Politics

Leipzig Airport Drone Linked to GRU: August 26, 2026

A U.S. intelligence source told ABC News on Wednesday that the explosive drone found next to a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig/Halle airport earlier this month looked like the work of Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU. The explosives and the way the device was built were “typical” of GRU kit, the official said, in an assessment made with German agencies. The small drone, fitted with explosives and a detonator, was found on the tarmac on August 4 near an Antonov Airlines aircraft. It did not go off. The U.S. source said the trigger was disconnected.

Leipzig is a cargo and military logistics hub. The U.S. military and NATO allies use it to move weapons to Ukraine, which is the point. Investigators think the drone was meant to cripple aircraft on the ground, slow those shipments, and send Germany a message about backing Kyiv. Germany’s interior minister called a drone with explosives at an airport a “new threat scenario” that took a “high level of technical expertise.” Bomb disposal teams sent a robot onto the field. The airport shut down for hours.

German media reported Tuesday that the plot was larger than the first scare. Investigators found a third drone on August 14 in Kabelsketal, just west of the airport, with about 50 grams of a suspected military explosive, possibly hexogen. A second drone may have clipped a DHL cargo plane that had to abort its landing and divert to Hanover, with damage later found on the tail. In Kursdorf, north of the field, police found an antenna taped to a tree and scorched ground. An investigators’ report, as quoted by local media, said the perpetrators “may have had a far larger attack in mind than previously known to the public.”

Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking Tuesday before a cabinet meeting, still would not name a country. He said Germany had “increasingly become a target for hybrid attackers,” that agencies were “working intensively,” and that those behind it “will pay for this.” Findings would come “shortly.” Russia’s SVR accused German politicians and European media on Monday of blaming Moscow before the investigation had even produced preliminaries. Moscow has denied involvement. U.S. officials say Leipzig has seen multiple suspected Russian sabotage attempts, and 18 drone incidents have disrupted traffic there since January.

Sources: ABC News; The Guardian; Euronews.

Chile-Argentina Magellan Dispute: August 25, 2026

Chile is sending Argentina a formal protest note over comments by the head of the Argentine Air Force, and Buenos Aires spent Tuesday trying to put the treaties back in the window. Brigadier General Gustavo Javier Valverde, speaking Sunday on a YouTube podcast, said “Magellan, the south, the Drake, all of that is sovereignty” and that Argentina needed to “maintain a presence” there because the area is a “bioceanic key” between the Atlantic and the Pacific. He did not name Chile. Santiago heard a claim anyway.

Foreign Minister Francisco Pérez Mackenna, on an official visit to Vietnam, called Chilean sovereignty over the entire Strait of Magellan “indisputable” and grounded in the 1881 Boundary Treaty and the 1984 Treaty of Peace and Friendship. He told foreign officials to be careful with their words. Interior Minister Claudio Alvarado said there is “nothing to discuss.” Lawmakers from more than one party pushed for a protest note, arguing that silence can be read, under international law, as accepting someone else’s claim. A Magallanes deputy called it part of a pattern, not a one-off.

The legal file is not mysterious. The 1881 treaty recognized Chilean sovereignty over the strait and made it permanently neutralized, with free navigation for ships of all nations. The 1984 Vatican treaty, signed after the two countries nearly went to war over the Beagle Channel in 1978, confirmed the southern boundaries. The Drake Passage, further south, is international water between Cape Horn and Antarctica. Together, Magellan and Drake are the main alternative to Panama for ships moving between the oceans.

Argentina’s foreign ministry answered Tuesday without naming Valverde. Both treaties, it said, “remain fully in force and are considered definitive.” The statement then folded the far south into Argentina’s broader case on the Malvinas/Falklands, the South Atlantic, and Antarctica, and pivoted hard into cooperation: mutual recognition of Antarctic rights, joint protected areas, more than two decades of a Combined Antarctic Naval Patrol, and a joint marine protected-area proposal off the western Antarctic Peninsula. In 2025, Milei’s government had already told Chile in writing that a 2021 Argentine decree talking about “joint control” of the strait was a treaty error and would be replaced.

