🇨🇳⚡- Family photo from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization 2025 in Tianjin, China.

Iran's Pezeshkian is notably absent, allegedly for arriving late to the summit.

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🇮🇱❌🇸🇦 — US envoy Barack:

Israel no longer recognizes the "Sykes-Picot" borders and they will go wherever they want whenever they want.

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🇯🇵 On August 29, Japan's Ministry of Defense announced the deployment locations of improved Type 12 surface-to-ship missiles, as well as their Hyper Velocity Glide Projectiles (HVGP).

Below is a TSM map showcasing those locations and the maximum range of those missiles.

Prior version of the map had incorrect technical ranges and did not display the HVGP Block II.

🔗 Taiwan Security Monitor

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🇺🇸🇨🇳 A Chinese engineer hired by Elon Musk uploaded xAI’s entire codebase to OpenAI, then left the company and sold $7 million worth of stock.

According to Musk, Xuechen Li took a job offer at OpenAI before uploading the code.

🔗 AF Post

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🇦🇺🇦🇺🔥📹 — Thousands attend "March for Australia" rallies in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and cities nationwide to protest mass immigration and the Left-wing Govenrment of Anthony Albanese

🔗 Australians vs. The Agenda (@ausvstheagenda)

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🇷🇺🇺🇦 Russia is finalizing its strategic regrouping.

Having redeployed forces from Sumy and Kherson, its offensive will likely enter a new phase soon.

The 155th and 40th Marine Brigades are already in Donetsk, with the 177th Regiment likely in tow.

Their most probable attack vector is toward Dobropillya - Druzhkivka.

Airborne forces - most likely the 11th VDV Brigade and elements of the 76th VDV Division - were also spotted nearby after urgent transfers to 'the hottest direction.'

Their exact axis of attack remains unclear.

Lastly, the 70th Motor Rifle Division (18th Army) is currently transferring from Kherson to Bakhmut due to 'urgent reinforcement needs.'

Their task may involve increasing pressure on either Kostiantynivka or Siversk.

🔗 Unit Observer

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🇺🇸🇪🇺🇷🇺 Scoop: White House believes Europe is secretly sabotaging peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine

Senior White House officials believe some European leaders are publicly supporting President Trump's effort to end the war in Ukraine, while quietly trying to undo behind-the-scenes progress since the Alaska summit, Axios has learned.

Two weeks after the summit between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, there has been little clear progress toward ending the war. Frustrated Trump aides contend the blame should fall on European allies, not on Trump or even Russian President Vladimir Putin.

White House officials are losing patience with European leaders, whom they claim are pushing Ukraine to hold out for unrealistic territorial concessions by Russia.

Axios has learned that the sanctions the U.S. is urging Europe to adopt against Russia include a complete cessation of all oil and gas purchases — plus secondary tariffs from the EU on India and China, similar to those already imposed on India by the U.S.

"The Europeans don't get to prolong this war and backdoor unreasonable expectations, while also expecting America to bear the cost," a top White House official told Axios. "If Europe wants to escalate this war, that will be up to them. But they will be hopelessly snatching defeat from the jaws of victory."

The Europeans are said to be pushing Zelensky to hold out for a "better deal" — a maximalist approach that has exacerbated the war, Trump's inner circle argues.

"Perhaps both sides of this war are not ready to end it themselves. The president wants it to end, but the leaders of these two countries need it to end and must want it to end as well," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.

A senior White House official told Axios that Trump is seriously considering stepping back from the diplomatic efforts until one or both parties begin to show more flexibility.

Some U.S. officials have begun to see European leaders as a major obstacle, despite the fact that Trump held a friendly meeting with them and Zelensky less than two weeks ago.

🔗 https://archive.ph/DICWL

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🇷🇺🇺🇦 The capture of Novoselovka, Dnepropetrovsk Oblast, should be worrisome for the Ukrainians

Russia is trying to repeat the success of the breakthrough north of Pokrovsk by attacking in a sector of the front which hasn't been fortified properly by Ukraine.

The Russians had already conquered part of the Zaporozhzhia defensive line in the middle of June 2025 when they reached the town of Komar in the western part of Donetsk Oblast. They haven't exploited this breakthrough because the goal wasn't to push into Dnepropetrovsk, the goal always was conquering the Donetsk and Lugansk Oblasts first and then maybe conquer additional land.

Now that the southern-half of the Donetsk oblast was fully conquered and with the Ukrainians still refusing to make territorial concessions, the Russian command is now beginning to exploit their breakthrough.

There is a narrow 9 km/ 6 mile gap between the hamlet of Lesnoe and the village of Ternovoe which has no fortifications. The trench systems of the Zaporozhzhia defensive line are immediately north of Ternovoe and are facing southward but the Russians are threatening the village from the east.

