World News

DR Congo Ceasefire Mission: August 25, 2026

A ceasefire verification team is now on the ground in eastern Congo, which is the closest this long war has come in months to anyone checking the truce instead of just announcing one. The group arrived Monday in Minembwe, in South Kivu, on two MONUSCO helicopters. It includes Congolese government and M23 representatives plus military observers from International Conference on the Great Lakes Region states. The job is to document alleged ceasefire violations. South Kivu’s governor said the mission is also supposed to go to Uvira and Kalehe.

The deployment follows a roadmap Congolese officials and the Rwanda-backed AFC/M23 agreed after closed-door talks in Switzerland from August 17 to 21. Switzerland announced the deal on Sunday. It is not a full peace treaty. It sets sequenced steps and timelines under the Doha framework from last year and creates a body to review whether those commitments are actually being kept. The United States, Qatar, Togo, Switzerland, and the African Union Commission were in the room. Fighting in North and South Kivu has continued through previous ceasefires, and it has not stopped around Minembwe.

Kinshasa used Monday to pile on accusations. The government said M23 had killed more than 300 people in June and July in areas it controls, through alleged summary executions, massacres, and bombings. Those figures come from the Congolese state, not from an independent count. M23, for its part, accused government forces of an artillery attack on a village near Minembwe. Both sides have a habit of trading unverifiable claims. Access for journalists and aid groups around Minembwe has been poor for months.

Rwanda’s president made the regional problem explicit. At a Kigali news conference, Paul Kagame again tied any Rwandan role in eastern Congo to the FDLR, a Rwandan Hutu armed group that Kigali says Kinshasa arms and even folds into its own forces. “If this problem is not resolved, it is natural for Rwanda to remain involved,” he said. He told reporters Rwanda would protect itself “without fear, day or night.” Rwanda denies backing M23, despite a long record of U.N. and research reporting that says otherwise. Congo denies supporting the FDLR.

There is a paper peace architecture: a U.S.-brokered Rwanda–DRC deal signed in Washington in 2025, and a Doha track between Kinshasa and M23. The new Swiss roadmap is an attempt to make those documents do something on the ground. Analysts talking to DW were careful. Signing is easy. Implementation is the hard part, especially while M23 still holds large parts of the Kivus and while Kigali’s “buy-in” remains the unstated condition. For displaced Congolese, the test is simpler than the communiqués: whether it gets safer to go home.

World Brief, Evening: August 25, 2026

World Brief, Evening: August 25, 2026

1. Iran/Oman — A Hormuz corridor inches forward, while the sanctions fight gets louder. Iranian and Omani foreign ministers discussed a temporary joint navigation corridor and mine-clearing work in the Strait of Hormuz, though Tehran says the strait is not fully reopening. Iran also vowed to resist expanded U.S. sanctions, while Washington stopped short of immediately targeting the biggest foreign banks tied to Iranian trade.

2. Ukraine — Kyiv says a short peace proposal is ready for Moscow. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine, the United States and European partners have drafted a one-page set of ideas that includes a ceasefire and a proposed third-party-administered free economic zone in the Donbas. He described the period through next summer as the main window for U.S. mediation before the 2027 presidential campaign complicates diplomacy.

3. Russia — Putin opens the door to state takeovers after Ukrainian drone strikes. A new decree allows the government to temporarily take control of critical infrastructure when private owners fail to protect or repair it. Ukraine said it struck the Afipsky and Novoshakhtinsk oil refineries overnight, the latest pressure on Russia’s energy network.

4. Gaza — New strikes hit civilians and aid supplies as news organizations renew an accountability demand. Local medical sources said Israeli strikes killed at least seven Palestinians, while Medical Aid for Palestinians said an overnight attack destroyed a warehouse holding nutrition supplies for children and mothers. Separately, AP and Reuters again called for a full Israeli explanation one year after the double strike on Nasser Hospital killed 22 Palestinians, including journalists and rescue workers.

