Iranian drones target Iraqi Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Barzani’s office, security chief’s home – i24NEWS
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pgnewser
Japanese lawmakers travel to Beijing, seeking to mend ties after fallout– abcnews.com
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TOKYO — A cross-party group of Japanese lawmakers, including one from Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s governing party, headed to Beijing on Monday to meet with Chinese officials for the first time since ties between the two Asian rivals deteriorated after Takaichi’s comment on Taiwan angered China.
Japan seeks a chance to mend its strained ties with China as tensions have spilled over into the economy.
The group, which includes Gaku Hashimoto, a lawmaker of Takaichi’s governing Liberal Democratic Party and a former health and welfare vice minister, and a lawmaker each from two opposition parties Komeito and the Centrist Reform Alliance, is to meet with Chinese Communist Party officials during their visit through Thursday.
“Communication has been severed in all areas and we are beginning to see their impact in many areas,” Shinichi Isa, a top spokesperson for the CRA party, told reporters before leaving Tokyo’s Haneda airport. “I hope we can somehow find a clue to restart a dialogue.”
Isa, who has served as a diplomat at the Japanese Embassy in China, wrote on X earlier this month that bilateral ties have sunk to their worst since the 1972 normalization of relations. He wrote that officials had always remained in communication even during previous lows: “Now all channels between officials and ministries have been cut off.”
The situation is not in the national interest of either side, Isa said at the time, and the Chinese side accepted a request from Japanese lawmakers for a “window for dialogue.”
How to beat an earthquake: The Colombian city where no one died – The Washington Post– news.google.com
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- How to beat an earthquake: The Colombian city where no one died The Washington Post
- Hopes fade in Colombia as more bodies recovered days after powerful quake reuters.com
- Groom-to-Be, 24, Found Dead in Rubble of Collapsed Building Days Before His Wedding People.com
- A Bright Spot in Colombia as Rescuers Free Quake Victim The New York Times
- Colombia’s earthquake tore apart this family with triplets. Only one survived cnn.com
Inquest opens into death of ex-Cambridge University professor Jason Arday– abcnews.com
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LONDON — An inquest opened Wednesday into the sudden death earlier this month of Jason Arday, a Cambridge University professor who faced a storm of plagiarism accusations.
Arday, 41, who became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor in 2023, was found dead at an address in south London on Aug. 13, days after he resigned his post as professor of sociology of education following intense media scrutiny of his credentials and many of the other claims he had made about his accomplishments outside of academia.
The inquest opened with a short hearing at London Inner South Coroner’s Court. Any deaths in the U.K. that are deemed to exhibit uncertainties of one form or another are investigated by a coroner.
“The various reports have given me reason to suspect that Professor Arday died an unnatural death 12 days ago,” said senior coroner Dr. Julian Morris. “It therefore follows that I must open an investigation.”
Police said at the time of his death that it was being treated as “unexpected” but not suspicious.
Questions about Arday’s qualifications were raised publicly last month by Nathan Cofnas, a one-time Cambridge philosophy researcher who left the university after his critique of diversity, equity and inclusion programs sparked widespread protests. Cofnas previously argued that in a meritocracy, Black people “would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.” Cofnas was last week suspended from his post at Ghent University in Belgium.
France’s Constitutional Council annuls law to ban social media for under-15s – MLex
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German Christian Democrats Are Paralyzed by a Far-Right Surge – Jacobin
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Signals Intention to Keep Country on a War Footing– www.nytimes.com
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Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei’s appointment of hard-line loyalists to top jobs suggests he is prepared to keep the country on a war footing and to quash domestic dissent.
Mongolia positions itself as Asia’s next data centre hub– www.euronews.com
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Mongolia is positioning itself as a global data centre hub, signing agreements for 863 megawatts of data centre capacity on the sidelines of a United Nations conference on desertification that brought 197 delegations to Ulaanbaatar this month.
The move to attract data centre investment was the most concrete economic outcome of the 12-day COP17 conference of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, where delegates are discussing how to restore land degraded by climate change.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Togmid Dorjkhand, Mongolia has three main competitive advantages: cheap renewable energy, a cold climate that reduces cooling costs, and a vast land area and stable legal framework.
“We have a lot of energy generation potential, above the ground and under the ground and we have all kinds of deposits, uranium and coal and other resources,” Togmid told Euronews.
“And yes, we are a very cold country, eight months a year are very cold. Cold weather is important for the data centres because they need a lot of cooling, so the colder the weather the more you save on cooling.”
