation involving him being moved between aircraft in a catering truck.
“Any consequential president has a lot of threats,” Trump added. “I don’t worry about anything.”
The comments from Rezaei, appointed on Sunday as second-in-command of the body that coordinates Iran’s security and foreign policy, were the strongest indication the Strait of Hormuz would not reopen to shipping anytime soon. The waterway handled a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flow before the war.
“As long as America does not change its behaviour and does not accept Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will not be opened,” Rezaei said, according to the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
The Lindsey Graham Bill passed by the US Senate can levy tariffs on top five countries that purchase Russian crude, which includes India and China.
“They are going to work that out amongst themselves, and it’s not for me to get between that,” Navarro said on US President Trump and PM Modi. (REUTERS)
Responding to a question on potential US tariffs against India under the Lindsey Graham Bill, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Tuesday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump would “work it out.”
“…The President and your Prime Minister have a very good working relationship. They are going to work that out amongst themselves, and it’s not for me to get between that…,” Navarro told ANI news agency, in response to a question on the Russia Sanctions Bill supported by Trump, which could levy upto 100 per cent tariffs on India.
The Bill, which carries the name of late Senator Lindsey Graham, can impose tariffs on the top five countries that purchase Russian crude oil and natural gas, which includes India and China.
#WATCH | Washington, DC (US): “…With respect to your question, the President and your Prime Minister have a very good working relationship. They are going to work that out amongst themselves, and it’s not for me to get between that…,” says U.S. presidential counselor Peter… pic.twitter.com/hItMjDKTTy
Navarro reiterated his stance on the matter, saying, “With respect to your question, the president and your Prime Minister have a very good working relationship. They are going to work that out amongst themselves, and it’s not for me or any gaggle to get between that.”
‘Got firebombed by Indians on Russian oil remarks’: Navarro
Navarro, while answering the question, recalled an op-ed that he wrote which was published in the Financial Times, saying he was “firebombed” on the internet.
“During the Ukraine-Russia war, 6-8 months ago, I think I wrote wrote an op-ed in the Financial Times, which absolutely factually correctly pointed out that prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, India was not involved in the oil trade with Russia, but afterwards it got heavily involved and was selling a lot of refined products on behalf of Russia, which helped feed the war machine,” Navarro said.
He said that the “issue” had been resolved, adding, “Maybe I had a little bit to do with that with that op-ed, but I can tell you, I got actually firebombed by the Indian continent on the internet.” The White House trade adviser said that was “not how we resolve problems in America”, while adding, “Don’t do that.”
What is the Lindsey Graham Bill?
The Bill, also known as the Russia Sanctions Bill, was passed last week through the Senate on bipartisan vote, 86 to 11. However, it needs a vote in the US House of Representatives before it can become a law.
Apart from countries purchasing Russia’s crude and natural gas, it can also place mandatory sanctions on top figures in the Russian government, including President Vladimir Putin, and foreign companies supporting Russia’s defence industrial base, according to a CNN report.
The strike targeted the Nizhnekamsk area as Russia and Ukraine continued to intensify long-range drone and missile attacks against each other.
Russia and Ukraine intensify aerial attacks against each other, with more drones and missiles strikes. (Representational image)
A Ukrainian drone strike killed at least 13 people and injured 75 others in Nizhnekamsk, in Russia’s Tatarstan region, local authorities said Monday, making it the deadliest attack inside Russia in more than two years.
A child was among those killed, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee, while 21 people were hospitalized, the region’s press service said. The Uzbek consulate in Tatarstan said seven of those killed were Uzbek citizens.
Nizhnekamsk is located more than 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) east of Moscow and is home to the major Taneco oil refinery. Ukraine’s Armed Forces said the refinery was targeted in the strike.
Deadliest Ukrainian Attack Inside Russia
The strike came as Russia and Ukraine intensified their aerial attacks against each other, with more drones and missiles getting through air defenses.
Ukraine’s long-range drone capabilities have improved in recent months, allowing Kyiv to strike infrastructure deep inside Russia, including oil refineries, tankers, power substations, energy infrastructure and warehouses.
Before Monday’s attack, strikes on Wildberries warehouses had been the deadliest Ukrainian attack inside Russia, killing at least eight people in a single day.
Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukraine continue to outnumber Ukrainian retaliatory strikes. Earlier this month, Russian missile attacks killed at least 17 people and injured dozens in the Kyiv region.
Russia-Ukraine Strikes Intensify
The latest attacks also affected several areas in Ukraine. In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, seven people were killed and at least 24 injured in strikes that Ukrainian officials said involved Russian ballistic missiles. All seven people killed were employees of the Zaporizhstal metallurgical plant, which later halted operations.
One person was injured in strikes on Kyiv, where explosions were heard on the outskirts and fires broke out. Local officials later said a children’s hospital was damaged, although no one was injured.
Two women were injured in a Russian drone strike on Sumy, while another person was killed later when the city was attacked with gliding bombs. Strikes on substations in Kherson and Kharkiv also caused power outages.
Iran has announced six new appointments to key military positions, including a new armed forces chief of staff and a new commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei reshapes the country’s security leadership.
Ali Abdollahi, head of Iran’s joint war command, has been appointed chief of staff of the armed forces, while Ali Ozmaei has been named head of the IRGC Navy.
Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi has also been confirmed as commander-in-chief of the IRGC, with the rank of major general. He succeeds Mohammad Pakpour, who was killed during the opening salvo of the US-Israel war on Iran in late February.
The appointments were formally announced on Monday.
The reshuffle comes alongside the appointment of veteran IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaee as secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s representative on the powerful body. Rezaee, 71, commanded the IRGC for 16 years, including during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
His appointment has been viewed by analysts as a sign that Tehran is strengthening its wartime security structure rather than softening its approach towards Washington.
Veteran Commander Returns to Top Role
Rezaee served as IRGC commander for 16 years before moving into politics and economic affairs after the Iran-Iraq war. He later became secretary of the Expediency Council, another senior state body, and helped develop a long-term national development plan.
During President Ebrahim Raisi’s presidency from 2021 to 2024, he was given high-level economic coordination responsibilities. He has never held elected office, despite running unsuccessfully for president four times.
Rezaee returned to military uniform during the current conflict, becoming a military adviser to Mojtaba Khamenei shortly after he succeeded his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Since then, he has projected a message of resistance towards the US, Israel and other regional powers.
Rezaee previously criticised a memorandum of understanding signed with the US in June that temporarily lifted a naval blockade and suspended oil sanctions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. He said his position was closer to that of Mojtaba Khamenei, who approved the agreement despite reservations.
“I ask friends who are against negotiations to wait, the Americans will destroy it themselves and won’t let it lead to any results,” Rezaee said in early July, shortly before the agreement was suspended after attacks resumed.
Last week, he warned that the US must change its behaviour or face serious risks and casualties to its forces. Iran, he said, “will never permit the opening of a second corridor in the Strait of Hormuz”.
The SNSC brings together Iran’s presidency, foreign ministry, armed forces and security and intelligence organisations. It also coordinates communication with the supreme leader’s office, which must give final approval to its decisions.
State-linked outlets said 12 of the council’s 13 voting members supported the June memorandum with the US, with ultraconservative Saeed Jalili reportedly the only member to oppose it.
The agreement was criticised by hardline MPs, media and supporters of the Islamic Republic, who argued that the Strait of Hormuz should not have been reopened until Washington offered further concessions.
‘Strategic Restructuring’
Iranian media had reported in recent days that Rezaee could take over as secretary of the security council. Some reports said President Masoud Pezeshkian had initially resisted the appointment by rejecting the resignation of former security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr.
Zolghadr was eventually replaced but was immediately appointed as political adviser to Khamenei.
Analysts have noted that Zolghadr was close to parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has also been involved in negotiations with the US.
His replacement could therefore be an attempt to limit Ghalibaf’s influence, although there has been no official confirmation of such a motive. Ghalibaf was among senior officials who congratulated Rezaee on his appointment, alongside Vahidi and judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei also welcomed the appointment while stressing the importance of state institutions. “The whole world has clearly seen over the past year-and-a-half that our country is a country of institutions, not individuals,” he said. “This was exactly the secret of the longevity and victory of the Islamic Republic in these challenging conditions.”
Nournews, an outlet affiliated with the national security council, described Rezaee’s appointment as the beginning of a broader “strategic restructuring” suited to Iran’s new wartime circumstances. “The central issue is not one secretary’s departure and another’s arrival, but how consequential the steps taken by the SNSC secretariat in this new phase will be,” it said.
Israel Condemns Rezaee Appointment
Israel criticised Rezaee’s appointment, pointing to his status as the subject of an Interpol Red Notice over his alleged role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish centre in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Vahidi is also subject to an Interpol Red Notice in connection with the bombing. “The Iranian regime worships terror, rewards its architects and promotes them to the highest levels of power,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said.
Hardliners Welcome Changes
The reshuffle has been welcomed by hardliners in Tehran, some of whom see the appointment of a veteran military commander to the top security body as evidence of a tougher stance towards the US.
Hardline MP Amirhossein Sabeti, who is affiliated with Saeed Jalili’s Paydari Front, said the appointment also exposed tensions within President Pezeshkian’s government. “After it emerged that the supreme leader selected Mohsen Rezaee as his representative in the council, the other thing that became clear was that Pezeshkian had for long been standing up to the leader on changing Zolghadr with Rezaee,” he said.
Rezaee has previously made strongly worded comments about a possible US military attack. In July 2015, months before Iran signed a nuclear agreement with world powers, he said that if the US launched a ground assault, Iran would capture American soldiers.
An aide, Pankaj Kumar, claimed Mahto was injured during a police lathi-charge near the Jharkhand Assembly.
Student leader Devendra Nath Mahto undergoes medical treatment at a hospital in Ranchi. (PTI photo)
Jharkhand student protest leader Devendra Nath Mahto was hospitalised on Monday after his health deteriorated while taking part in the student-led march in Ranchi. Doctors described his condition as critical after a “drastic” drop in his blood sugar level.
Mahto, a member of the Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha (JLKM), has been on a hunger strike for nine days over alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations in the state.
“He is being treated in the emergency ward,” Nancy Priya, a medical officer at Ranchi Sadar Hospital, told PTI.
An aide, Pankaj Kumar, claimed Mahto was injured during a police lathi-charge near the Jharkhand Assembly.
Mahto Joins March Despite Poor Health
Despite his condition, Mahto joined the protesters during their march towards the Assembly earlier on Monday. He arrived at the protest site in an ambulance carrying a portrait of former Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren and later addressed the gathering while standing on a stretcher.
“A government cannot be run with batons, bullets and guns. A government is run by keeping the people satisfied,” Mahto told reporters.
He alleged that police pushed and harassed him and forcibly put him in an ambulance despite his nine-day fast.
“I have been on a hunger strike for the past nine days. Despite this, police pushed and shoved me, harassed me and forcibly put me in an ambulance. But, I will continue this fight,” he said.
Protesters Clash With Police
The protest, which began on July 25, is seeking greater transparency in competitive examinations and fair opportunities for students, Mahto said.
Protesters alleged that police stopped vehicles carrying students to Ranchi and erected multiple barricades topped with barbed wire. They said water cannons, tear gas and batons were used to disperse the crowd.
Trump demands conflict compensation from Iran, citing decades of attacks. He previously threatened and then pulled back on military strikes.
Donald Trump was seen mimicking the sound of patriot interceptors taking down Iranian missiles. He made bing bing bing sounds. The context was whether US will give Ukraine its patriot system. Russian President Putin has a good relation with Trump. (Image source: Reuters)
US President Donald Trump on Monday demanded that Iran pay compensation for deaths and injuries linked to attacks and conflicts over decades, after Tehran itself called for compensation from Washington as part of any deal to end the war.
“It is an interesting idea because now I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday, accusing Tehran of killing and gravely wounding people through roadside bombs and other conflicts.
Trump’s Compensation Demand
Trump said any future negotiations with Iran must include compensation for those killed and wounded in attacks he attributes to Tehran and its allies.
He specifically cited the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, which killed 17 US sailors, as well as “thousands of others” killed in combat.
“For all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts, for which they are famous, as led initially by General Soleimani, including the families of those killed on the USS Cole, and thousands of others killed in combat,” he wrote.
The US president also called for compensation for the families of protesters he claimed Iran had killed over the past 50 years.
Trump further referred to 52,000 deaths over the past five months, without providing further details in his post, and said he had instructed his representatives to make compensation part of “any, and all, future negotiations”.
Iran’s Demand
The demand came after Iran set preconditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, including compensation for war damages, complicating efforts to reach a deal over the vital waterway.
Iran’s security chief, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, laid out a list of demands on Saturday, including an end to the “war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq”.
[1/8] M60A3 tanks fire during a live-fire drill as part of the Han Kuang military exercise in Penghu, Taiwan, August 10, 2026. REUTERS/Ann Wang Purchase Licensing RightsTAICHUNG/PENGHU, Taiwan, Aug 10 (Reuters) – Taiwan slowed the mobile internet in a large swathe of the central part of the island on Monday for the first time during annual war games, simulating communication disruption in the event of a Chinese attack or natural disaster.
Democratically governed Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, has long lived with the threat of a Chinese invasion and holds air raid drills along with its war games every year, clearing people from the streets for 30 minutes.
During the internet “throttling” drill, centred on Monday on the major central metropolis of Taichung, only basic mobile phone services worked, though other functions including ATMs, traffic signals, landlines and fixed internet services were not affected.
Air raid sirens rang out in Taichung and people cleared the streets from 2:30 p.m. (0630 GMT) as the government sent simultaneous text messages in Chinese and English telling mobile phone users of “simulated air attacks on communication infrastructure”.
The government had widely flagged the drill ahead of time, including posting details on social media, and most people Reuters spoke to at the Taichung train station were prepared.