This is the first real diplomatic scrape between Milei and Chile’s President José Antonio Kast, who took office in March. The two men are politically close, and the countries share more than 5,000 kilometers of border. That is why Santiago reacted fast and why Buenos Aires was equally fast to cite the treaties. The Air Force chief still said what he said on tape. The protest note is meant to put Chile’s reading on the record before anyone pretends the comment was just colorful talk about the south.

Spain Ceuta Migrant Crisis: August 25, 2026

Madrid spent Tuesday trying to look like it is finally in charge of the Ceuta crisis. The cabinet declared the situation a matter of national security, put Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Víctor Torres in charge of a new “single command,” and moved to rewrite Spain’s asylum and immigration laws so they match the European Union’s Migration and Asylum Pact. The European Commission, in Brussels, confirmed it had received a formal Spanish request for emergency funding the day before and said it was treating the file as a priority.

The surge itself is almost a month old. At the end of July, tens of thousands of people crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish city on the North African coast with a population of about 84,000. Most swam around the border fence. Death tolls differ by source: Al Jazeera cited official figures of at least 90 dead on both sides of the border, while Ceuta’s mayor has spoken of at least 100. The vast majority of those who made it in were sent back to Morocco within hours. Several thousand remain, including unaccompanied children who cannot simply be deported.

Torres told reporters the priority is returning as many people as possible, adults and minors, while staying inside Spanish law and human-rights rules. Humanitarian help is supposed to continue for people who seek asylum and for children who cannot be sent back. Ceuta’s conservative local government has been complaining for weeks that identification and returns are too slow. An attempt to move hundreds of migrant children to mainland Spain has stalled in a three-way fight among the national government, the opposition, and the city.

The legal rewrite is bigger than Ceuta. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the point is an “orderly, efficient” system with guarantees. On paper, that means bringing Spanish law into line with the EU pact that took effect on June 12, including a new “screening” procedure at the border. Spain wants to cap the medical, biometric, and legal check on arrival at three days; EU rules allow up to seven. There would also be a two-speed asylum track meant to hurry cases labeled urgent. The same package will apply to the Canary Islands, where boat arrivals have been rising. Spain had earlier resisted large parts of the harder-line European approach.

Defence Minister Margarita Robles went to parliament and apologized to Ceuta’s residents for making them feel abandoned. She also said Spanish intelligence had flagged a possible crossing shortly before it happened. Grande-Marlaska appeared to disagree, saying there was no report hinting at what unfolded on July 30. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has blamed traffickers and social media, and has not given a full public accounting since he visited the city on July 31. Morocco’s justice minister last week spoke of a “historical and geographical right” to Ceuta and Melilla. Robles told the committee she would not let any foreign minister question those cities’ status as Spanish.

U.S. Asylum Visa Revocations: August 25, 2026

The Trump administration is preparing what would be the largest single mass visa revocation in U.S. history: pulling the business and tourist visas of foreigners who entered the country as short-term visitors and then applied for asylum. Associated Press reporting, based on State Department documents and two U.S. officials, puts the potential tally at up to 200,000 people. The State Department would not confirm that figure. Spokesman Tommy Pigott said the count will stay “dynamic” because the revocations are meant to roll out over time, not in one sweep.

The target is B-1 and B-2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are seeking it now. Those visas are for business trips, tourism, family visits, and medical care. Applicants already have to say they intend to go home and, more recently, that they will not apply for asylum. Pigott’s line is blunt: coming in as a visitor and then filing for asylum is, in the department’s view, fraud, and fraud is grounds to cancel a visa. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau made the same argument on social media Monday, calling asylum a “loophole” when it is used this way.

Revoking the visa is not the same as putting someone on a plane. Officials told AP that most people with pending asylum cases would be recategorized and lose their status as business or tourist travelers, but would not necessarily be deported on the spot. Immigration lawyers CNN spoke with said those people would, at a minimum, still be entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge. Their legal footing would rest entirely on the asylum claim. If that claim later fails, there would be no visitor visa left to fall back on.

The State Department is expected to announce the move in the coming weeks unless a court or a policy change gets in the way. It will work with the Department of Homeland Security to match visa records against asylum filings from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. That data-matching job is large, and legal challenges are widely expected. Unlike more than 175,000 visa cancellations the department has already logged since Trump returned to office — a tally it publicized earlier this month — this round is aimed at people who have not been accused of a crime.