5. Haiti — The scale of the Kenscoff gang attack grew clearer. The United Nations said at least 47 people were killed and more than 50 kidnapped in the raid outside Port-au-Prince; 22 victims were reportedly executed in a church compound where they had sought shelter. Residents are demanding stronger protection after one of Haiti’s largest mass kidnappings in recent years.

6. Canada/United States — Ottawa answered Washington’s tariff escalation. Canada announced retaliatory duties on about $20 billion in U.S. goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment, after the United States imposed 50% tariffs on Canadian goods over the weekend. The new Canadian tariffs are due to take effect September 8, with trade talks still broken down.

7. Syria/United States — Washington formally ended Syria’s terrorism-list designation. The United States removed Syria from the state-sponsors-of-terrorism list after 47 years, lifting a major barrier to investment and wider economic reintegration. It is a consequential opening for President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s government, but Syria remains politically fragile and caught between competing regional powers.

8. South China Sea — Satellite images point to another step in China’s military buildup. New installations have appeared on Yagong Island near Antelope Reef in the disputed Paracel Islands, according to imagery reviewed by Reuters. Analysts said the work may be an early-warning radar or observation post linked to what they believe could become China’s largest base in the area, though Beijing describes nearby construction in civilian terms.

9. Global oceans — Sea-surface temperatures set an unusual August record. The EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service said the global average reached 21.1 degrees Celsius on Friday and Saturday, edging past the March 2024 record. The timing is especially worrying because ocean temperatures normally peak in March or April, with an intensifying El Niño now adding to long-term human-driven warming.

10. Zambia — Court closures clouded the deadline for challenging the presidential election. Courts in Lusaka and elsewhere were sealed for what authorities called security reasons on the final day opposition candidate Brian Mundubile could challenge President Hakainde Hichilema’s reelection. The Law Association of Zambia raised concerns about access to justice, while Mundubile alleged irregularities in the vote.

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.

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.

Antarctic Krill Fishery Closes Months Early: August 12, 2026

The Antarctic krill season is already over, and it is only August.

On August 12 the fishery in the Southern Ocean’s Area 48 hit its 620,000-metric-ton “trigger level” and closed, more than three months before the usual November end date. It is the second year in a row the cap has been reached that early. In 2025 the fishery shut on August 1. Scientists attending the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research meeting in Oslo, held August 10–14, confirmed the 2026 closure.

Krill look like small shrimp and sit at the base of the Antarctic food web. Penguins, seals, whales, seabirds, fish, and squid all depend on them. Commercial boats catch them for aquaculture feed, pet food, and omega-3 supplements. The 620,000-ton limit, set by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) in 1991, was meant as a precaution. A later rule split that catch across four sub-areas so boats would not vacuum the same productive pockets year after year. That spatial measure expired in 2024 and has not been replaced.

Without those regional caps, the fleet has crowded into the richest water: the Bransfield and Gerlache straits off the Antarctic Peninsula and northwest of the South Orkney Islands, according to Global Fishing Watch tracking cited by researchers. Simeon Hill of the British Antarctic Survey told Mongabay the 620,000-ton limit is considered to have “minimal consequences” only if catches are not concentrated in penguin foraging grounds. “We are now seeing unprecedented levels of catch concentration,” he said.

The industry argues the early closure proves the system works: when the trigger is hit, boats stop. Norwegian company Aker QRILL, a major harvester, has left the grounds. Norway and China take the bulk of the catch. Conservation groups and several scientists want binding spatial limits restored when CCAMLR meets in October, along with a marine protected area proposed by Argentina and Chile that has sat without consensus for years.

Colombia Orders Deportation of Irregular Migrants: August 24, 2026

Colombia’s new president has told migration officers to start deporting people without regular status, ending — at least in rhetoric — more than a decade in which Bogotá was the main host for Venezuelans fleeing crisis next door.

Abelardo de la Espriella, in office since August 7, gave the order at a Sunday security council in Barranquilla, the government’s alternate seat. A leaked video of the meeting circulated Monday. “The order to Migration is clear: first those committing crimes, second those who have not regularised their status, who in due course will have to be deported,” he said. He added: “I will not accept illegal migration. First Colombians, second Colombians and third Colombians.”