“Like with the Russia-Ukraine war, they had no internet. Also maybe because Taiwan is a bit more at risk, so this kind of drill might let everyone understand the current situation at that moment — what might happen and how to respond,” said Lin Hong-chun, 46.
Still, there were some grumbles, even if people were generally supportive.
“If possible, I’d still rather stay home and experience it there. Experiencing it outside is really too painful,” said Yen Po-ting, 23, from inside the station where the gates were closed to keep passengers from going outside.
The same exercise will be repeated on Thursday in northern Taiwan, including the capital Taipei.
TAIWAN STRAIT DRILLS
Taiwan’s government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.
Earlier on Monday, Taiwan’s military simulated repelling a Chinese air landing assault on the strategically vital Penghu Islands.
The 10-day Han Kuang exercise kicked off last week, rehearsing various scenarios should China ever make good on threats to try to seize the island by force.
Miniatures of people with computers are seen in front of North Korea flag in this illustration taken July 19, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A North Korean hacking group built large language model tools and collected software that could help automate cyberattacks, analyse stolen material and produce more convincing phishing campaigns, a South Korean cybersecurity firm said on Monday.
The cybersecurity firm, Genians (263860.KQ), opens new tab, said it found evidence that the North Korean-linked group Kimsuky had set up tools for running and managing AI models locally, including Ollama, GPT4All and Msty, alongside document search technology known as retrieval augmented generation (RAG).
According to the company, the tools could allow operators to process documents without sending sensitive information to outside AI services.
Genians also found AI agent development frameworks, speech-to-text software and Cursor, an AI-assisted coding tool, on infrastructure it linked to the campaign.
The findings suggest Kimsuky is moving beyond using generative AI to create phishing lures and is building capacity to integrate existing AI models into malware development, data analysis and attack automation, Genians said in a report.
Genians also said it found finance and cryptocurrency-themed decoy documents that appeared to have been generated with AI. The materials were designed to resemble legitimate investment reports and other workplace documents, it said.
The company’s findings could not be independently verified.
North Korea has for years used state-linked cyber units for espionage, financial theft and revenue generation, according to U.S. and South Korean authorities, as well as cybersecurity experts.
The U.S. Treasury in 2023 sanctioned Kimsuky, opens new tab as a North Korean government-controlled cyber-espionage group, saying it gathered intelligence in support of Pyongyang’s strategic objectives.
Iran said it was nearing a final pact with Oman defining new shipping lanes between them through the Strait of Hormuz but repeated that the U.S. must meet other conditions, including compensation and an end to sanctions and military threats, before the strategic waterway is reopened.
A U.S. official told Reuters on Friday that Iran and Oman were close to a deal that could pave the way for restoring safe passage through the strait, a major conduit for oil and gas shipping before Iran blocked Hormuz in response to U.S. and Israeli attacks on Tehran that began in late February.
Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 3, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer Purchase Licensing Rights
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Sunday an agreement with Oman on the strait was in its “final stages” but reiterated comments made on Saturday that Tehran would not reopen the channel unless the U.S. met certain demands made by Tehran.
The deal with Iran would set out the new shipping lanes to be used once the U.S. fulfils those conditions and the strait is reopened, Iran’s Mehr news agency quoted him as saying.
Iran and the U.S. are not engaged in direct talks, and Tehran will not start them as long as Washington breaches an interim deal signed in June, Araqchi said, adding that messages were being exchanged through intermediaries.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in an interview with Axios that the U.S. was “low-keying” it with Iran. “We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.” CONDITIONS INCLUDE COMPENSATION
Araqchi said reopening the strait would depend in part on the U.S. paying compensation for damage it caused in widespread attacks on Iran.
The secretary of Iran’s top national security body, Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, also listed ending further U.S. threats against Iran; halting aggression toward Iran and its Lebanese, Palestinian, Yemeni and Iraqi allies; removing a U.S. naval blockade in the Gulf; lifting sanctions on Iran; and releasing frozen Iranian assets.
The United States and Israel launched air strikes on Iran more than five months ago. Trump has said the attacks were aimed at keeping the Islamic Republic from developing nuclear weapons and degrading its ability to threaten the region.
Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire in June, but the U.S. reimposed a blockade on Iranian shipping in the Gulf in July, a move that Tehran said violated the truce, which by then had already broken down.
“Once the deal is announced to restore commercial shipping without impediments, the United States will lift the blockade of Iranian ports,” the U.S. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
U.S. actions would be tied to Iran’s implementation of its commitments, the official said.
The U.S. comments indicated delicate sequencing toward a deal that sources had told Reuters appeared to be set to give Tehran control over vessel traffic entering the Gulf through the strait, which shippers have said was not easily workable.
The United Arab Emirates said on Saturday that Iran had attacked a ship affiliated with its state oil company. There was no immediate comment from Iran, whose Revolutionary Guard Corps previously has attacked ships that it said tried to cross the strait without Iranian permission. HOUTHI ATTACKS
Iranian strikes on Strait of Hormuz shipping have been coupled with increased attacks by its Yemen-based allies, the Houthi rebels, who have targeted ships at another oil chokepoint on the other side of the Arabian Peninsula between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The Houthis also declared a naval blockade against Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea last month in response to what they said was a Saudi siege on them in Yemen, an allegation denied by Riyadh, which backs Yemen’s internationally recognised government.
The Yemeni rebel group said they had attacked Saudi Aramco’s Jazan refinery on Sunday, two days after the kingdom signed a defence pact with Sunni Muslim allies Turkey and Pakistan in response to growing regional instability from the U.S.-Israeli war on Shi’ite Iran.
The decision came after five rounds of discussions over Friday and Saturday, including a meeting with the JPSC-JSSC Reforms Manch, which has been leading the protest.
A large gathering of job aspirants and students gather during a protest march in Ranchi. (PTI Photo)
The Jharkhand government has announced another round of talks with protesting job aspirants after a series of meetings with student groups failed to end a 15-day agitation over alleged irregularities in recruitment examinations. The fresh meeting with student representatives is scheduled for 12 pm on Sunday.
The decision came after five rounds of discussions over Friday and Saturday, including a meeting with the JPSC-JSSC Reforms Manch, which has been leading the protest. Soon after the announcement, the group accused the government of “political manoeuvring” and said the move was aimed at dividing students and shifting attention from their main demands.
On Saturday, the Hemant Soren government held four rounds of talks with different student organisations, including the Congress-backed NSUI, Jharkhand Chhatra Morcha and Adivasi Chhatra Sangh. The government had held talks with the JPSC-JSSC Reforms Manch on Friday.
After a four-hour meeting between the government panel and Chief Minister Hemant Soren on Saturday evening, Rural Development Minister Dipika Pandey Singh said the panel had informed the chief minister about the demands and concerns raised by student delegations. “It was decided in the meeting with the chief minister that a final round of talks with the protesting students will take place at 12 pm on Sunday,” she said.
The JPSC-JSSC Reforms Manch strongly objected to the fresh engagement with other student bodies. Ravindra Paswan, a leader of the group, said the government was trying to weaken the agitation by holding talks with organisations that had “played no role in the ongoing protest.”
“This is political manoeuvring by the government. It is trying to create a divide among students and divert attention. But they should know that all students are united,” Paswan said at a press conference at Jaipal Singh Munda Stadium, where students have been protesting since July 25. He said the Manch had already placed all its demands before the five-member government panel during a detailed meeting on Friday night.
The government panel, comprising ministers Dipika Pandey Singh, Sudivya Kumar, Chamra Linda and Sanjay Prasad Yadav, first met the faction of protesters led by Jharkhand Loktantrik Krantikari Morcha leader Devendra Nath Mahto, whose fast entered its seventh day. It later met the NSUI, ACS and JCM separately and sought their charters of demand. The JCM submitted five demands, including cancellation of the 14th JPSC Civil Services Examination.
The NSUI submitted six demands, including a CID probe within 90 days into all JPSC and JSSC examinations under suspicion and the setting up of a Jharkhand Testing Agency on the lines of the National Testing Agency. ACS leader Kartik Oraon demanded that tribal and regional languages be included as qualifying papers in recruitment examinations and that tests in which irregularities were found be cancelled.
The government said the discussions were held in a positive atmosphere and that it was considering the concerns raised by the protesting aspirants. Minister Sanjay Prasad Yadav said the government would continue talks with the agitators seeking comprehensive reforms in the Jharkhand Public Service Commission and Jharkhand Staff Selection Commission. Higher and Technical Education Minister Sudivya Kumar said the government had issued an email ID to seek suggestions from aspirants on reforms in the recruitment process.
Despite the talks, the protesters said their agitation would continue until all their demands were met. They also announced a march to the Assembly on August 10 if the government failed to meet their demands by Sunday. Meanwhile, the All India Students’ Association set up a separate platform at the stadium on Saturday, though its leaders said this should not be seen as a separate agitation.
AISA national president Neha Bora, who was attacked with ink during Friday’s Assembly march near Birsa Chowk, briefly joined the protest and raised slogans demanding cancellation of the 14th JPSC and JSSC-CGL examinations. Ranchi unit chief Vijay Kumar said the organisation had the same demands as the larger agitation and that its members would join the August 10 march without carrying the AISA banner.
The agitation has also seen protests by the ABVP. On Friday, its members scuffled with police while trying to breach barricades near the chief minister’s residence. Deputy Superintendent of Police Ajay Aryan said around eight to 10 ABVP protesters were detained during the march and later released. The ABVP has announced a separate Vidhan Sabha march on August 11.
Vessels near the Strait of Hormuz, as seen from Musandam, Oman, August 6, 2026. REUTERS/Stringer Purchase Licensing Rights
Iran said on Saturday that a deal with Oman on control of the Strait of Hormuz was close but would not be enough to free up the waterway, and the United Arab Emirates said Iran had hit another ship there.
Agreement between Iran and Oman over the strait, which separates the two countries, is seen as vital to a wider deal to end the war, which began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28 and led to Tehran establishing a chokehold over the major energy export route.
A U.S. official, who declined to be identified, said on Friday that Washington anticipated an agreement soon between Iran and Oman, so normal oil traffic could resume.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran and Oman were “very close” to an agreement on a new shipping route through the strait, but reopening it would depend on other conditions, including U.S. compensation to Iran.
The secretary of Iran’s top national security body, Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr, listed other demands including ending U.S. threats against Iran, stopping aggression against Iran and its Lebanese, Palestinian, Yemeni and Iraqi allies, lifting a blockade and sanctions on Iran and freeing Iranian assets.
OMAN REPORTS POSITIVE NEGOTIATIONS, CONDEMNS SHIP ATTACKS
Oman condemned what it described as repeated attacks on vessels while transiting the strait, without assigning blame, and said that negotiations with Iran on arrangements for shipping through Hormuz were “positive and constructive”.
“Oman stresses the importance of avoiding any actions that could affect these negotiations and the progress achieved in a manner that takes into account the interests of all parties,” the foreign ministry said.
Araqchi said the previous shipping traffic separation scheme through the strait was no longer acceptable to Tehran and Iran was discussing a temporary route with Oman while technical and legal issues surrounding a permanent route were resolved.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, a relative moderate, said he believed now was the best time for an agreement.
“There is cohesion, strength, and unity in the country, and as far as I know, Iran is considered victorious and powerful in this war,” Iranian news agencies quoted him as saying.
Iran has reacted to the U.S. attacks by targeting U.S. bases in Gulf states and Jordan as well as striking shipping in the narrow strait, which carried a fifth of the world’s oil and gas shipments before the war.
The UAE said on Saturday that Iran had attacked a carrier affiliated with the UAE’s state oil company with a missile as it transited the Strait of Hormuz. No injuries were reported in the latest attacks on shipping there.
The UK maritime trade monitor UKMTO said a vessel had caught fire after being hit by an unknown projectile but the fire was put out and there was no reported environmental impact.
There was no immediate comment from Iranian authorities.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has repeatedly signaled that a deal to open the strait could be close, only to have Iran deny that talks are under way. It was unclear whether the latest flurry of negotiations would yield a more lasting arrangement.
“Once the deal is announced to restore commercial shipping without impediments, the United States will lift the blockade of Iranian ports,” the U.S. official told Reuters on Friday. U.S. actions would be tied to Iran’s implementation of its commitments, he said.
U.S. Central Command said on Saturday it had allowed more than 30 ships through for humanitarian aid since the current blockade started. U.S. forces have turned away 53 ships, disabled two vessels and boarded two others, Central Command said in a statement on social media.
Prices of food and other necessities have increased rapidly in Iran since the conflict began in February. At a news conference on Saturday, Pezeshkian blamed the U.S. for causing difficulties in importing basic goods.
He did not mention any blockade exceptions for humanitarian aid.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who have targeted the ships, also said on Saturday that reopening the strait depended on Washington accepting Iran’s conditions and was not related to the Iran-Oman negotiations.
“Whenever the United States accepts Iran’s conditions, the Strait of Hormuz will certainly be reopened,” said Guards spokesperson Hossein Mohebbi, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency.
Apart from discussing India-US strategic ties, PM Modi said he also congratulated JD Vance and Second Lady Usha on the birth of their son.
JD Vance dialled Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday. (AP and Facebook/ Narendra Modi)
US vice president JD Vance dialled Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday to discuss ways to strengthen the bilateral strategic partnership and to exchange views on regional and global issues.
The two leaders agreed to deepen cooperation in areas such as trade, defence, critical technologies and energy security, according to a readout from the Indian government.
“Received a phone call from US Vice President JD Vance. We discussed ways to further deepen India-US Comprehensive Global Strategic Partnership across key areas,” Modi said on social media.
Modi and Vance reviewed progress in the bilateral comprehensive global strategic partnership, and noted the “sustained momentum in the high-level engagements”, the readout said. They also exchanged views on regional and global developments, it said without going into details.