Israeli soldiers block Knesset member from besieged Palestinian home | Israel-Palestine conflict News– www.aljazeera.com
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Israeli soldiers blocked Knesset member Ofer Cassif from reaching a Palestinian family home in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra, where settlers have maintained a 17-day siege. Cassif eventually reached the families and expressed his support.
In 2011, Myanmar suspended a giant China-backed dam after public outrage; it now plans to restart a proje – The Times of India
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Nigeria urged to adopt Chinese poverty reduction strategy – The Guardian Nigeria News
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India expects to boost ties with Moscow during top diplomat’s visit — source – World– tass.com
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NEW DELHI, August 22. /TASS/. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar is expected to discuss all aspects of bilateral agenda during his visit to Russia in order to boost cooperation between the two nations, a source in the Indian government has told TASS.
“Jaishankar’s visit is of great importance, because it is about the regular dialogue that we maintain with Russia,” the source said. “We would like to discuss all aspects of the bilateral agenda in order to further strengthen our partnership.”
Speaking about Jaishankar’s planned meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, the government source said that along with bilateral issues, the top diplomats will also “discuss geopolitical, international and regional topics.”
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs announced on Saturday that Jaishankar will visit Russia on August 23-24, at the invitation of First Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov. He will co-chair the 27th Session of the India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific, Technological and Cultural Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC). During the visit, Jaishankar will also meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and “exchange perspectives on regional and global issues,” the ministry said.
Nigeria’s president orders rescue operation after mass kidnapping at mosque– www.france24.com
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Nigerian President Bola Tinubu ordered the military and other security agencies on Tuesday to launch an immediate rescue operation after scores of people were kidnapped by gunmen in north-central Niger State last week.
An armed group posted a video on Facebook and WhatsApp showing what residents said were about 600 women, children and older people abducted during an attack on a mosque in the state.
Reuters could not independently verify the figure, but if confirmed it would rank among Nigeria‘s largest and most audacious mass kidnappings in recent years.
Watch more308 abductees freed from separate attacks in northern Nigeria
An official from Borgu district, where the attack happened, said 30 people had been killed during the attack and were buried on Sunday.
The official, who declined to be identified because she was not authorised to speak to the media, said villagers from the communities of Dakera, Gidan-Zana and Sabon Gida were affected.
India police clash with protestors over jobs and exam transparency– www.channelnewsasia.com
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PATNA, India: Indian students and unemployed youth clashed with police on Tuesday (Aug 25) as they marched towards the residence of the chief minister of the eastern state of Bihar, demanding access jobs and transparency in recruitment exams.
Police in Bihar, home to about 130 million people, used water cannons as a few thousand protestors broke through security barricades in the regional capital Patna, an AFP reporter saw.
The protests came a month after massive youth-led demonstrations in New Delhi forced the ouster of India’s education minister over alleged irregularities in conducting key competitive examinations.
Footage from local media showed demonstrators in Patna demanding access to government jobs, the cancellation of a key recruitment exam and changes to the examination format announcement by the government.
Local police accused some protestors of attacking security personnel.
“Police will identify those involved in stone pelting at police and will take action against them,” Patna police superintendent Kartikeya K Sharma told reporters on Tuesday.
The protests began last week with unemployed youth demanding jobs, but they later expanded to include calls for education reform.
Gay media celebrates Pope Leo XIV’s 4 pro-LGBT bishop appointments– www.lifesitenews.com
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(LifeSiteNews) — A gay news site published an article praising Pope Leo XIV for having “made room for progressive LGBTQ+ voices.”
Headlined Pope Leo’s Recent LGBTQ-Friendly Appointments Include Bishop Who Had Drag Queen Speak at Mass, the article draws heavily from a liberal Catholic Substack, Letters from Leo, authored by former Obama staffer Christopher Hale.
The article focuses on the installation of four reportedly pro-homosexual and pro-transgender bishops: James Checchio, appointed by Leo in February to head the Archdiocese of New Orleans; Bishop Ramón Bejarano, chosen in December to lead the Diocese of Monterrey, California; Bishop Christian Würtz, selected in by Leo in July 2025 as the new bishop of Eichstätt in Germany; and Baker, Oregon diocese’s Bishop Thomas Hennen, who at age 47 became the youngest bishop to head a diocese.
Perhaps the most alarming of the four is Bishop Bejarano. The former San Diego auxiliary bishop famously celebrated an “All are Welcome” LGBT-themed “Pride” Mass – during which a drag queen activist was permitted to speak – as the new bishop of Monterey, California.
Israeli Military Tightens Grip on Hezbollah’s Underground ‘Nerve Center’ in South Lebanon– legalinsurrection.com
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has intensified its encirclement of Hezbollah terrorists holed up inside an underground tunnel network in southern Lebanon, recent Israeli and Lebanese news reports indicate.