Joint operations by Migración Colombia and the police are supposed to begin this week. The president said the decision is both political and administrative, and that he will “assume” the cost. It is a sharp turn from the Temporary Protection Statute created by decree in March 2021, which offered a free permit and made Colombia an international reference point for regularization. Colombia took in almost a third of the 7.8 million people who have left Venezuela since 2015, under governments of different political stripes.

The numbers in play are large and disputed. The UN refugee agency estimated about three million Venezuelans living in Colombia in 2025. Migración Colombia data from January, cited by La Silla Vacía, put roughly 82 percent of Venezuelan migrants in regular status and close to 500,000 without it. The Venezuela Observatory at Universidad del Rosario has put the irregular figure higher, at 848,000, including 193,000 minors.

Critics moved quickly. Researcher Ronal Rodríguez said a person in irregular status is not a criminal. Congresswoman María Fernanda Carrascal of the Pacto Histórico called the measure “an affront to human rights.” Academic Andrés Sampayo has estimated Venezuelan migrants’ contribution to the Colombian economy at around $3 billion a year in consumption, taxes, and entrepreneurship. Any mass return would also require cooperation from Venezuela, which shares a 2,219-kilometer land border and is in a U.S.-backed political transition under acting president Delcy Rodríguez.

Allies Meet in Kyiv on Ukraine Independence Day: August 24, 2026

Ukraine marked 35 years of independence on Monday with European allies in Kyiv — and with a blunt request for more air defense.

The Coalition of the Willing met in the capital, co-chaired by UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who was in the city on his first foreign trip since taking office last month, and by French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who joined by video. European Council President Antonio Costa attended in person. The gathering followed a Nordic and Baltic visit on Flag Day a day earlier, when Norway said it would provide another 85 billion kroner (about $9.1 billion) in 2027, matching this year’s support.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used the meeting to put numbers on a shortage Kyiv has usually kept quiet. Ukraine received 675 Patriot interceptor missiles in 2023 and 364 in 2025, he said, even as Russian strikes increased. The projection for 2026 is 264. He said Ukraine needs a package of at least 300 interceptors to get through winter, and he cited a $27 billion defense funding gap this year.

Britain announced it would share classified technical information on UK-made parts of the Franco-British SCALP / Storm Shadow cruise missile, a step toward assembling the weapon in Ukraine. France has already licensed the technology. In a co-chairs’ statement, the coalition pledged to strengthen Ukraine’s air defenses “as a matter of urgent priority,” share relevant technologies, tighten sanctions, and keep preparing a multinational force to deploy after a credible ceasefire.

The Kremlin was not impressed. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said London was “throwing oil on the fire” and warned Russia would destroy plants producing the missile in Ukraine. Burnham, standing with Zelenskyy, said: “We are with you in this struggle all the way, heart and soul.” Zelenskyy, in an embroidered shirt, told the country and its guests that Ukraine wants peace but “is not ready to simply surrender.”

The diplomacy played out against another weekend of strikes. Regional officials said a Russian drone hit an electric train in the Kharkiv region on Sunday, killing two women; another attack on the outskirts of Kharkiv killed three. The Élysée statement said recent Russian attacks have caused the highest civilian casualties since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.

Typhoon Narra Floods Vietnam and Southern China: August 24, 2026

Typhoon Narra never needed to come ashore to do damage. By Monday it was stalling over the Beibu Gulf — the Gulf of Tonkin — dumping days of rain on northern Vietnam and China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

China relocated about 54,000 people, including 8,087 moved into emergency shelters, state broadcaster CCTV said. Fifteen rivers rose past warning levels. Video from Chongzuo showed brown floodwater covering roads and low-rise buildings; rescuers in rubber boots used boats to pull people out of Ningming county. Beijing activated a Level IV national emergency response, the lowest of four tiers, and sent a working group to Guangxi. More heavy rain is forecast through Wednesday for Guangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, and Fujian.