They “reaffirmed their commitment to further strengthening cooperation in trade, defence, critical and emerging technologies, energy security and critical minerals.”
The phone call came against the backdrop of continuing negotiations between India and the US to conclude an interim bilateral trade agreement and differences over the tariff policies of the Trump administration. Modi has also spoken to President Donald Trump on phone several times this year and the two leaders met on the margins of the G7 Summit in France in June.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said India and Israel will continue strengthening their partnership after his telephonic conversation with PM Narendra Modi. The leaders reviewed progress in bilateral ties, discussed cooperation across sectors and exchanged views on West Asia developments. MEA said the call focused on further strengthening the India-Israel Special Strategic Partnership.
Netanyahu Says India-Israel Ties Will Strengthen After PM Modi’s Call On Strategic Partnership | X – netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday said that India and Israel will continue to strengthen their bonds.
He made the remarks in a post on X as he reshared Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s post where the latter had informed about a conversation between the two leaders on Thursday, which focused on further strengthening the Special Strategic Partnership and also discussing the situation in West Asia.
He said, “Thank you, my friend, Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. Together we continue to strengthen the bond between Israel and India.”
Leaders discuss bilateral ties
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a telephonic conversation on Thursday to review and expand their bilateral ties, with discussions centring on deepening cooperation across multiple sectors and addressing regional developments.
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal announced details of the interaction during the bi-weekly press briefing in New Delhi on Friday. Jaiswal noted that the call was initiated by the Israeli side and received by Prime Minister Modi.
“During the conversation, it was discussed as to how we can further strengthen this bond, this friendship that we have with Israel across various sectors,” Jaiswal stated, emphasising the robust framework of the India-Israel Special Strategic Partnership.
West Asia situation discussed
According to an official press release issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), both leaders reviewed sustained progress in bilateral relations and reaffirmed their commitment to enhancing cooperation for mutual benefit.
The conversation also included an exchange of views on recent developments in West Asia, with both leaders agreeing to remain in close contact.
This dialogue follows a previous telephonic discussion between the two leaders in March to address the regional situation.
India on Friday issued standard names for 27 places and geographical features in Arunachal Pradesh located along the Line of Actual Control (LAC)
The move is aimed at reinforcing India’s absolute sovereign and legal jurisdiction over these territories.
India on Friday issued standard names for 27 places and geographical features in Arunachal Pradesh located along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a move officials described as a riposte to China’s efforts to rename dozens of locations in the state in recent years.
Among the places included in the list is the border village of Longju, which has been controlled by China since 1959 but falls within the Indian claim line, officials said on condition of anonymity. The move is aimed at reinforcing India’s absolute sovereign and legal jurisdiction over these territories.
An official statement from the Union home ministry said the Indian government, in consultation with the government of Arunachal Pradesh, “identified a total of 27 places or features in Arunachal Pradesh, by standard place and feature names on the official maps of Survey of India (SoI)”.
“Identifying them formally on the Survey of India map of Arunachal Pradesh is aimed at facilitating their accurate recognition and better awareness among the public at large,” the statement said.
The home ministry said the locations identified on the Survey of India map include 21 land areas, four passes, a lake, and a monument. The land locations are Longju, Maja, Bisa, Bara Kundun, Chhota Kundun, Dhan Bari, Pritnagar, Buddhamandir, Jairampur, Teritnagar, Ramnagar, Jaswant Garh, Sagar, Padma, Jyotinagar, Baisakhi, Chhota Ropuk, Bara Ropuk, Shivaji Nagar, Sunpura, and Kamlang Nagar.
The bill, named in honour of Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of Ukraine, was approved by the US Senate by an 86-11 vote.
India and China are among the top five importers of oil and gas from Russia
The US Senate has approved a bill that will allow President Donald Trump to impose 100% tariffs on the world’s top five purchasers of Russian oil or natural gas, including India and China.
The bill, named in honour of Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch supporter of Ukraine who died on July 11, was approved by the Senate by an 86-11 vote. Graham had strongly advocated for new sanctions against Russia for launching the Ukraine war, now in its fifth year.
His sister, Darline Graham, who succeeded him in the Senate, said the bill “hits (Russian President Vladimir) Putin where it hurts.”
Democrat Richard Blumenthal, who pressed for the bill’s passage along with Graham for over a year, said the people of Ukraine “are not alone”.
“Today, President (Volodymyr) Zelensky is watching from Ukraine – and Putin is watching from Moscow,” he said.
“I would like to think Lindsey Graham is watching, too,” he said.
“Today we say to the people of Ukraine: You are not alone. And today we say to Vladimir Putin: You will not conquer Ukraine,” he added.
The bill will now go to the House of Representatives for approval when it reconvenes on August 31.
FSSAI directed Dabur to immediately stop selling food products carrying ‘100 per cent’ claims, terming them ambiguous, unverifiable and potentially misleading to consumers.
FSSAI asked Dabur to immediately stop selling products carrying “100 per cent” claims and file an action-taken report within 15 days. (Photo: Reuters)
Dabur India on Thursday moved the Delhi High Court challenging the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) order barring the sale of several of its food products, including honey, cow ghee and edible oils, over the use of claims such as “100 per cent natural”, “100 per cent pure” and “100 per cent organic”.
The challenge comes days after the food safety regulator issued a prohibition order against the fast-moving consumer goods company over what it described as misleading “100 per cent” claims on a range of products, including honey, apple cider vinegar, virgin coconut oil, sesame oil, cow ghee, coconut water and coconut milk.
Dabur, however, has argued that the FSSAI order was passed in “violation of the principles of natural justice and statutory provisions”, claiming that the regulator did not issue a prior show-cause notice or provide the company an opportunity to be heard before imposing the prohibition.
The company has also questioned the FSSAI’s authority to issue such a prohibitory order, contending that the regulator does not have the power to impose such restrictions in the manner adopted in the present case.
The company has further termed the order “non-speaking, ambiguous and without application of mind”, also objecting to the FSSAI making its enforcement order public, arguing that the move has painted a “negative image” of the company and its brand.
Dabur’s petition in the High Court said expressions such as “100 per cent” are widely used across several categories of food products by other major market players and questioned why it was subjected to the prohibition and public disclosure in these circumstances.
The company has sought judicial intervention against the regulator’s directive and the restrictions imposed on the sale of the products concerned. The petition is scheduled to be heard on Friday by Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma.
WHAT FSSAI DIRECTED
Announcing its action earlier this week, the FSSAI said food products being sold on Dabur’s website were found carrying claims of “100 per cent” purity and such claims violate the Food Safety and Standards (Advertising and Claims) Regulations, because they are ambiguous, unverifiable and potentially misleading to consumers.
The regulator said Dabur Himalayan Organic Apple Cider Vinegar and Dabur Organic Honey were also found displaying the Jaivik Bharat logo without a valid FSSAI organic endorsement.
It additionally flagged Dabur Hommade Coconut Milk, which was marketed with the claim “100 per cent purity”. According to the FSSAI, such a claim is not permissible for compound foods under the regulations.
NOTICE ISSUED EARLIER: FSSAI
The regulator has said it had earlier issued a notice to Dabur directing it to discontinue misleading “100 per cent” claims, but satisfactory corrective action was not taken by the company.
Following this, the FSSAI directed Dabur to immediately stop the sale of the food products identified in its notice, as well as other food products carrying what it considers misleading claims.
The company was also directed to submit an Action Taken Report (ATR) within 15 days detailing the steps taken to comply with the order.
A logo of Blackstone is pictured in Manhattan, New York City, U.S. July 29, 2025. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Ransom-seeking hackers who use phone calls to compromise their victims targeted dozens of prominent U.S. financial institutions and other businesses over the past month, according to Google and internet intelligence data reviewed by Reuters.
The data shows the hackers devised websites aimed at stealing passwords from employees of private equity firms and financial companies including Blackstone (BX.N), Bridgewater Associates, Apollo Global Management (APO.N), Bain Capital, KKR (KKR.N), TPG (TPG.O), CME Group (CME.O), Clearlake Capital and Moody’s (MCO.N), as well as other businesses.
Google said in a blog post about the hacking campaign, published on Thursday that the hackers operate under a range of names, including Redact, Pink, Falcon and Helix.
Google declined to comment on Reuters findings. Its blog said in some cases companies, which it did not name, paid ransoms to the hackers. Reuters could not establish which companies the hackers successfully compromised.
Experts say the hackers’ use of low-tech tactics such as phone calls to target the financial industry illustrates how, despite sophisticated security programs and AI-driven threats, the oldest tactics still rank among the most effective. If successful, the hacks could compromise data of some of the biggest U.S. private equity firms that provide capital to companies.
“Because the fence is now so fancy and high-tech, we just have to trick the guard into opening the door for us,” said Lee Clark, a cyberthreat intelligence production manager with the Retail and Hospitality ISAC, an industry information sharing and analysis group.
“That human element consistently is why this has exploded in the way it has,” he said.
KKR, Bain Capital, Clearlake Capital, CME, TPG and Apollo declined to comment. Blackstone, Bridgewater Associates and Moody’s did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
HACKERS SHIFT ATTENTION: GOOGLE
In its blog post, Google — a unit of Alphabet (GOOGL.O), — said the hackers had recently turned their attention to private equity, law firms and financial ratings agencies.
Austin Larsen, the principal threat analyst at Google’s Threat Intelligence Group, said the hackers generally targeted industries based on financial calculations, often successfully.
“Really, it’s a money thing,” Larsen said. “They think that these firms or organizations have data sensitive enough that, if taken, they would pay to prevent it.”
Google did not identify any of the hackers’ targets by name. Reuters reverse-engineered many of the company-specific online traps used by the hackers by running the 72 malicious websites Google listed in its report through web intelligence platforms such as DomainTools and urlscan, which flagged malicious subdomains tailored to each firm.
Speaking in general about the subdomains, Larsen said, “They all were likely used in attempted intrusions” though he cautioned, “They were not all successful.”
Google said the hackers used “meticulous social engineering tactics,” reaching employees on their personal cellphones while pretending to call from their company’s help desk, sometimes displaying the correct help desk phone number.
The hackers told their targets there was an urgent directive from IT to update their passkeys or multifactor authentication and steered the employees toward a booby-trapped website with domain names such as “passkeyhelpdesk” or “secure-passkey.”
If an employee followed the instructions to enter their password, the hackers would harvest their fail-safe passcode – typically sent by text or generated by an app – live over the phone and hijack their account before the call terminated.
Larsen said it was wrong to think of the tactic as particularly advanced.
“Sophisticated is not the right word,” he said. “It is just really effective.”
SHIFTING ALIASES
Reuters was not able to reach the alleged hackers. Redact — which once went by the name Blackfile — said on its darknet website that its hackers “are not politically or morally motivated” and were “not currently taking questions from the press.” On its site, Falcon acknowledged being affiliated with Redact but said it had nothing to do with Helix or Pink.
Larsen said it was unclear who the hackers were exactly or what their relationship was to one another. Although they went under different names, he said they appeared to be tied together by common infrastructure.
“There are still some unknowns here,” he said.
The hacking attempts, a few of which were earlier reported by Bloomberg, have caused a stir on Wall Street.
A 3D-printed Meta logo is seen in this illustration taken July 20, 2026. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Purchase Licensing Rights
A New Mexico state court ordered Meta (META.O), on Thursday to pay $567 million into a teen mental health fund and change how its platforms function for young users after finding the company is to blame for harming children’s wellbeing.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid in Santa Fe ruled the company had created a public nuisance in New Mexico, siding with Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat. Torrez had accused the social media company of designing products to addict young users and failing to protect children from sexual exploitation on its platforms.
The ruling comes five months after a New Mexico jury in an earlier phase of the case ordered Meta to pay $375 million after finding it violated consumer protection law by misrepresenting the safety of Facebook and Instagram for young users.
The case was being closely watched amid a growing wave of litigation accusing social media companies of harming young users. While many lawsuits have been brought by children and families over alleged injuries to individuals, states, municipalities and school districts have also pursued lawsuits seeking broad changes to the industry.
More than 40 states and over 1,300 school districts have filed public nuisance lawsuits against social media companies, seeking damages as well as court orders requiring changes to products and practices.
Biedscheid on Thursday ordered Meta to implement youth-safety measures, including monthly limits on teens’ use of Facebook and Instagram, restrictions on notifications, tighter controls on adult contact with minors, safeguards for AI chatbots, and enhanced review of child sexual abuse reports, under a decree that will be in place for five years.
Meta said it will appeal the ruling and that it has been working to identify and remove harmful content from its platforms.
“We remain confident in our record of protecting teens online and will continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts,” Meta said in a statement.
New Mexico’s Torrez said in a statement that Meta chose profit over child safety, and that the ruling was the first to force a social media giant to make changes protecting children.
“This is not just a judgment against one company. It is a blueprint,” Torrez said. “Now other states, and other countries confronting the same crisis, have a roadmap they can follow.”
Reuters last year reported on company documents that showed Meta’s AI chatbots could “engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” part of a series of investigations into Meta profiting from ads peddling fraud and banned products.
In Thursday’s ruling, Biedscheid ordered Meta to prevent children in New Mexico from “engaging in romantic or sexualized interactions with Meta’s artificial intelligence chatbots” and to prevent adults in New Mexico from using chatbots to simulate or discuss a sexualized interaction with a child.
PUBLIC NUISANCE
Biedscheid heard three weeks of testimony during the second trial over the lawsuit, which did not involve a jury. It focused solely on whether Meta’s platforms created a “public nuisance” under New Mexico law.
Public nuisance claims traditionally have targeted conduct that endangers public health or safety, such as blocking roads or polluting waterways, but state governments have also invoked them in litigation involving tobacco, opioids, climate change, vaping and most recently artificial intelligence.