It fits a second-term pattern: tighter screening at consulates, bonds, country-based visa pauses (one of which a federal judge struck down last week), and a long fight over birthright citizenship that the Supreme Court has already undercut. For governments whose citizens use B visas to reach the United States, the practical question is who gets caught in the net. The department has not published a nationality breakdown. Analysts note that many recent asylum claims come through the border, not through tourist stamps, so the people hit hardest may not match the overall asylum caseload.

Brazil Presidential Race: August 25, 2026

A new BTG/Nexus poll out Monday has Brazil’s October presidential race looking like a runoff from here. In a simulated second round, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has 46 percent and Senator Flávio Bolsonaro 45 percent — a one-point gap inside the survey’s two-point margin of error. Latin America’s largest electorate is, for now, split down the middle.

The first-round picture is clearer and still not decisive. Without influencer Pablo Marçal on the ballot, Lula is at 41 percent and Flávio at 37 percent. Former Goiás governor Ronaldo Caiado is on 5 percent; Renan Santos and Romeu Zema are on 3 percent each. Nobody is near 50 percent of valid votes, which is what Brazil requires to skip a second round. A runoff looks like the default, not a surprise.

Nexus interviewed 2,006 voters by phone from August 21 to 23 for Banco BTG Pactual. The survey is registered with the electoral court as BR-09028/2026. Week to week, the movement is small. Folha notes Lula had 47 percent to Flávio’s 44 percent in the previous runoff simulation; this round is 46–45. That is noise, not a reversal. The race was already tight. Monday’s numbers just refuse to loosen it.

Flávio is a senator and the son of former president Jair Bolsonaro. Lula is the incumbent. A second scenario that includes Marçal, who has registered a candidacy even as São Paulo’s regional electoral court has already declared him ineligible, drops Lula to 40 percent and Flávio to 34 percent, with Marçal at 4 percent. The national electoral court has already cut him off from public campaign funds, debates and free airtime. The pollsters ran the numbers anyway; the legal fight over whether he belongs on the ballot is still ahead.

One house poll is not a forecast, and October is still weeks away. What Monday’s numbers do is freeze the frame: the country’s two poles are close enough that turnout, the smaller candidates and a handful of undecided voters will matter more than any victory-lap speech. For Latin America’s largest economy, that is the story heading into the first round.

Sudan Arms Embargo: August 25, 2026

The United States asked the UN Security Council on Monday to stretch a two-decade arms embargo on Darfur across the whole of Sudan, and to write drones into the ban in so many words. President Donald Trump’s Africa envoy, Massad Boulos, told the council it had to cut off “external financial and military support to the parties, such as drones and related technologies.” The existing Darfur measures expire on September 12 unless the council renews or rewrites them.

The draft has four pieces: a country-wide embargo, an explicit drone clause, more experts on the sanctions-monitoring panel, and better sharing with other UN teams that track the asset freeze and travel ban. France backed expanding the embargo. Russia and China, both veto powers, did not. Sudan’s UN ambassador, Al-Harith Idriss Al-Harith Mohamed, called the plan a fundamental change, not a technical tweak, and said a wider sanctions net would “weaken the protection of civilians.” Khartoum wants a simple rollover of what is already on the books.

The timing is the war, not the calendar. Sudan’s conflict is in its fourth year, pitting the army against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The army holds much of the centre and east; the RSF is based in Darfur and also holds ground in the south. BBC reporting puts the toll in the tens of thousands dead and about 14 million people displaced. UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the council the true death count is “likely to be in the hundreds of thousands,” and that the UN had documented 1,100 civilian deaths from drone strikes between January and June alone.

Drones are the point of the American text. DiCarlo said both sides have hit markets, schools, fuel stations and water works. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said recent fighting has been “characterised by the heavy use of drones.” As the council met, the army was reported to have struck RSF positions around Nyala, a Darfur logistics hub, hours after a large cargo flight landed. Boulos said armed drones accounted for most recorded civilian deaths in the first half of this year.

Sudan’s military chief, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, was unimpressed. Speaking at a police graduation in Khartoum on Monday, he said talk of sanctions “will neither affect us nor weaken our resolve.” The council did not vote. With Russia and China opposed, a nationwide embargo is not a done deal. What Monday made plain is that the Darfur-only regime is running out of time, the weapons getting into Sudan are getting more sophisticated, and Washington wants the next resolution to match the war the country actually has.