The Israeli military closed in on the strategic terrorist tunnel complex in June, but halted its advance following a 15-point memorandum endorsed by President Donald Trump. According to Lebanese media reports, the terrorists have since used the U.S.-backed ceasefire as cover to smuggle in weapons and supplies.
The Ali al-Taher ridge tunnel network, located near the Crusader-era Beaufort Castle, is widely regarded as Hezbollah’s “nerve center” in southern Lebanon. The Israeli security think tank, Alma Center, describes the tunnel complex as “a major center of power that Hezbollah invested significant efforts over time to preserve and defend.”
This “massive strategic underground infrastructure complex,” believed to be built with Iranian and North Korean expertise, acts “as the main headquarters of the Badr Unit,” Hezbollah’s main terrorist formation operating in southern Lebanon, the Alma Center noted in a report published in June 2026.
Iran executes man over involvement in anti-government protests – WION
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Japan’s economy slows, missing growth forecasts | Business and Economy– www.aljazeera.com
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Japan’s economy has slowed in the second quarter of the year amid moribund consumption and capital spending, according to official figures.
Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.3 percent in the April-June period from the first quarter, data released by Japan’s Cabinet Office on Monday showed. It was the third consecutive expansion but was down from 0.5 percent growth in the previous quarter and missed the 0.5 percent growth analysts had forecast.
On an annualised basis, the world’s fourth-largest economy expanded 1.1 percent.
A survey of 37 economists conducted by the Japan Center for Economic Research, a think tank, had forecast an annualised expansion of 1.67 percent.
Private consumption was flat in real terms while capital expenditures fell 1.2 percent, or 4.6 percent on an annualised basis, offsetting strong exports, according to the data.
Muslim Terrorists Slaughter and Kidnap Dozens for ‘Not Practicing the True Teachings of Islam’ During Friday Prayer– gellerreport.com
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The silence by the international community is devastating just endless condemnation of the Jewish nation defneding itself against this very thing – jihad terror.
Jihadists slaughter and kidnap dozens of people for ‘not practicing the true teachings of Islam’ during Friday prayers in Nigeria
By Sabrina Penty, Daily Mail, August 23, 2026:
Jihadists have kidnapped and slaughtered scores of people in an attack during Friday prayers in central Nigeria.
The exact toll of the attacks, which also hit the village of Binzi in Niger State, was unknown, federal representative Jafaru Mohammed said.
Jibril Ahmad, a civilian who survived the attack, said: ‘Soon after finishing the normal Friday prayer, the armed group of Lakuwara, in their hundreds, wielding guns, knives and machetes, began to attack us.’
‘They slaughtered some of our people, saying we are not practising the true teachings of Islam,’ Ahmad added.
Some are understood to have escaped when another jihadist group, known as Mahmuda, started clashing with the militants.
PM says death of Jason Arday is ‘a tragedy on so many levels’ – The Independent
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Myanmar Junta Drone Strike Injures Farmer in Karenni State as Regime Targets Agriculture – Burma News International
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Moscow accuses London of complicity in Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia – Anadolu Ajansı
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South Korea Fires Warning Shots After North Korean Troops Cross the DMZ– www.reddit.com
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| submitted by /u/UNITED24Media [comments] |
Nigel Farage Wins Clacton election — While a Quarter of Voters Chose a Bin (Trashcan) * The Gateway Pundit * by Peter McIlvenna– www.thegatewaypundit.com
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Nigel Farage won the Clacton by-election. 63 per cent of the vote, more than 22,000 ballots. On the face of it, another clear win for ReformUK. Then you look at second place.
Count Binface — the bloke who campaigns with a metal bin on his head — got 27 per cent and 9,455 votes. More than a quarter of the entire turnout. In a seat that prides itself on being anti-establishment, one in four people looked at the ballot paper and decided the man in the rubbish bin was the best option available.
That’s not a funny anecdote. That’s the story.
The main parties didn’t even bother turning up. No Labour, no Conservatives, no Lib Dems, no Greens. The whole thing became Farage versus a joke candidate, with a few independents and tiny parties making up the numbers. Laurence Fox’s Reclaim managed 347 votes and limped home sixth. The Social Democratic Party candidate got 256 and finished seventh. Under 700 votes between them. That’s not a protest vote. That’s people not noticing you exist.
South Korea says Russian military planes entered its air defence zone– www.channelnewsasia.com
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SEOUL: South Korea said on Wednesday (Aug 25) it had scrambled fighter jets in response to Russian military aircraft entering its air defence zone, the second such incursion in weeks.