“(J)ust as noxious pollution produced by the factory can harm the common public right to reasonably clean air, the harmful effects of Meta’s platforms on children do not stay contained by its platforms and, instead, migrate to the internet as a whole and, perhaps most concerning, to the real world and create a common, societal burden on and harm to the affected children and their families and schools, as well as hospitals and law enforcement,” Biedscheid wrote.
Meta had said at trial it could not have created a public nuisance because it had not interfered with a “public right,” such as access to air or water. Meta also argued that its social media platforms are not the only ones used by the state’s young residents, and the case ignores the impact of other apps.
It also criticized the changes New Mexico sought, saying in filings many were “technologically impractical or completely impossible,” and could force the company to exit the state altogether.
The U.S. Army has used up much of its global stockpile of highly accurate long-range missiles during its five-month war with Iran, according to three people familiar with the data, raising concerns about the military’s readiness for future conflicts.
The missiles are principally the Army’s surface-to-surface weapons, known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and Precision Strike Missiles (PrSM). The U.S. has used “virtually all” of these weapons, according to two of the sources.
The degree to which the military is running out of ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles has not been previously reported.
The long-range munitions – which cost more than $1 million each – are an important part of the military’s arsenal, allowing accurate strikes from a safe distance. U.S.-supplied ATACMS have played a key role in the war in Ukraine, allowing Ukrainian forces to attack targets inside Russia. The PrSM is a newer, more advanced generation that will replace the ATACMS, which have a shorter range.
The dramatic rundown in precision, long-range missiles means U.S. President Donald Trump may have to rely more on riskier, piloted bombing missions if he relaunches large-scale attacks on Iran.
The sources declined to say how many of each munition the U.S. had left.
Trump launched the Iran war jointly with Israel in February, predicting that the conflict would last a short time.
But as the war drags on, the three people familiar with the matter expressed worry that the falling missile supplies could limit the U.S. ability to deter adversaries, including Russia and China.
A fourth person familiar with the matter said that despite the high usage of precision weapons, the U.S. can resupply. Central Command — which oversees U.S. forces in the Middle East — has been able to reload from U.S. military supplies around the world, the person said.
The sources interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Asked for comment on the stockpile data, the White House issued a statement from Trump, saying the U.S. had “far more munitions than anyone in the world” and “far more than we need.”
“Our defense companies are, at this moment, making more munitions than they have ever made before, in addition to expanding their plants and equipment at record levels,” Trump said.
Analysts agree that certain munitions, including artillery shells and several types of missiles, are being produced at record levels but caution that supplies might fall short of what is needed for a prolonged war.
Lockheed Martin, which makes the ATACMS and PrSMs, along with the anti-ballistic missile THAAD system, did not immediately respond to questions about Trump’s statements or about supply levels. Raytheon, which makes Tomahawk missiles and Patriot interceptors, two important U.S. weapons, also did not immediately respond.
Responding to a request for comment, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said: “America’s military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President’s choosing. We have executed multiple successful operations across combatant commands while ensuring the U.S. military possesses a deep arsenal of capabilities to protect our people and our interests.”
An Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) is displayed during the inauguration of a new artillery plant of ammunition maker Rheinmetall, in Unterluess, Germany August 27, 2025. REUTERS/Annegret Hilse/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
The supply figures have circulated inside the federal government over the last week during tense conversations inside the Trump administration about how much longer the U.S. can continue striking Iran without drawing down the stockpile to levels that would limit the military’s ability to respond to crises elsewhere.
WARNINGS OVER WEAPONS SUPPLIES
One of the sources said the drawdown of the ATACMS and PrSM stockpiles reflected a decision by the Trump administration to avoid riskier ways of attacking Iranian targets, such as by using piloted aircraft to drop bombs.
Because these weapons allow the military to attack targets from a distance, analysts say they would be valuable in a war against an adversary with strong air defenses, such as China. They have been used to strike targets inside Iran, according to a March report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
According to the report, PrSM stockpiles were low to start with, since it is a relatively new munition, but the U.S. military has ordered a large number of them for 2027. The Army has said that ATACMS are being phased out and that production is shifting to the newer PrSM missiles.
Military leaders have for weeks warned the president that stockpiles of defensive weapons — including Patriot interceptors, which are effective against ballistic missiles — were dwindling, said two of the sources. Last week, several media outlets reported Trump had decided not to launch another massive offensive inside Iran in part because his military advisers had warned about the U.S. stockpile.
A U.S. official disputed those accounts, saying Trump chose not to move forward with another attack because of pressure from Gulf states.
The Middle East conflict has sparked intense debate about Trump’s authority to prosecute hostilities against Iran without congressional authorization. No request for a declaration of war or an authorization to use military force has been submitted to Congress.
An Iranian missile system is displayed in Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran, July 30, 2026. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
Iran has warned Gulf states that any new U.S. attack on its territory would trigger retaliation against critical energy infrastructure across the region, according to five sources, as Tehran seeks to raise the cost of military action by threatening Washington’s closest regional allies.
The warning was delivered through a flurry of high-level diplomatic contacts after President Donald Trump threatened on July 28 to strike Iran’s energy network and infrastructure, the sources said.
Two senior Iranian officials, two Gulf sources and a senior regional diplomat with knowledge of the discussions said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi spoke with his Saudi, Turkish and Qatari counterparts, as well as Pakistan’s army chief. All spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Araqchi urged Washington’s Gulf allies to use their influence with Trump to dissuade him from launching renewed strikes, the senior diplomat said, warning that any attack on Iran would prompt retaliation against U.S. assets and energy facilities across the Gulf.
His message was consistent in every conversation, the diplomat said: “We’re ready to retaliate, but finding a diplomatic solution is the best way to avoid wider escalation and destruction across the region.”
“The Iranian warning was unequivocal: if America targeted Iran’s infrastructure, they would retaliate by striking Gulf energy facilities and other regional targets,” one Gulf source said.
The diplomatic maneuvering underscores how Iran is attempting to use the threat of wider regional destruction as leverage against further U.S. strikes, putting Gulf states that host U.S. military bases and depend on energy exports in a difficult position between Washington and Tehran.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman subsequently spoke with Trump, urging him to delay military action, return to negotiations, secure a ceasefire and pursue a diplomatic settlement, the senior diplomat and Gulf sources said.
The warning was intended for every Gulf state, another Gulf source said, but was conveyed primarily through Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Iran has in recent years repaired ties with its Gulf neighbours, including former regional rival Saudi Arabia.
Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia have all urged Washington to resume talks with Tehran and avert renewed conflict amid Iranian warnings that another round of U.S. strikes could “turn the region into a fireball”, the second Iranian official said.
On August 2, Trump said he agreed to cancel the attack on Iran “subject to being able to rapidly make a deal”.
THREATS OF WIDER REGIONAL ESCALATION, SAYS IRANIAN OFFICIAL
“Saudi Arabia believes further escalation will only bring more destruction,” the first Gulf source said. “That is why it urged Trump to give diplomacy a chance.”
While urging Washington to pursue diplomacy, Riyadh also made clear it would defend itself if threatened. The second Gulf source said Saudi Arabia warned that any attack on its territory would be met with a military response.
Ali Shihabi, a Saudi analyst close to the Royal Court, said the kingdom’s assessment is that further escalation is unlikely to achieve the desired result. “The Kingdom believes a combination of proportionate military responses and sustained pressure on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz offers the strongest path toward a practical diplomatic settlement,” Shihabi said.
Iran’s clerical leadership has repeatedly demanded the closure of U.S. military bases in the Gulf and called on Gulf Arab states to stop sharing intelligence with Washington, which Tehran believes has been used to facilitate attacks against it.
According to one Iranian official, Tehran’s warning made clear that any new U.S. strike would be met with attacks on energy facilities, refineries, electricity grids, water infrastructure, transport networks and oil fields across the Gulf.
A man photographs parts of an unidentified missile, which Ukrainian authorities believe to be made in North Korea and was used in a strike in Kharkiv earlier this week, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine January 6, 2024. REUTERS/Vyacheslav Madiyevskyy/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
A North Korean missile unit has begun deploying to western Russia and could be equipped with 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers for strikes against Ukraine, an official at Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said.
Ukraine is very short of high-end air defences and Russia has tried to exploit this by using more ballistic missiles, which are particularly hard to shoot down.
Russia has fired scores of North Korean ballistic missiles at Ukraine since late 2023, but the deployment of North Korean missile forces would be an expansion of the already extensive military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Andrii Cherniak of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence said Russia planned to base the missile unit of around 90 North Korean personnel in the western Russian region of Voronezh, within its 112th Missile Brigade.
A source familiar with the issue told Reuters that the United States is aware of the North Korean deployment, but declined to elaborate.
The CIA declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
NORTH KOREAN MISSILES ALREADY SEEN IN UKRAINE ONCE MORE
Pyongyang has already sent a new batch of 40 KN-23 and KN-24 missiles and personnel to Russia, but the configuration of the deployment and total number of missiles will be finalised at top-level talks next month, he said.
Russia expects the deployment to involve 120 North Korean ballistic missiles and six launchers, he said.
It is not clear what precise role the North Koreans would play in Russian missile operations.
The deployment described by Cherniak appears to coincide with Russia last week firing its first two North Korean missiles at Ukraine since last August.
Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia-based think tank, said the North Korean resources were a significant threat for Kyiv.
“Ballistic missile defence is one of Ukraine’s greatest vulnerabilities so any increase in the quantities of ballistic missiles they face will pose a greater challenge,” he said.
A particularly big concern for Ukraine will be the state of its air defences this winter, when Russia could again target the power grid with heavy attacks as in past years, he added.
Cherniak said his assertions were based on intelligence that could not be disclosed because of the sensitivities.
The Russian Defence Ministry and North Korea’s embassy at the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to written requests for comment.
North Korea has emerged as a close ally of Russia since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and the two powers signed a mutual defence pact in 2024.
North Korea has supplied millions of artillery shells to Russia’s war effort and sent 14,000 troops to Russia’s Kursk region to repel a Ukrainian ground incursion in 2024, Ukrainian officials say.
Last week, Ukrainian authorities said a North Korean missile had flattened a residential home in the central Ukrainian village of Radushne, killing at least five members of the same family.
The vessel, MSV Faize Noore Oliya, was attacked about 13 nautical miles south of the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah.
https://m.rediff.com/
An India-flagged cargo vessel overturned and sank in the Red Sea off Yemen’s western coast after it was attacked by a projectile on Tuesday. There were 14 crew members on the ship, of which 13 were Indian sailors and one was Yemeni. All 14 sailors were rescued by Yemeni forces and have received medical assistance.
The vessel, MSV Faize Noore Oliya, was attacked about 13 nautical miles south of the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah.
The Yemeni National Resistance Force, also known as the Guards of the Republic, in a statement said that the coast guard and naval units carried out a joint operation to rescue the sailors.
India Condemns “Unprovoked” Attack
India in a statement strongly condemned the “unprovoked” attack on the ship near Yemeni waters.
The Union Minister of Ports, Shipping & Waterways, Sarbananda Sonowal, said that the Indian vessel was hit by a projectile which caused the ship to overturn and sink.
He said that he has instructed the Director General Maritime Administration (DGMA) to take immediate steps in coordination with all agencies to ensure the security of Indian seafarers in the region and provide necessary assistance to the rescued crew.
“India strongly condemns this unprovoked attack on the defenseless mechanised sailing vessel. The safety of our people is our supreme priority & I am relieved to inform that ALL 14 seafarers (including 13 Indians) have been safely rescued by the Yemeni Coast Guard and brought to the Port of Mokha,” he wrote on X.
Indian MSV Faize Noore Oliya has been hit by a projectile near Yemeni waters, causing the vessel to capsize and sink.
India strongly condemns this unprovoked attack on the defenseless mechanised sailing vessel. The safety of our people is our supreme priority & I am relieved to…
The Ministry of External Affairs also said in a statement that the Embassy in Riyadh is closely monitoring the situation and proactively coordinating with the Yemeni authorities for the safety and security of the crew
India also called the incidents of attacks on Indian vessels “deeply worrisome” and called for an end to the targeting of commercial vessels.
“The continuing incidents of attacks on commercial shipping in the region are deeply worrisome. The targeting of commercial shipping in the region must end, and free and unimpeded navigation and commerce through the international waterways in the region, in keeping with international law, must be restored at the earliest,” India said in the statement.
The safety and welfare of Indian seafarers have escalated into a severe humanitarian and diplomatic crisis for India. This development stems from a dramatic surge in missile and drone strikes targeting commercial merchant shipping in global conflict hotspots.
While Mohsin Naqvi refrained from taking names, his back-to-back salvos have fueled speculations about whether Pakistan is headed to a major power reshuffle
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has claimed to have unearthed what he calls the “biggest scam” in the country’s history
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi has claimed to have unearthed what he calls the “biggest scam” in the country’s history. He suggested that multiple pillars of the state machinery, including judges and politicians, were part of it.
While Naqvi refrained from taking names, his back-to-back salvos have fueled speculations about whether Pakistan is headed to a major power reshuffle,
Naqvi, who is known to be close to Pakistan’s Army Chief Field Marshall Asim Munir, asserted that action would be taken against “every person” responsible. “I don’t think there has ever been such a massive scam in the history of Pakistan, where judges, bureaucrats, politicians and bankers were all involved,” he told reporters.
“For 21 years, bribes were paid, and people kept taking it. We will go after each and every person responsible,” he added.
Naqvi’s ‘Cockroach’ Remark
Just a few days back, the minister said Pakistan’s system of governance had “collapse” and that it was no longer capable of addressing its political and economic challenges. He suggested that Pakistan’s “cockroaches” could overturn the country if they united.
“The system we are living under has collapsed whether you agree or not. Problems cannot be solved through it. If this system continues, we will still be sitting here 10 years from now discussing the same issues,” he had said.
The remarks were seen as a reference to the Gen-Z protests in India led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) over the paper leak controversy linked to the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2026.