In Vietnam, days of rain killed one person — a resident of Thai Binh commune in Lang Son province, whose home was hit by a landslide, according to the Vietnam Disaster and Dyke Management Authority. More than 4,300 households were displaced. Lang Son and Cao Bang recorded 236 to 300 millimeters of rain in the 24 hours to Monday morning. Flooding reached Quang Ninh, home to Ha Long Bay, disrupting tourism, fishing, and transport. Authorities said the storm cut power to nearly 55,000 families and destroyed more than 10,000 hectares of rice and other crops.

Forecasters described Narra, Vietnam’s Storm No. 4 and China’s 19th typhoon of the year, as lingering offshore rather than slamming the coast on Monday. Some Vietnamese forecasts still expected it to drift toward southern Guangxi later in the week and weaken. Either way, the rain was already the story: saturated hills, swollen rivers, and a stretch of the Sino-Vietnamese border on flood watch at the same time.

Mass Mosque Abduction in Nigeria: August 24, 2026

A video circulating since Sunday appears to show hundreds of people — many of them women, children, and older men — sitting in a forested clearing, ringed by armed men. The footage, posted on Facebook and WhatsApp, is being linked to a Friday raid on mosques in Nigeria’s north-central Niger state.

Gunmen struck during Jumu’at prayers on August 21 in Dekara (also reported as Dekera) and nearby communities in Borgu Local Government Area, including Kpenya, Sabon-Gida, and Gidan-Zana. Residents described simultaneous attacks on several villages and mosques. The Niger State Police Command confirmed the raid and said it happened around 2 p.m. Police have not verified a headcount. Local residents and some international reports have put the number taken as high as 500 to 600; officers say they still cannot confirm how many people were abducted.

In the video, children can be heard crying. A gunman speaking Hausa told families to look for relatives. “These are all your people,” he said, according to footage quoted by Al Jazeera and Reuters. Residents, including Abdulmutallib Muqaddas Dindi, told reporters they recognized elders, wives, and children among the captives. News agencies said they could not independently verify where or when the video was filmed, though no earlier copy has turned up online.

Niger State Information Commissioner Obed Nuhu Nana said Governor Mohammed Umaru Bago has ordered a joint rescue operation to “assess the situation, track the attackers, and facilitate the rescue of the abducted worshippers.” Police spokesperson SP Wasiu Abiodun said no lives were lost in the attack itself. Some residents have since claimed later deaths and said hundreds of people have fled across the border into Benin Republic; those claims have not been independently confirmed.

Mass kidnapping for ransom has become a grinding crisis across northwestern and north-central Nigeria. Armed gangs raid villages, schools, and highways and hold people until families or communities pay. The latest attack lands as President Bola Tinubu prepares for a presidential election in January, with security already a central campaign issue. Amnesty International has urged Nigerian authorities to secure the worshippers’ release.

El Salvador Going to Bitcoin Is Bad For the Dollar: June 12, 2021

El Salvador Going to Bitcoin

El Salvadors experiment to legitimize the use of bitcoin will be a first for cryptocurrencies as the revolution in crypto continues to shake economics with uncharted territory. I believe this may be bad for the US dollar as more countries follow in El Salvadors lead it may lead to an exodus of the US Dollar as the worlds reserve currency.

Currently, the United States dollar is the worlds reserve currency but if this falls and everyone starts to ditch dollars this will be very bad for inflation here in the United States. Inflation is already taking off at high rates and Deutsche Bank has issued a warning for the coming inflation. If many countries follow El Salvadors lead in using cryptocurrencies instead of the US Dollar as a hedge against loss of value for their money, they would mean that inflation will be even worse than predicted.

Analysis and Precaution

The author of this article is not a financial advisor, for advice, please seek out a qualified financial advisor. That being said in case of inflation there are a few hedges against a wave of inflation that one can take should inflation take off.

There are assets which may hedge against inflation such as real estate, gold, cryptocurrencies or other hard assets.

World News

El Salvador Going to Bitcoin

Analysis and Precaution

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