Armenia’s EU Bid: August 25, 2026

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told parliament on Monday that Yerevan will start the work of formally applying to join the European Union “in the near future.” He was presenting the government’s 2026–2031 program. It is the clearest signal yet that a country long tied to Moscow intends to put a membership file on Brussels’ desk.

Pashinyan’s sequence is deliberate. Armenia’s National Assembly already passed a law in March 2025 launching an EU accession process. He argued a national referendum only makes sense later — after an official application, after Brussels answers, and after there is a roadmap people can actually judge. Apply first, he said. Then talk about the vote.

That puts Armenia on a collision course with the clubs it still belongs to on paper. It remains a member of the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation, though it froze participation in 2024 after arguing the alliance failed it during the wars with Azerbaijan. Pashinyan said Armenia has no plan to resume CSTO activity over the next five years and that he would be “very glad” if the organisation simply expelled Yerevan, which would spare his government the choice of walking out. For now, he is not filing the resignation papers.

Moscow answered the same day. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Armenia is free to leave the CSTO if it no longer wants the membership. On the EU application, he warned that aligning Armenian law with European trade, customs and phytosanitary rules would clash with Eurasian Economic Union standards and that those “deep contradictions” would “primarily harm Armenia itself.” He also told Yerevan to remember Turkey’s long, unfinished accession file.

The politics underneath are not new. Armenia still buys Russian energy and sits inside the EAEU. Four EAEU partners issued a joint statement in May pressing for a referendum that would force a choice between the EU and remaining in their bloc. Pashinyan called that a “friendly gesture” and said a referendum will happen — just not as the opening move. After last year’s peace process with Azerbaijan, he is betting that Brussels, not the CSTO, is the security and economic bet that matters.

None of this is membership. An application starts a slog that can last years, and Peskov’s Turkey reminder is the sort of line Brussels-watchers know too well. What changed this week is that Armenia’s prime minister stopped talking about the process in the abstract and put a timeline on the paperwork.

Canada-US Tariff War: August 25, 2026

Canada on Tuesday laid out a dollar-for-dollar counterstrike in its trade fight with the United States, announcing tariffs of up to 50 percent on billions of dollars of American goods after talks collapsed last week.

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne, joined by other cabinet ministers in Ottawa, said the measures would cover about C$28 billion worth of U.S. imports, or roughly $20 billion, and take effect September 8. Officials described the list as matching, product by product, the duties Washington imposed after Friday night’s breakdown. Steel and aluminum tariffs already in place will rise from 25 to 50 percent. Other U.S. goods, including furniture, clothing, honey, makeup, paper and smartphones, face 50 percent. Appliances, seafood and cheese are among items at 25 percent. A shorter list, including air conditioners and some machinery, is at 15 percent. Energy and potash were left off. Ottawa also announced a C$7.5 billion package of supports for workers and firms, including temporary employment-insurance changes.

The U.S. tariffs, imposed under a Depression-era statute after negotiators failed to close a deal, hit a range of Canadian exports at 50 percent. Prime Minister Mark Carney had already promised a reciprocal response. Champagne said the American terms were “uneconomic, unfair, and ultimately unacceptable,” and that they would have “real consequences for Canadian workers, businesses and communities.” “Canada must respond,” he said.

The White House said the United States had been prepared to offer Canada “the most preferential market access of any country on Earth,” and accused Ottawa of unreasonable demands. Trump, posting on Truth Social, called Canada “the most difficult and unreasonable” country he deals with and floated renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America.” He has also threatened to raise U.S. tariffs on Canadian automobiles to 50 percent as of January 1. Carney has accused Trump of trying to destroy Canadian auto, steel and aluminum industries.

The fight puts more strain on the North American trade pact among Canada, the United States and Mexico. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sent her economy secretary to Washington after the Canada talks fell apart. Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who called Trump a “loser” on Monday, told CNN on Tuesday that things “got a little heated” but that he still wants a deal. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre asked Carney to recall Parliament and release the rejected draft. Business groups warned that both the tariffs and the support programs will be messy for companies to navigate.