Power Shake-Up Soon?
According to experts, Naqvi’s back-to-back attacks against his own government –– led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif –– points to a wider internal conflict. The minister, who is also the chief of Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), has long harboured dreams of being the premier.
Authorities recovered a loaded pistol from suspect’s vehicle and found a 16-round magazine loaded with ammunition in his pocket during the arrest.
Despite the arrest, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said there is “no credible threat to our communities.”
A 38-year-old man armed with a loaded pistol and ammunition was arrested near US President Donald Trump’s California golf course after allegedly photographing security arrangements just days before a Republican National Committee fundraiser at the venue. Authorities recovered a cache of weapons, body armour and notebooks containing what “concerning statements” during a search of his home, they said.
Here’s what we know so far:
1. Arrested Days Before Trump’s Visit
Jeanine John Taele, 38, was arrested at Trump National Golf Course in Rancho Palos Verdes, just two days before Donald Trump was due to attend a Republican National Committee fundraising dinner at the property.
2. Suspect Was Allegedly Monitoring Security
According to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, Jeanine John Taele was seen taking photographs and recording videos of security preparations around the golf course before he was stopped by deputies.
3. Gun, Ammunition Found
Deputies recovered a loaded pistol from Jeanine John Taele’s vehicle and found a 16-round magazine loaded with ammunition in his pocket during the arrest.
4. Search Of Home Uncovered More Weapons
A search of Jeanine John Taele’s home in Downey the following day led investigators to recover multiple firearms, magazines, ammunition, body armour and notebooks containing what authorities described as “concerning statements.”
5. Facing Multiple Criminal Charges
Jeanine John Taele has been charged with several felony offences, including second-degree robbery, receiving a large-capacity magazine and possession of a short-barrelled rifle or shotgun. He also faces a misdemeanour charge of carrying a concealed firearm inside a vehicle. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Trump also pushed back on Iranian claims about control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global shipping route. He said that access through the strait would remain entirely up to the US.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/
“Deal, or Total Surrender”: these are the two options that US President Donald Trump has put in front of Iran’s leadership.
The ultimatum came in a lengthy rant on his social media platform, Truth Social, in which Trump accused Iran of being “duplicitous,” claiming the country had “begged” for talks before publicly denying that any discussions were taking place.
“Whether Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking of a solution to a problem that they have caused, for decades,” he wrote.
Trump also pushed back on Iranian claims about control of the Strait of Hormuz, a key global shipping route. “They then go on to give their usual blather in saying, the Strait of Hormuz will be operated powerfully by them, when it is already completely controlled by the United States Navy and our ‘Blockade’ or, as some say, ‘The United States Wall of Steel!'” he wrote.
He said that access through the strait would remain entirely up to the US. “Nothing gets through to Iran, unless we want it to, and nothing will get through, unless a Deal, or Total Surrender, is accomplished,” Trump added.
Trump’s fresh comments come a day after he announced he was pulling back from carrying out a major military strike he had previously threatened against Iran.
Speaking on Sunday, Trump said he had shelved plans for what he described as “the biggest attack since World War II,” after being urged to hold off by Gulf allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He said he chose to give diplomacy more room after speaking with senior Gulf leaders, and after an approach from Iranian officials he did not name.
Amid Iran war, Netanyahu said India remains one of the key countries with which Israel is strengthening ties.
Netanyahu Banks On India Amid Geopolitical Shift, Praises PM Modi. File pic/PTI
Amid the ongoing Iran conflict and shifting geopolitical equations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said Israel is investing heavily in its relationship with India, describing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as “one of our greatest friends” and praising the support Israel has received from India.
Speaking about Israel’s foreign relations, Netanyahu said India remains one of the key countries with which Israel is strengthening ties.
Netanyahu praises India ties
“We need to cultivate additional alliances,” Netanyahu said.
“That’s why I’m investing heavily in our relationship with India, with my friend Narendra, who is one of our greatest friends.”
He also said, “They say Israel is isolated. The support that Israel—and I personally—receive in India is simply unbelievable.”
Netanyahu’s remarks come as India and Israel continue to expand cooperation across several strategic sectors.
Growing India-Israel partnership
Netanyahu has been one of the central figures in strengthening India-Israel relations, particularly during Prime Minister Modi’s tenure. The partnership between the two countries has focused on defence, technology, trade and broader strategic cooperation over the years.
In 2018, Netanyahu paid a high-profile visit to India, during which both sides signed nine agreements and described their relationship as a “special” partnership.
The visit marked another important step in expanding bilateral cooperation across multiple sectors.
Partnership expanded in 2026
The relationship has continued to grow in 2026. Prime Minister Modi and Netanyahu elevated bilateral ties to what has been described as the India-Israel Special Strategic Partnership for Peace, Innovation and Prosperity. PM Modi visited Israel in February this year.
Republic of Balochistan considers August 11 its Independence Day and said the occasion would continue to be celebrated every year.
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province by area, covering nearly 44% of the country’s landmass. Despite its size, it remains one of Pakistan’s least populated and least developed regions. (Photo: AFP File)
Republic of Balochistan on Monday declared August 11 as the Independence Day of Balochistan and called for worldwide celebrations, weeks after announcing the province’s independence from Pakistan.
In a statement, the Republic of Balochistan urged Baloch people to mark the day with national unity and appealed to the international community to recognise what it described as an independent and sovereign Balochistan.
Call for worldwide celebrations
Baloch liberation leader Mir Yar Baloch said people across the Baloch nation should hoist the national flag of an independent Balochistan at their homes, neighbourhoods, markets, shops, educational institutions and other public places.
He said the observance was aimed at passing on the significance of the historic day to future generations.
According to the statement, the Republic of Balochistan considers August 11 its Independence Day and said the occasion would continue to be celebrated every year. The statement claimed that the partition of the Indian subcontinent led to prolonged conflict, unrest, terrorism, economic instability and political crises across the region.
It further alleged that Pakistan’s policies had affected not only the region but also other parts of the world. The statement referred to Kashmir, the military action in Balochistan in March 1948, the 1971 conflict in East Pakistan, operations involving Palestinians in Jordan, the Soviet-Afghan war, the 1998 nuclear tests in Chagai district and developments after the September 11 attacks in the United States.
The Republic of Balochistan announces worldwide celebrations of August 11 as the Independence Day of Balochistan with national unity
3 August, 2026
On this occasion, the residents of the Baloch nation will hoist the national flag of independent Balochistan in their homes,… pic.twitter.com/CsDZqWAC8x
The group claimed these events had contributed to instability, conflict and bloodshed in the region.
Appeal for international recognition
The Republic of Balochistan said it believes lasting peace, development and prosperity cannot be achieved as long as Pakistan remains in its present form.
It urged the international community to recognise Balochistan’s independence and support its position.
The statement also said the Republic of Balochistan and what it described as its 60 million Baloch people consider themselves an independent and sovereign state.
A member of the People’s Liberation Army stands as strategic strike group displays YJ-18C cruise missiles during a military parade to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in Beijing, China, September 3, 2025. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights
Chinese military researchers have used outputs from leading U.S. artificial intelligence models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic to train domestic AI systems to advance China’s defence capabilities, according to a Reuters review of more than 80 Chinese academic papers and patents.
The previously unreported findings offer a rare glimpse into how military and security-linked institutions in China are leveraging cutting-edge U.S. AI models as a shortcut to developing specialised systems of their own, despite Washington’s efforts to restrict Beijing’s access to advanced chips and other strategic technologies.
The documents show widespread use of a technique known as “model distillation,” in which outputs from a powerful AI system are used to train smaller, specialised models that can be deployed locally without the enormous computing requirements needed to build frontier AI systems from scratch.
Reuters’ review, which included research, compiled by the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation and shared exclusively with the news agency, showed distillation is widely used by researchers linked to the People’s Liberation Army and other military institutions.
The papers suggest Chinese defence institutions see leading U.S. AI models as both a source of technical insight and a way to close the gap with American rivals.
The dispute centres on unauthorised extraction, not distillation itself, a widely used industry practice.
The issue has emerged as a major flashpoint ahead of U.S.-China talks on AI governance and safety. U.S. officials have accused some Chinese entities of using distillation to extract capabilities from American AI models, potentially undermining export controls and infringing intellectual property rights.
China has rejected the accusations, saying Washington is pursuing AI “hegemonism” while arguing that U.S. firms have engaged in similar practices.
Chinese developers have also disputed claims that their AI advances rely on foreign models. AI startup Moonshot last week denied allegations by the Trump administration that its Kimi K3 model was built using distillation, saying it was driven by proprietary innovations.
Sunny Cheung, a Jamestown fellow who analysed over 60 of the papers, said Chinese military scientists are systematically capturing the reasoning steps of Western models to adapt them for surveillance, cyber warfare and tactical decision-making.
“Teaching a model the right answer is one thing but teaching it the reasoning behind the answer is much harder,” said Cheung.
“These papers show Chinese military-linked researchers are trying to transfer that expensive, proprietary reasoning from Western models into smaller systems they can control and deploy locally.”
Reuters verified the academic literature and identified an additional two dozen military-linked case studies.
One paper published last year by researchers in PLA Unit 96941, a military intelligence and cyber-warfare unit in Beijing, described using OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 to process sensitive military source code.
The researchers said third-party models were unsuitable for handling classified information. To overcome that limitation, they used GPT-3.5 to summarize software code and trained a domestic model on those summaries to run entirely within Chinese military networks.
The White House, Pentagon, China’s foreign ministry, the PLA and OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment.
WIDE USE, FROM MONITORING TO MILITARY
Chinese researchers have used distillation for purposes ranging from content monitoring to military deployment, Reuters’ and Jamestown’s review of the papers showed.
At the North University of China, which has close links to the country’s weapons industry, researchers used Anthropic’s Claude 3 Haiku to generate synthetic training data for a text classification model for social media monitoring and content moderation.
Anthropic said it does not provide commercial access to Claude in China or to Beijing-controlled firms and uses monitoring systems to detect policy violations.
The company added that distilled models may lose the original systems’ safety safeguards, potentially allowing sensitive capabilities to be transferred to models beyond its control.
A 2024 paper from the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology described using distillation to shrink an image-processing model for deployment on unmanned aerial vehicles, allowing drones to analyse live video and support navigation and targeting decisions in real time even when communications are cut.
Similarly, researchers at China’s Academy of Military Sciences used distillation to run a target-recognition model on tactical hardware during simulated maritime operations involving drones, ships and unmanned submarines, a study published earlier this year showed.
Details of the new route were not immediately clear, but Iran has effectively maintained control over the strategic waterway, through which around 20 percent of global oil consumption passes on normal days
Iran on Sunday said it is close to reaching an agreement with Oman on a new maritime route through the Strait of Hormuz, separate from the existing shipping corridors. According to Tehran, the proposed route is intended to protect the sovereign rights and security interests of both countries.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei said the two countries were nearing an understanding on the new route, while Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also indicated that negotiations were in their final stages.
However, details of the proposed maritime corridor were not immediately available. Iran has effectively maintained control over the strategic Strait of Hormuz since the outbreak of war on February 28. Around 20 per cent of global oil consumption passes through the waterway under normal circumstances.
“We are now going to reach an understanding on a route acceptable to both sides — neither the northern route nor the southern route — but one that respects the sovereign rights of both sides and safeguards our national interests and security,” Esmaeil Baqaei said in an interview with state television, as reported by AFP.
Earlier, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi as saying negotiations with Oman, the other littoral state on the Strait of Hormuz, “were on track for finalisation and were going through their final stages.”
Oman did not immediately comment on the development.
Baqaei said the proposed agreement on a new maritime route was unrelated to whether the Strait of Hormuz would be reopened or remain closed.
“An understanding between Iran and Oman on a new route has nothing to do with whether the Strait of Hormuz is reopened or remains closed,” he said.
He blamed the United States for the closure of the strategic waterway.
UKRAINE has given Vladimir Putin a major headache by dragging Iran towards the Ukraine war and giving Donald Trump a reason to tighten the screws on Moscow.
Kyiv’s daring drone strike on an Iranian military cargo ship in the Caspian Sea sparked threats from Tehran that may see two conflicts collide.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could secure a WW3 style showdown to defeat Russia, experts sayCredit: AP
As opposing allies become drawn into the conflict, experts say Volodymyr Zelensky could seal a World War Three-style showdown to defeat Putin.
Ukraine’s attack on Iran targeted a supply line that the Kremlin has used to import lethal Shahed suicide drones and missiles from the pariah state since 2022.
It marked the first direct clash between the two nations since Russia‘s invasion.
Iran claimed that the vessel was purely commercial and vowed to respond – declaring that the “hostile and criminal” strike “cannot go unanswered”.
But the move could position Ukraine as an ally to Trump in a shadow war against the anti-Western axis.
Foreign policy experts say it could be a high-risk strategy from Zelensky to convince the US president to tighten the screws on Putin.
Dr Richard Arnold, an Eastern European security expert, told The Sun: “Ukraine wants to be in Trump’s good books.
“Trump has shown a lot of frustration with Nato allies who have not come to his aid and it appears Zelensky’s almost trying to say, ‘look, we’re the better partner than your Nato partners.’”
Dr Arnold suggested that Ukraine may be positioning itself as an anti-Iran shield.
Zelensky is “trying to build up the image of Ukraine as the Israel of Eastern Europe,” he said.
Since the outbreak of the Iran war, Kyiv has provided the US with technical expertise to counter the Iranian Shahed drones – weapons that Russia has used extensively to attack Ukrainian cities.
Professor Mikhail Alexseev, a political science expert at San Diego University, said it is a calculated move to drum up support in Washington.
He told The Sun: “For Ukraine, it’s very important to have the United States on its side. Ukraine needs to show Trump that it has the cards.