The relationship between the countries has worsened since South Korea joined Western sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and since Moscow built stronger ties with North Korea.
Seoul’s defence ministry said multiple Russian aircraft had entered and then left its air defence identification zone over the East Sea, also called the Sea of Japan.
“South Korea’s military detected the Russian aircraft before they entered the zone and deployed Air Force fighter jets to prepare for any contingency,” it said, without giving details.
The Russian aircraft did not violate South Korean airspace, it said.
Satellite Images Reveal Possible Cause Behind Devastating Nepal Flash Floods– www.ndtv.com
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In a preliminary satellite analysis, Planet Labs released images that reveal visual evidence of the destruction caused by floods in Nepal that killed at least 46.
Several others, including 108 Indians, are missing, as the flash flood hit Nepal on Wednesday, washing away villages and many project sites in a region bordering Tibet.
Nepal’s disaster authority (NDRRMA) described that a chunk of snow and rock broke off near the glacier zone on the Nepal-China border, about 20km northeast of the Rasuwagadhi border crossing.
That avalanche either fell into a glacial lake or blocked the river channel, and the resulting surge, carrying glacial ice, meltwater and debris — “glacier-inclusive flood” — swept down the Lhende Khola into the Bhote Koshi river.
Planet Labs को स्याटेलाइट तस्बिरको विश्लेषणका आधारमा गरिएको प्रारम्भिक अध्ययनबाट नेपाल-चीन रसुवागढी नाकाबाट करिब २० किलोमिटर उत्तरपूर्व नेपाल-चीन सिमानामा गएको हिम-चट्टान पहिरोका कारण ल्हेन्दे खोलामा गेग्य्रानसहितको बाढी आएको देखिएको छ। pic.twitter.com/kCAo9O1Zb0
— NDRRMA (@NDRRMA_Nepal) August 26, 2026
Push to oust US ambassador from Canada expands – and ‘51st state’ could take up the issue in fall– www.independent.co.uk
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Scores of people kidnapped from a mosque as armed groups attacked multiple villages in Nigeria– abcnews.com
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A number of people were kidnapped from a mosque in a spree of abductions at several villages in Nigeria ‘s north-central Niger state, police said Saturday.
The assailants attacked a mosque in Kpenya village after attacks in a string of villages in the remote Borgu Local Government Area of Niger state Friday, police spokesperson Wasiu Abiodun said.
Such attacks are common in Nigeria, where multiple armed groups operate, killing and kidnapping people for ransom. The groups sometimes clash in competition with each other. No group has claimed responsibility for the Friday attacks.
Abiodun did not provide figures but said no lives were lost in the Friday attacks, and said the military was deployed to the area. Residents said scores of people were abducted, with some estimating between 60 and 80 people were kidnapped. A search for survivors was underway Saturday.
Borgu area council chairman Abdullahi Mohammed Nasir said at least 60 people were kidnapped and an unspecified number of people sustained gunshot injuries while trying to escape the gunmen.
“People were abducted while praying at a Juma’at mosque on Friday,” Nasir said. “That was when the bad people came and surrounded the mosque and took them away.”
Zubairu Umar Talba, a youth leader in the Dekara area in Borgu, told The Associated Press that his 85-year-old father was among those who were taken. “Nobody can tell you the exact number of people abducted because, so far, about 80 of our people have been abducted and many have fled the area,” he said.
Russia, Ukraine working toward new large POW exchange — ombudswoman – Russian Politics & Diplomacy– tass.com
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MOSCOW, August 26. /TASS/. Russia and Ukraine are currently working to agree on lists for another “quite large” prisoner of war exchange, Russian human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova told TASS.
“We are preparing another quite large [POW] swap, with lists being agreed,” Lantratova said.
A previous major POW exchange took place on August 19 when Russia returned 103 servicemen from the Kiev-controlled territory and handed over 103 prisoners of war to Ukraine. The Pervy Informatsionny television channel of Belarus reported on August 24 that Russia and Ukraine carried out a ten-for-ten prisoner exchange in Belarus’s southeasternmost Gomel Region.
New Zealand becomes latest country to propose social media ban for children– www.independent.co.uk
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New Zealand was set to introduce legislation proposing a ban on social media for children under the age of 16, prime minister Christopher Luxon announced on Monday.
Under the plan, tech firms face penalties of up to 10 per cent of their global revenues if they fail to comply.
The proposed law would mandate that platforms implement reasonable age-verification measures, utilising digital identity documents, facial technology, and existing account data.