Syria Off the US Terrorism List: August 25, 2026

The United States has taken Syria off its list of state sponsors of terrorism after 47 years, a step Washington billed as clearing the last major barrier to private investment and Damascus treated, into Tuesday, as a historic break with isolation.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday’s decision recognized “positive actions” and further commitments by President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government to distance Syria from international terrorism. Rubio said it “eliminates the final major barriers for private sector investment in Syria” and gives Syrians “a path to prosperity.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the move would help foster investment and political and economic stability, in line with President Donald Trump’s promise of sanctions relief. The designation, in place since 1979, carried restrictions on U.S. aid, defense sales, dual-use goods and financial transactions. It had remained a deterrent for banks even after Washington dismantled much of its broader Syria sanctions program.

Washington also revoked the remaining U.S. terrorist designation of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front. HTS, once al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, broke with that network in 2016 and led the late-2024 offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad. Sharaa, its former leader, now heads the transitional government. He once carried an American bounty. The Trump administration has embraced him, including a White House visit last year, as part of an effort to pull Syria away from Russia and Iran. Cuba, North Korea and Iran are now the only countries left on the state sponsors list.

The delisting took effect after a 45-day congressional review that began when Trump notified Congress on July 8. Syrian officials spent Tuesday talking as if a door had opened. Sharaa said Syria was shaking off “a dark stain” and tearing away “a painful chapter of its past.” Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani called it a historic step and said the old designation was “associated with the policies and practices of the former regime.” Turkey and Saudi Arabia both welcomed the decision, with Ankara calling it one of the biggest obstacles to reconstruction.

The risks are still obvious. Syria is far from secure, lacks a representative government, and sits in the middle of growing tension between Israel and Turkey. The Treasury stressed that lifting the listing does not change its posture on countering terrorism or holding bad actors in Syria accountable. Whether banks and investors actually come back will depend on what happens next, not just on a line disappearing from a U.S. list.

Strait of Hormuz: August 25, 2026

The Strait of Hormuz was still the hinge of a six-month war on Tuesday, even as Iran and Oman talked up a temporary shipping corridor and Washington claimed the U.S. Navy had already cleared mines from international waters. None of that, Tehran said, meant the strait was open.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Oman’s Badr al-Busaidi, meeting in Tehran, said they had discussed a phased framework that would include a joint temporary navigational corridor and a joint project to clear mines. They also said technical talks would continue toward a more permanent corridor and “future administration” of the waterway, plus traffic management and security services. Iran’s deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, was blunt about the limits. He said Hormuz remains closed and under Iranian control, dismissed reports of ships passing through as “baseless,” and argued that the Oman talks do not amount to a reopening. He described a proposed temporary route about seven miles wide, with the entry and part of the exit running through Iranian territorial waters.

President Donald Trump, posting on Truth Social, said the Navy had removed or detonated all mines in international waters of the strait and warned that any vessel placing new mines would be “immediately and systematically destroyed.” Maritime authorities were less categorical. The Joint Maritime Information Center said Tuesday there was still a continued risk of drifting or uncharted mines, with mine danger areas still active, and kept its threat assessment at severe.

The scramble sat on top of a new U.S. economic campaign. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday launched what he called Operation Economic Outcast, an “economic D-Day” meant to cut off Iran’s remaining financial lifelines. The Treasury sanctioned nearly 60 people, entities and vessels and expanded the kinds of Iran-related activity that could face secondary sanctions, covering digital assets, technology, gold, aviation and shipping. Bessent warned countries still doing business with Tehran, but he stopped short of naming targets or imposing the harshest penalties, asking why he would want to “blow up the global financial system.” Chinese banks, long suspected of handling Iranian oil trade, were not on the list.

Iran’s economy minister, Ali Madanizadeh, called the measures an “economic terrorist attack” and said Washington should “expect an attack” in return, without saying what that would look like. China, Iran’s biggest oil customer in recent years, said it opposed “illegal unilateral sanctions” and would protect its own interests. Pakistan, which has been trying to mediate, said a visiting delegation led by army chief Asim Munir made “significant progress” in talks with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian focused on de-escalation and reopening the strait.

Before the war, which began in late February after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, Hormuz carried about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas. Shipping data showed just two commodity vessels transiting on Monday, the lowest daily tally since early May. The International Maritime Organization has confirmed 68 incidents in the Gulf and nearby waters over six months. Oil prices, which had jumped through much of August, steadied on Tuesday.

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