“This is one of the cards – that it can help the United States prevail in achieving objectives in Iran, with having its nuclear program suppressed and ensuring security in the Strait of Hormuz.”
After attacking the Iranian ship, Zelensky revealed that Russia has been feeding Tehran satellite intelligence to strike American military bases in the Gulf.
He said: “There is a clear correlation between Russia’s satellite imagery of these sites and Iranian strikes – both before the attacks, in preparation for them, and afterward, to assess the damage inflicted.”
The Ukrainian leader promised to share the intel with Washington – but made a point of aligning the US and Ukraine’s ambitions.
He said: “None of us in the world should turn a blind eye to one very simple fact: evil always seeks ways to make things worse and spread further.
“Russia must be stopped. This war must be stopped. Pressure on the aggressor must work.”
Zelensky’s bid to win over the White House appears to have been paying dividends.
At the Nato summit in Ankara, Trump said he would grant Ukraine the game-changing licence to build state-of-the-art Patriot missile interceptors.
It may prove decisive in dismantling Putin’s last major advantage – Russia’s missile capabilities – with Zelensky claiming the “battle in the sky” will be key to winning the war.
Ukraine has been desperate to bolster its rapidly-depleting stockpile of interceptors amid a slew of deadly ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv.
But the growing alignment between Washington and Kyiv could prompt Putin to pile more support behind Iran and deepen the conflict.
Arnold said: “It gives Russia a powerful incentive not to let Iran fail. That’s how this war becomes almost unstoppable.”
He warned that “escalation of the conflict is far more likely than resolution”.
It comes after Nato scrambled fighter jets after a Russian Kh-101 missile smashed into Poland this week.
Washington previously warned that Putin could be plotting an armed attack on Poland to test the international alliance – as it faces calls to fight back.
Alexseev said that the conflict has been moving in the direction of an all-out global war for some time.
He explained: “Russia’s war against Ukraine has been not just a small regional war, but a much broader international conflict from the get-go.
“We have seen the way that Russia aligned its forces, counting on economic support from India and China, on military support with Shahed drones and ballistic missile technology from Iran, with troops and artillery ammunition from North Korea.
“Wars, particularly involving great powers, rarely can be contained on a regional scale.”
As the Ukraine and the Iran wars collide, experts fear allies on both sides could be dragged into World War Three.
Alekseev said: “We’re moving into the kind of environment where conflict is normalised, everybody retaliates, nobody takes a step back, and we’re approaching the kind of conditions that led to larger wars in the past.”
Arnold warned: “There are a lot of voices, unfortunately, saying we are in what is called the pre-war period.
“Scholars have been noting for some time how similar the world of today looks to the world before World War One.”
Meanwhile, the strain on Putin’s weakening war machine has backed the dictator into a corner.
Kremlin Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the country is enduring a “very difficult period”, and Putin recently made the rare admission that the country is “struggling” with an energy crisis.
Dwindling manpower has seen Moscow deploy 30,000 North Korean troops and parliament allow even the most hardened criminals to be drafted.
Arnold said: “Russia is facing a manpower problem, simply because it hasn’t got enough people to power its industries and fight the war in Ukraine.”
Russia has suffered 1.4 million casualties since invading Ukraine in 2022, including an estimated 500,000 deaths.
A report last month showed that the average life expectancy for Russian troops on the frontline was just 20 minutes.
The cross-border trade had remained suspended since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent strain in India-China border relations.
Officials said the border trade season will continue till the end of October this year. (Representative Image/File Photo/AFP)
The cross-border trade between India and China through the routes of Shipki La in Himachal Pradesh, Lipulekh Pass in Uttarakhand and Nathu La in Sikkim resumed on Saturday after a gap of six years.
Trade had remained suspended since 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent strain in India-China border relations.
Reopening ceremony in Sikkim
In Sikkim, a reopening ceremony was held at Nathula with both nations’ participation. Sikkim’s commerce and industries department secretary Karma D Youtso said seasonal trade will be conducted from Monday to Thursday until November under the existing bilateral trade protocol.
“Thirty-eight registered traders have been issued trade passes this year. Around 36 notified items, including handicrafts, handloom products, traditional religious articles, ready-made garments and other approved goods, will be traded through the route,” Youtso said.
Cross-border trade resumes through Shipki La
In Himachal Pradesh, the cross-border trade resumed through Shipki La, known as the ancient silk route joining India with Tibet. State’s revenue and horticulture minister Jagat Singh Negi on Saturday flagged off 16 traders and their horses towards Shipki village in Tibet.
Dharchula SDM Ashish Joshi says
In Uttarakhand, a group of 20 Indian traders, accompanied by four helpers, crossed into China’s Tibet Autonomous Region through the Lipulekh Pass on Saturday. “The first batch has travelled without carrying any trade goods. The purpose of the visit is to assess the facilities available in Tibet and explore business opportunities to facilitate border trade during the current season,” Dharchula SDM Ashish Joshi said, adding that Chinese authorities have allowed entry only to those Indian traders who had left unsold goods in Tibet in 2019 before cross-border trade came to a halt.
He said the traders will visit their godowns at Pulan market in Taklakot, Tibet, where their goods are stored since 2019.
Rahul Gandhi said PM Modi has not met a single grieving parent. “He has not sat with a single student whose future was stolen by a leaked paper.
The Congress and the Samajwadi Party on Saturday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi after he said in a late-night Instagram video that he had “forgiven” the country’s youth for the abuse hurled at him during protests, with Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi asking the PM to apologise to the country’s students for giving them a “corrupt” exam system and that they didn’t need his “forgiveness”.
In an Instagram video released late on Friday, the PM said that he could understand the anguish prevailing in society, but stressed that this was the time to guide the youngsters. “I want to forgive them. People make mistakes, but this is a cultural shock that our daughters are using such abusive language. The statement came amid the controversy over some of the protesters allegedly using abusive language against Modi. “Not only was I subjected to abusive language at Jantar Mantar, but even my late mother was abused there,” he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks during the inauguration of the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Youth Centre – Viveka Smaraka, in Mysuru on Saturday. (ANI)
Slamming the video in a post on X, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: “Nothing is more painful than seeing a parent grieve their child… Behind every young life lost is a family carrying pain that will never leave them – and serious questions about a broken education system.”
The remarks came shortly after Gandhi met the families of those who lost their children during his day-long visit to Tamil Nadu.
“Leaked papers. Cancelled exams. Years of preparation destroyed overnight. Our students are told to work honestly in a system that is not honest with them… And the Prime Minister has the audacity to speak of ‘forgiving’ students,” the leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha added.
Gandhi said he (Modi) has not met a single grieving parent. “He has not sat with a single student whose future was stolen by a leaked paper. “India’s students do not need his forgiveness. They all owed his apology,” he said.
Senior Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram asked: “Has the Honourable Prime Minister also forgiven the BJP trolls who react on X with abusive and filthy comments to posts critical of the government?”
Congress leader Pawan Khera said, “The country was demanding an apology, but the PM ended up forgiving the country instead.”
Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav said, “The public will never forgive the BJP. Even if the BJP offers a prostrated apology (dandavat maafi), the public will still not forgive them. The BJP did not keep the promise it made to the public. The BJP’s arrogance alone will bring down their government.”
Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Uddhav Thackeray, too, said: “Modi and (Union home minister Amit) Shah should apologise to students and their families because of the way students were bashed up with sticks fitted with nails, pellet guns and tear gassed… some male police tore clothes of women protesters.”
The government has pushed back against the charge that it is avoiding accountability, pointing instead to the passage of the Public Examinations Amendment Bill and the formation of a task force on examination reforms.
The central government has maintained that it was “completely ready for a healthy, facts-based debate in Parliament,” and noted that Akhilesh Yadav and several Congress MPs had themselves said the issue should be discussed in the House, adding that it was “due to the ego of one individual”.
Donald Trump was reportedly considering renewed heavy attacks on Iran over this weekend.
Trump repeated that the US is “locked and loaded and ready to go” against Iran
President Donald Trump on Saturday said that the US and Israel had agreed to “hold off” on planned strikes on Iran at the request of Tehran and other countries in the region, claiming that the Middle East allies have reached the parameters of a deal to end the war.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said that the emerging deal “would include the immediate, complete, and total opening” of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most vital energy conduit which has mostly been closed by Iran since the war broke out on February 28.
“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran, at levels of Military Terror, Strength, and Power not seen since World War II. Despite this, we have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to. This would include the Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran’s nuclear threat,” he said.
“Based on this request, I have agreed, for the future benefit of the WORLD and, likewise, the survival of a successful and prosperous Iran, to cancel the attack, subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL,” he added.
Trump said that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu-led Israel — which had conducted joint strikes with the American military in February, killing Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei — has agreed to join the US in the commitment to try to complete the agreement with Iran that would bring about an end to the war.
“Get to work, everybody, and get it DONE,” he said.
US, Israel Planned Joint Strikes On Iran’s Energy-Related Targets
Donald Trump had on Friday threatened to hit Iran “very hard”, as US media reported that he was considering renewed heavy attacks over this weekend.
“We’ll be hitting him very hard and, you know, at some point they’re going to say, ‘We just can’t take it anymore’,” he said as he hosted a cabinet meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
The Wall Street Journal later reported that he had ordered a fresh strike aimed at convincing Iran to surrender, which could begin as soon as this weekend.
CBS News reported that the US and Israel were planning joint strikes on energy-related targets, possibly throughout the weekend.
Trump had not yet given the green light for the campaign, but Israel and the US were coordinating, CBS said, citing multiple unnamed sources.
It would have marked the first time that Israel joined in attacks on Iran since the initial phase of the war.
The July 27 Rawalakot violence triggered nationwide rallies, with demonstrators targeting the government and military establishment.
Police officers detain a protester as she and others gather in support of the Joint Awami Action Committee in Lahore, Pakistan. (REUTERS)
Mass protests have erupted across several major Pakistani cities against the alleged crackdown on demonstrators in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir’s Rawalakot on July 27, with protesters accusing the Shehbaz Sharif government and the military establishment of using force to suppress demands for civil and political rights.
Demonstrations were reported in Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi, where protesters raised slogans against the authorities and expressed solidarity with the Jammu Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee (JAAC).
The protests come amid mounting anger over the alleged use of force in Rawalakot, continuing internet restrictions, arrests of activists and calls to boycott regional elections.
Massive Solidarity Rally In Islamabad
Islamabad’s F-10 Markaz witnessed a large public gathering in solidarity with the people of PoK and the Awami Action Committee.
Former Pakistani Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan led a rally in the F-10 sector, condemning the alleged police action in Rawalakot and demanding accountability for the reported deaths and injuries.
Members of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), civil rights activists and groups representing the Kashmiri diaspora also participated in demonstrations in the federal capital.
Protesters accused the authorities of attempting to silence peaceful dissent and demanded an independent investigation into the alleged violence of July 27.
Lahore Press Club Placed Under Heavy Security
In Lahore, a large police contingent was deployed around the Lahore Press Club ahead of planned demonstrations.
Roads leading to the venue were reportedly blocked as riot police attempted to prevent students, activists and civil society members from assembling. Protesters described the security arrangements as an attempt to impose an undeclared ban on public gatherings.
Despite the restrictions, demonstrators carrying flags of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir gathered at different locations in the city before facing police action.
Eyewitnesses alleged that several protesters, including women, were detained merely for carrying or displaying the flag.
Anger Directed At Maryam Nawaz Government
Much of the anger in Lahore was directed at the Punjab government led by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz.
Protesters accused her administration of hypocrisy, referring to her past statements about her family’s Kashmiri roots while questioning the police response to demonstrations organised in support of Kashmiris.
They also accused the provincial administration of using sweeping arrests and preventive detentions to discourage participation in the rallies.
The alleged police action further intensified resentment, resulting in confrontations between protesters and security personnel in parts of the city.
Protesters Allege Wider Ban On Dissent
Activists claimed the crackdown was part of a wider attempt to restrict rallies concerning sensitive political and human rights issues.
They alleged that demonstrations supporting Palestine, Kashmir and Balochistan were increasingly being blocked by the authorities, effectively denying citizens their fundamental democratic rights.
Protesters accused the government of adopting an authoritarian approach by restricting peaceful assemblies, disrupting communications and deploying large police contingents around protest venues.
In a video message, PM Modi referred to the events at Jantar Mantar, where a section of protesters allegedly used expletives against him and his late mother.
PM Modi said he did not believe the answer lay in anger or retaliation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday appealed for restraint and forgiveness after abusive slogans directed at him during student protests over alleged paper leaks at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar led to a police case against a 25-year-old woman, saying that “abuses never solve anything” and urging society to guide, rather than punish, those who had gone astray.
“What happened at Jantar Mantar has been seen by the country and the world,” he said. “Some misguided youngsters used language that has no place in any civilised society. I was abused, and even my late mother was abused.”
The remarks came days after expletives used against the Prime Minister during protests against alleged paper leaks triggered legal action against one of the demonstrators.
According to the complaint, a 25-year-old woman allegedly made objectionable remarks during the Cockroach Janta Party-led protest at Jantar Mantar on July 23.
Despite the remarks, PM Modi said he did not believe the answer lay in anger or retaliation. Instead, he described the protesters as young people capable of learning from their mistakes.
“Abuses never solve anything. Let’s guide the misguided. Let’s work together. Let’s work for Bharat,” the Prime Minister’s video was captioned.
“Mistakes are made in childhood, and childhood also provides an opportunity to correct those mistakes. That is what being young is about,” he said in the video. “There is anger in society, and I understand that. But now is the time to embrace these children and show them the right path. They are misguided children. It is our duty to show them the way. Punishing them, dragging them through courts and harassing them will not change the circumstances.”
The Prime Minister said he wanted to forgive those responsible and appealed to society to do the same.
“I want to forgive them. I request society also to accept what I am saying,” he said. “Abuses never solve anything. Let us guide those who have lost their way. Let us work together. Let us work for Bharat.”
A Zero FIR was registered at the Expressway Police Station in Noida under Sections 352, 353(1) and 356(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, dealing with provoking a breach of peace, statements conducing to public mischief and defamation. As a Zero FIR, it was filed outside the jurisdiction where the alleged offence took place before being transferred to the Parliament Street Police Station in Delhi for further investigation.
At least nine people were killed and 22 civilians injured in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv after Russia launched an intense barrage of ballistic missiles and drones overnight into Saturday, authorities said.
A five-story residential building in the city’s Solomianskyi District was damaged by falling debris and a fire broke out. Rescue workers evacuated 35 people from the upper floors of the building and two people died, with eight reported injured including two children, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service.
In the Darnytskyi District of Kyiv, seven people were killed and another 14 injured after the attack caused fires and damage to houses, vehicles, an administrative and non-residential building, the emergency services said.
Elsewhere, emergency workers extinguished a fire in a non-residential building in the capital’s Shevchenkivskyi district. There was no additional information about earlier reports by the district mayor that people were trapped in another residential building.
Damage to commercial and residential buildings was reported in two other city districts.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has pressed the United States and other Western partners over Ukraine’s need for more Patriot anti-ballistic missile defense systems to counter missile attacks from Russia.
The Ukrainian leader late Friday said he spoke to U.S. Vice President JD Vance and discussed a meeting with President Donald Trump earlier this week in Washington, which Zelenskyy described as “positive and productive.”
“The Russian air strikes on our country continue and air defense, specifically interceptors for Patriot systems against ballistic missiles, remains a top priority,” Zelenskyy said Friday in a post on Telegram.
At a NATO summit in Ankara in July, Trump said the U.S. would give Ukraine a license to make Patriot systems but he appeared to move away from that commitment on Friday during a Cabinet meeting at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland, saying he had not yet made a final decision on the matter.
Saturday’s attack on Kyiv came just two days after a large-scale Russian ballistic missile and drone attack across Ukraine killed 10 civilians and wounded more than 50 others and saw a Russian missile enter Polish airspace.
From a basement shelter where she was taking cover as a second air alarm sounded for another wave, Liudmyla Nakonechna, 64, described how she was woken by loud explosions at 1:30 a.m.
Meta India’s head faces an FIR as Hyderabad Police investigate the spread of AI-morphed videos of PM Modi on Facebook and Instagram, days after the Cyber Crime Police summoned the company to explain its mechanisms for detecting and removing AI-generated scams and manipulated content.
A Meta representative reportedly appeared before investigators and briefed them on the company’s content moderation and compliance measures.
The Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police have registered an FIR against the head of Meta India, Arun Srinivas, and several social media users over the circulation of AI-generated morphed videos targeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi that have been circulating since Cockroach Janta Party-led students’ stir at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar.
According to police sources, the case relates to the spread of manipulated videos on Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. Investigators suspect the content may have misled the public and are probing possible violations of provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and the Information Technology Act.
The Cyber Crime Police are investigating the origin of the AI-generated videos, how they were amplified across social media platforms, and whether Meta’s existing safeguards were adequate to curb their circulation. The probe will also examine the role of individuals accused of creating, uploading or sharing the manipulated content.
The FIR comes days after the Hyderabad Cyber Crime Police summoned Meta representatives to explain the company’s mechanisms for detecting and removing AI-generated scams, fake advertisements and other manipulated content.
A Meta representative reportedly appeared before investigators and briefed them on the company’s content moderation and compliance measures.
The case underscores the growing scrutiny of social media platforms over the spread of AI-generated misinformation and the responsibility of intermediaries to prevent the circulation of harmful content.
Police said the investigation is still at a preliminary stage and that no conclusions have been reached. Further action, they added, will be based on the digital evidence gathered during the course of the probe.
Meanwhile, in a separate incident, a Zero FIR has been registered against a woman for allegedly making objectionable remarks against PM Modi during a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar last week.
The FIR was lodged on July 29 at the Expressway police station in Gautam Buddh Nagar following a complaint by Smriti Singh, a Ghaziabad resident, against Ruchika Singh of Noida.
Under the new plan, students would reportedly have to pay $100,000 to work in the US — that’s over Rs 95 lakh at current exchange rates.
Here’s a number that should worry every Indian student dreaming of a US degree — $100,000.
That’s the fee the Trump administration is reportedly weighing on international students who want to work in America after they graduate. If it goes through, it could shut the door on one of the most popular pathways Indian students use to build a career in the US.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, top officials in the US are considering attaching a six-figure price tag to a work permit called “Optional Practical Training (OPT)”. However, the White House hasn’t announced anything official yet.
For lakhs of Indian families who spend crores sending their children to US universities, that’s reason enough to sit up and take notice.
What Exactly Is Being Proposed?
Right now, OPT lets international students work in the US for up to a year after finishing their degree, without needing a separate work visa. Students in STEM fields — science, tech, engineering, maths — get an extra two years on top of that. So, a computer science graduate can work in the US for up to three years on OPT alone.
It’s the bridge that gets Indian graduates from a US classroom to a US job. And often, it’s the bridge to something bigger: the H-1B visa, America’s main work visa for skilled foreign professionals.
Under the new plan, students would reportedly have to pay $100,000 — that’s over Rs 95 lakh at current exchange rates — just to access this bridge. For most families, that’s simply not affordable. Officials pushing the idea say OPT has been misused for visa fraud and overstays. Critics say it will just price out genuine talent.
This Isn’t Trump’s First $100,000 Move
If this number sounds familiar, it should. Earlier this year, the Trump administration slapped a $100,000 fee on new H-1B visa applications too. That move hit the tech industry hard, since American companies use H-1B visas to hire specialised foreign workers — and Indians make up nearly three out of every four H-1B holders.
That H-1B fee ran into legal trouble almost immediately. A federal appeals court in Boston blocked the government from enforcing it just last week, after pushback from big tech companies. So, this new OPT proposal looks like a second attempt at the same goal — cutting down the number of foreign workers in the US — just approached from a different angle.
Why This Hits Indian Students Hardest
India isn’t just another country on this list. It’s the biggest one.
According to the latest Open Doors report, over 3.63 lakh Indian students were enrolled in US institutions in 2024-25 — the highest of any country in the world, ahead of even China. Indian students made up nearly a third of all international students in America that year.
And OPT is central to why so many Indians choose the US in the first place. Data shows Indian participation in OPT jumped by 47 percent in a single year, with roughly 40 per cent of Indian students in the US taking part in the programme. For many, the calculation is simple: take on education loans now, work in the US for a few years after graduating, and pay it all back with a US salary.
A $100,000 fee breaks that calculation completely. It would mean students already stretching their finances for tuition and living costs would need to find an entirely new, massive sum — just for permission to work legally after they’ve already earned their degree.
Education consultants say the fallout could show up fast: fewer Indian students choosing STEM programmes in the US, more students looking at Canada, the UK, Germany or Australia instead, and Indian graduates already in the US scrambling to figure out their next move before any rule change kicks in.
A Pattern of Tightening Rules
This proposal doesn’t exist in isolation. Indian student enrollment was already showing cracks before this news broke. New enrollments for Indian students fell by close to 45 per cent between August 2024 and August 2025, according to US government arrival data, driven largely by visa interview delays and stricter scrutiny.
Saudi Arabia and 13 nations formed a maritime coalition in Riyadh to guard the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Red Sea, and Gulf of Aden amid Houthi blockades.
Houthi supporters brandish rifles and hold portraits of Iran’s slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in solidarity with Iran and Lebanon. (AFP)
Saudi Arabia and 13 other countries signed a joint statement in Riyadh on Thursday to establish a multinational defensive maritime coalition guarding the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, as the Iran-aligned Houthis continue a naval blockade against the kingdom and the Strait of Hormuz remains shut to commercial shipping.
Fourteen Signatories, 43 Nations At The Table
The Saudi Ministry of Defense named the signatories as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Sudan, Djibouti and Somalia. Military chiefs of staff and representatives from 43 countries, along with a European Union delegation, attended the Riyadh meeting in person or by video link to review the coalition’s draft charter.
Riyadh To Host Command Structure
Saudi Arabia will serve as the coalition’s founding nation and host its headquarters in the kingdom, according to the ministry’s statement. The framework includes a joint command and leadership structure, a joint operations control centre, and a general secretariat. The ministry said the door remains open for any additional country to join once it completes its own domestic accession procedures.
The statement described the alliance as strictly defensive, saying it does not target any state or organisation and that all activity will operate within international law and each member’s national sovereignty. Objectives listed include protecting freedom of navigation, securing international trade routes and energy shipments through Bab el-Mandeb, and coordinating intelligence, information sharing and joint naval exercises among members.
The initiative follows a visit by Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman to the United States, where officials discussed regional security, including attacks on Saudi infrastructure tied to the Houthis and Iran-aligned groups in Iraq.
Blockade Declared Since July 20
The Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia on July 20, accusing Riyadh of besieging Yemen, a claim that Saudi officials have denied. The group has since attacked Saudi-linked vessels in the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia has responded with air strikes on Houthi facilities at Yemen’s Hodeidah port, which it says are used to threaten commercial shipping.
Hormuz Shut Since March, Ten Ships A Day
The coalition proposal lands on top of a separate crisis at the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively closed to commercial traffic since March 2, when Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps confirmed the closure during the wider US-Israel-Iran conflict. Tanker transits through Hormuz fell to 10 ships on July 23, against a pre-crisis baseline of roughly 88 a day, according to shipping tracker PortWatch. Brent crude stood near $90 a barrel on July 29.
The legislation was introduced in the House on July 27 by Union Minister Jitendra Singh, days after nationwide protests over the NEET paper leak controversy.
The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026 is the Centre’s latest attempt to restore trust in India’s examination system
Amid much uproar, the Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026, a legislation aimed at making India’s anti-paper leak law more stringent by introducing faster investigations, dedicated courts and harsher penalties for offenders.
The Bill was passed by a voice vote amid opposition sloganeering and a walkout over Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi’s remarks against Union Home Minister Amit Shah during the debate.
The amendment comes in the backdrop of nationwide outrage over examination irregularities, mainly the NEET-UG paper leak row, which sparked protests and renewed demands for tougher action against organised cheating rackets.
The legislation was introduced in the House on July 27 by Union Minister Jitendra Singh, days after nationwide protests over the NEET paper leak controversy culminated in the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as Union Education Minister. The government had tabled the amendment bill on Monday.
Weeks of protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) over repeated paper leaks and irregularities in competitive examinations had put the Narendra Modi government under intense pressure, with demonstrators demanding accountability, systemic reforms and action against those responsible for compromising the future of lakhs of aspirants.
Why Was The Bill Amended?
The government enacted the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024 to criminalise paper leaks and other unfair practices in public examinations.
However, recurring controversies involving recruitment and entrance examinations — including the NEET paper leak — prompted the Centre to revisit the law.
As per the Centre, the 2026 amendment seeks to plug gaps identified during the implementation of the 2024 Act, strengthen enforcement and ensure quicker action against those involved in examination fraud.
While moving the Bill, Singh said that the amendments were being introduced in an “honest spirit” and urged political parties not to politicise an issue that affects millions of students.
He further said that 52 FIRs have been registered since the 2024 law came into force and said reported suicides linked to paper leak incidents had declined in recent years.
Major Changes In The Bill
1. Fast-track courts for paper leak cases: The Bill proposes dedicated fast-track courts in every state and Union Territory to exclusively hear cases related to paper leaks and examination malpractice. The objective is to ensure that such cases are not delayed in the regular criminal justice system.
2. Time-bound investigation and trial: The amendment lays down strict timelines for criminal proceedings, including investigations must be completed within two months, and trials should be concluded within three months after the filing of the chargesheet.
3. Tougher punishment: The Bill substantially increases punishment for individuals involved in paper leaks and examination fraud. Those found guilty could face: Five to ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to Rs 50 lakh
4. Harsher penalties for organised syndicates: The legislation targets organised paper leak networks with even stricter punishment. Such syndicates could face: A minimum seven-year jail term, and fines of up to Rs 10 crore.
5. Special Task Force: The Bill empowers the Centre to constitute a Special Task Force (STF) to investigate large-scale or organised examination frauds spanning multiple states.
6. Wider definition of examination fraud: The amended law expands the list of offences covered under its ambit. These include: Question paper leaks, OMR sheet tampering, Fake websites, Fake admit cards, and Other organised unfair means in public examinations.
Is This A New Law?
No. India already has the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Act, 2024.
The legislation passed by the Lok Sabha is an amendment Bill, meaning it modifies and strengthens the existing law rather than replacing it.
Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had personally assured him that Beijing would not arm Iran.
US President Donald Trump (left) and Chinese President Xi Jinping. (File)
US President Donald Trump said he would be “quite disappointed” if China supplied weapons to Iran, responding to reports that Tehran could soon receive hundreds of Chinese-made shoulder-fired missiles. Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping had personally assured him that Beijing would not arm Iran. The remarks come as reports claimed that Iran is expected to receive a shipment of up to 400 Chinese-manufactured shoulder-fired missiles within weeks.
“Well, that would be surprising. He (Xi) told me very strongly he wouldn’t partake, and he knows I’d be quite disappointed,” Trump said.
Intelligence assessments, first reported by CNN, suggested China was preparing to deliver new air defence systems to Iran as Tehran seeks to rebuild parts of its military capabilities with help from foreign partners.
Last week, Trump had warned both China and Russia against supplying weapons to Iran, while saying he believed assurances from Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin that neither country was currently providing military assistance to Tehran.
On his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that, in his view, both nations were refraining from arms transfers to Iran.
“Therefore, two major Countries that people speak of often in terms of Iran are, in my opinion, not participating,” he wrote, adding, “If they did, it would be very bad for them- Certainly not in their best interests.”
The comments come as Washington continues to examine whether Russian and Chinese intelligence networks have been assisting Tehran by providing targeting information following recent strikes on US military installations.
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince has embarked the country on a course known as Vision 2030
Saudi Arabia is facing a difficult dilemma. Ever since the US and Israel launched their war on Iran on 28 February, the Saudis have largely tried to stay out of it.
But now, after being attacked from three sides, the Saudis have had enough. This week, they carried out joint strikes with the US on Iranian proxy militias in Iraq who they believe have been launching drones at the Kingdom.
For Saudi Arabia the dilemma now is whether to keep on hitting back as a deterrent, or whether to try to de-escalate the situation, perhaps by paying off some of their adversaries.
So who is attacking who and why?
First, a bit of context. There are broadly two sides in the conflict that has been consuming the Gulf and other parts of the Middle East for five months now.
On one side there is Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Allied to them are the Houthis in Yemen, a tribal group who took over much of the country in 2014.
Also backed by Iran are the Popular Mobilisation Forces in Iraq, the paramilitary group that has allegedly carried out 30 drone strikes on Saudi Arabia and has now been attacked in return.
Then there is Hezbollah in Lebanon, still a potent force but one that is currently lying low.
On the opposite side of this conflict is the US with its immensely powerful Central Command (Centcom) forces plus – to varying degrees – the Gulf Arab states and Jordan. Israel remains a close US ally but is currently not an active participant in this war.
Iran has most recently been concentrating its drone and missile attacks on Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, as well as targeting any commercial shipping that tries to slip through the Strait of Hormuz while avoiding Iran’s new rules and routing.
The addition of Iraqi militias and the Houthis in Yemen is a relatively new phenomenon and it shows how – without a lasting peace deal between the US and Iran – the region risks becoming ever more embroiled in a widening conflict.
There are a number of reasons why Saudi Arabia is trying not to get sucked into a full-scale conflict.
Its de facto ruler, the relatively young Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, has embarked the country on a course known as “Vision 2030”.
His aim is to diversify the Kingdom away from its dependence on oil revenues and create vibrant, modern, domestic industries that will provide meaningful jobs for the hundreds of thousands of graduates and school leavers pouring onto the job market each year.
Part of Vision 2030 involves attracting foreign investment. Part of it also involves building things like data centres that are vulnerable to attack.
This is not going to work if Saudi Arabia finds itself under an enduring, long-term threat from drones fired across its southern border by the Houthis in Yemen or ballistic missiles fired directly by Iran.
Back in September 2019, the Saudis suffered an unpleasant shock.
With relations with Iran in a poor state, the Saudis woke up to find that an Iranian proxy militia in Iraq had launched a fleet of drones at two of its most vital oil facilities, at Abqaiq and Khurais.
At the time there was a suggestion that the attack had come from the Houthis in Yemen but I visited the site straight afterwards and I could clearly see the holes in the superstructures all facing northwards.
That attack knocked half of Saudi oil exports offline for several days and it was a wake-up call to Riyadh as to just how vulnerable its critical national infrastructure is to attack.
On Monday, satellite images showed the Abqaiq oil facility was struck by drones launched once again by Iranian proxy militias in Iraq.
Then there is oil, still the lifeblood of the Saudi economy.
Iran retaliated against US and Israeli attacks in February by effectively closing off the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping channel between Iran and the Gulf through which 20% of the world’s oil and liquified natural gas travelled.
In response, the Saudis pumped as much oil as they could – around five million barrels per day – through their east-west pipeline to their export terminal on the Red Sea, on their opposite coast, at Yanbu.
From there it was loaded onto tankers that headed south, out into the Arabian Sea and off to markets in Asia.
The sweeping sanctions bill, authored by the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was moved on Tuesday when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Capitol.
The sanctions bill comes at a time when India’s dependence on Russian energy has gone up on account of the West Asia war. (In picture: PM Modi and US President Donald Trump) (PTI)
The US Senate has advanced the Russia sanctions bill which puts India and four other countries at the risk of 100% tariffs. This sweeping sanctions legislation, authored by the late Senator Lindsey Graham, was moved on Tuesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Capitol.
The bill aims to increase economic pressure on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. After China, India is the second-largest buyer of Russian crude oil.
The tally was 86 to 12 in favor on a procedural vote to advance the bill, which seeks to impose sanctions on Russian officials and authorise steep tariffs on India, China, Slovakia, Hungary and Azerbaijan in order reduce their dependence on Russian energy.
Introduced in April 2025, Graham earlier this year announced that the bill had been greenlit by President Donald Trump amid trade tensions between US and India.
The sanctions bill comes at a time when India’s dependence on Russian energy has gone up on account of the West Asia war which has disrupted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iran-US war has choked off Gulf crude supplies that previously accounted for roughly 40% of India’s oil imports, forcing refiners to turn to Russian crude as the main alternative source.
Senator Richard Blumenthal had earlier stated that the bill would make an exception for countries purchasing Russian gas if their purchase is less than 15 per cent of Russia’s total gas imports.
Impact of Russia sanctions bill on India
The US first penalised India over its energy trade with Russian in August 2025 when President Donald Trump announced an additional 25 per cent tariff against India for “fueling Putin’s war”.
This pushed the total tariffs against India to 50 per cent, the highest along with China and Brazil. The new tariff also sparked tensions between the two allies, with trade negotiations coming to a halt.
However, with the breakout of the US-Iran war in February, the world, including India, saw itself in an energy crisis with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
Amid this major disruption, the US announced a waiver on Russian oil, which allowed India to resume its purchase.
As per the US, these purchases would not bring any profits for Russia.
CENTCOM said the strikes targeted “Iran-aligned terrorists” allegedly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to carry out attacks.
Iran-backed Houthi rebel walking towards the burning wreckage of what the group says is of a downed Saudi drone.
The US and Saudi Arabia carried out joint airstrikes on Tuesday against Iran-aligned militants in Iraq after more than 30 drone attacks targeting US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure in the past 72 hours, the US military said.
US Central Command (CENTCOM) said the strikes targeted “Iran-aligned terrorists” allegedly directed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to carry out attacks.
“US and Saudi fighter aircraft struck multiple terrorist logistics and weapons sites across eastern Iraq in a strong response to over 30 IRGC-directed aerial drone attacks in the last 72 hours,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
The US military said the drone attacks against American forces were unsuccessful and warned that “the IRGC and its terrorist proxies must cease these attacks to avoid further US military response.”
CENTCOM said the latest strikes targeted weapons and logistics sites in eastern Iraq. It also said that from February through April 2026, there had been “more than 600 attempted attacks on US citizens and facilities by Iran-aligned terrorist militias” in Iraq.
Strikes Follow Saudi Drone Interception Claims
The joint strikes came after Saudi Arabia’s defence ministry said its forces had intercepted drones targeting oil facilities in the kingdom’s east.
Saudi defence ministry spokesperson Turki al-Maliki said the drones were launched from Iraqi territory by Iran-linked militias.
“Air defences intercepted and destroyed several drones that attempted to target oil installations,” al-Maliki said, adding that the attacks were carried out by “militias linked to Iran.”
Fresh Escalation After US Claims Iranian Attack
The strikes were announced shortly after CENTCOM said it had intercepted multiple missiles launched by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in what it described as an “attempted surprise attack” on US forces in the Middle East.
A discussion on the anti-paper leak bill began on Tuesday, July 28, in Lok Sabha following six days of stalemate. The government defended the bill and accused the opposition of “selective outrage” over examination paper leaks.
BJP Leaders Defend Paper Leak Bill, Deploy Gen-Z Lingo Against Opposition
Ending a six-day logjam, the Lok Sabha on Tuesday, July 28, finally took up discussion on the Public Examination (Prevention of Unfair Means) Amendment Bill, 2026. A string of BJP and NDA leaders mounted a spirited defence of the legislation, comparing paper leaks to terrorism, invoking Gen-Z ‘language’ to target the Congress, and accusing the opposition of “selective outrage” over the issue.
Jitendra Singh Says Bill Reaffirms Govt’s Commitment to Student Welfare
Union Minister Jitendra Singh, who initiated the debate, said the Modi government finished an unaccomplished task to bring a law to prevent examination malpractices in 2024. The anti-paper leak bill is a reaffirmation of the government’s commitment to safeguard the welfare of students and youth. The amendment… (is being) brought to make the law more stringent,” Singh said.
Anurag Thakur Compares Paper Leaks to Terrorism
BJP MP Anurag Thakur said that paper leaks were a serious threat to students’ future. Thakur compared the issue with terrorism and Maoism, saying the government was determined to eliminate the menace. “We are the ones who uprooted terrorism and naxalism, and we will uproot paper leaks as well… Government has resolved to bring paper leak law stricter than anti-terror law,” Thakur said.
“The question arises that why are we discussing this matter today? Because rigging in examinations and paper leaks are no less than terrorism and Maoism, because our youth fall victim to it. And to the youth of our country, I want to say that we will provide a complete cure for this disease of paper leaks, because the remedy for every ailment has been found under the Modi government, and we are going to eradicate this as well,” he said.
Thakur took a swipe at several Opposition leaders, including Congress MPs Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav.
Bansuri Swaraj Slams Opposition’s ‘Selective Outrage,’ Says ‘Modi Ji Clocked It’
BJP MP Bansuri Swaraj strongly defended the legislation and accused the opposition of displaying “selective outrage” over examination paper leaks. She tried to speak in the language of Gen Z- which led the 36-day protest-led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP), saying, “Modi ji clocked it” while outlining stricter punishments and faster trials for exam fraud.
“It’s a transformative amendment. It’s not just necessary but the need of the hour. It shows the responsible approach of the Modi government,” she said.
Shrikant Shinde Uses Gen-Z Lingo to Accuse Congress of ‘FOMO’ and ‘Delulu’ Politics
Following Bansuri Swaraj, Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Shinde also used the ‘Gen-Z language’ to target the Opposition. He said that the Congress leaders staged a protest outside the prime minister’s residence last week because they were suffering from “MIA” (missing in action), “FOMO” (fear of missing out) and “Delulu” (delusion).
“Where Congress created a policy vacuum, Modi clocked it, if I may borrow the language of Gen Z, and created a solution. All the opposition did was chase political opportunism,” he said.
Tejasvi Surya Says Bill Fixes The Bug
BJP MP Tejasvi Surya took a swipe at the opposition for not passing a similar Bill in 2010, adding that the absence of a special law had been one of the reasons why convictions were not happening in paper leak cases.
“In 70 years, this is the first time a special law to criminalise this act was passed in 2024 and is being strengthened now in 2026,” he said.
“I want to tell the opposition because of this issue. The opposition thinks that youth are with them, but there is no bigger “delulu” than this,” Surya said.
What makes the deployment of the J-20 significant are its stealth characteristics which enable it to dominate contested airspace
China deployed seven J-20s at Hotan. High res here
China has stepped up operational deployments of its frontline J-20 ‘Mighty Dragon’ stealth fighter jets at airbases which are ranged against India.
The satellite images in this report, sourced from Vantor, show that China had deployed eleven J-20s across two air bases in late June and early July this year.
On July 9, seven J-20s were positioned on the tarmac at Hotan, a dual-use (civil and military) airbase in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The base lies 389 km to the northeast of Leh and just 245 km to the northeast of the Indian Air Force (IAF) airfield at Daulat Beg Oldie in north Ladakh. Commercial satellite imagery obtained by NDTV shows this to be the largest concentration of J-20s deployed against India at any Chinese airbase to date.
A second image, published in this report, shows four J-20s on the flightline at Damxung airbase, part of the Tibetan Lhasa prefecture. The base lies 344 km northwest of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
“Seven J-20s at Hotan and four at Damxung confirm that fifth-generation operations from high-altitude bases facing India are now routine for the PLAAF, not signalling,” Sameer Joshi, a former fighter pilot and co-founder of NewSpace, among India’s fastest growing aerospace and defence R&D companies, told NDTV. PLAAF is short for People’s Liberation Army Air Force.
“For the IAF, a low-observable threat on the northern front is now the baseline – and that sharpens the urgency of our counter-stealth sensors, integrated air defence and standoff strike capability,” Joshi added.
What makes the deployment of the J-20 significant are its stealth characteristics which enable it to dominate contested airspace. With a miniscule radar signature, on account of its advanced stealth shaping, the J-20 retains a significant edge over the IAF’s current generation of fighter jets, including the French-built Dassault Rafale, which are non-stealth platforms.
India currently does not operate any stealth fighters with the homegrown Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) – the country’s first stealth jet – at least a decade away from entering squadron service, assuming key technologies onboard are successfully validated in an extensive flight-test programme.
China’s deployment of modern J-20 fighters came into sharp focus following a report in The War Zone that J-20 numbers have grown steeply: from roughly 50 aircraft in 2019 to about 200 by late 2022, with production estimates doubling in the years after. By late 2025, output was running at around 120 jets a year, pushing the fleet to roughly 300-500 aircraft (depending on the source) across more than a dozen PLAAF units by mid-2026. The UK-based Royal United Services Institute projects China could field around 1,000 J-20s by 2030.
“I can only say that having a capacity to produce 125 planes per year speaks volumes of their advanced manufacturing capability,” Air Marshal Narmdeshwar Tiwari (retired) said.
“They are producing it almost like commercial aircraft, which can only happen when the supply chain is fully integrated, very exacting manufacturing tolerances are met by all suppliers and top quality human resource is available to sustain this enterprise,” said Air Marshal Tiwari, who was Vice Chief of the Air Staff during ‘Operation Sindoor’, the 88-hour conflict between India and Pakistan fought in May last year.
“In short, they envisioned a national roadmap, put an empowered team to execute it and provided persistent support to make it happen. To prove to the world that they can compete with the best. It has been a national mission for them. After the first Gulf War, they realised the importance of air power and worked in a mission mode to achieve it,” he said.