Novoselovka is right between Lesnoe and Ternovoe. The hamlet of Voronoe was taken two days ago and there have been reports of Russian DRGs in Sosnovka, as far back as two weeks ago.

This gap, opens the road to the city of Pokrovskoye and if Pokrovskoye falls, the Russians have the possibility to envelop the remainder of the Zaporozhzhia line who has been holding since April 2022 with the frontlines virtually unchanged since or push further into central Ukraine and attack towards Pavlograd or push west towards Zaporozhzhia City and even the city of Dnepro/Dnepropetrovsk.

Recent developments on this front say that the Russians captured two more villages in this sector, the village of Komyshuvakha who was at risk of being encircled and even the village of Ternovoe.

@CIG_telegram

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🇺🇸🤝🇹🇼 U.S. Officials landing in Taipei, Taiwan.

It's very odd and considered a major provocation by China.

BOXER44 • US Air Force ✈️ C-40 Clipper reg 02-0202

🔗 MenchOSINT

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🇬🇧 There is a great retrospective in the WSJ today on how the UK's post-Brexit experiment with big increases in legal immigration went wrong.

Their mistakes yield some important policy lessons for supporters *and* critics of skilled immigration. Let's dive in:

(tl;dr: What was intended to be a skilled immigration surge made the catastrophic mistake of setting visa criteria based on college degrees and workers filling so-called "labor shortages," ultimately leading instead to a surge in low-skilled, rather than high-skilled, immigration.)

Post-pandemic Britain dramatically increased net migration, shifting away from the EU and towards migrants from outside Europe.

Visa issuance went up across the board: work visas, study visas, and particularly dependent visas.

The plan was initially supposed to be a limited, targeted, skilled immigration surge. The UK, post-Brexit, would be free to go out and attract top talent from anywhere. But things went wrong quickly. What constituted "skilled" work included roofers (!) alongside business executives.

The system was then blown apart by businesses claiming "labor shortages." Rather than raise pay, businesses appealed for special carve-outs in areas like construction. Basing their visa programs on filling so-called shortages invited this kind of lobbying. Nobody agrees on what a labor shortage actually means. The UK has a technocratic body meant to identify them, but it's ultimately just vibes and raw interest group battles all the way down.

Next, the UK rubber-stamped visas for students and their dependents regardless of the quality of the program or school in which they enrolled. There was a subsequent explosion in low-quality degree programs catering to foreign students (and their dependents) to take advantage of this option.

🔗 Connor O'Brien

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🇫🇷 44% of the new debt France acquired after 2017 was spent funding the French welfare system, mostly retirement pensions.

@CIG_telegram

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🇮🇩 Mass protests have erupted in Indonesia, with hundreds of students and workers marching through Jakarta demanding higher wages, lower taxes, and fairer economic conditions.

The movement, initially led by labour unions and students, escalated after security forces used extreme force, firing rubber bullets at close range, beating demonstrators, and even ramming a police vehicle into crowds, according to witnesses and circulating videos.

🔗 OSINTWarfare (@OSINTWarfare)

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🇺🇸 Thanks to tariffs (esp re: Canada), US aluminium prices are now roughly 50% higher than in Europe & Japan, thus putting US manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage.

The demand for aluminium in the U.S. is too much for the aluminium manufacturing capabilities. Steel is in a similar position.

🔗 Scott Lincicome

📎 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-08-28/tariffs-turn-aluminum-maker-rio-tinto-into-buyer-in-us-market

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🇺🇸⚖️ DOJ drops charges against another client of AG Pam Bondi's brother Brad

For the second time in less than a month, the Justice Department on Wednesday abruptly dropped charges against a client represented by Brad Bondi, the brother of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Federal prosecutors in Missouri this week agreed to voluntarily dismiss an indictment against Sid Chakraverty, a property developer who faced felony wire fraud charges. Prosecutors under the Biden administration accused Chakraverty in 2024 of lying about hiring women- and minority-owned subcontractors on a housing development in order to allegedly secure favorable tax incentives.

As recently as three weeks ago, career prosecutors held that Chakraverty should face criminal penalties for his alleged scheme.

But on Wednesday, the newly installed U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Thomas Albus, a Trump appointee, filed court papers informing the judge overseeing the case that the "defendants have agreed to make restitution of the taxes" and that it is therefore "prudent for the government to end this criminal prosecution."

In his letter to the judge, Albus explained that the decision to drop charges was part of a department-wide directive to no longer prosecute cases against those accused of violating "race- and sex-based presumptions like the [disadvantaged business enterprise] program" in St. Louis.

🔗 https://abcnews.go.com/US/doj-drops-charges-client-ag-pam-bondis-brother/story?id=125073335&cid=social_twitter_abcn

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‼️🇹🇷 ❌ 🇮🇱 - Is Turkey moving from symbolic protest against Israel to actual sanctions & preparation for long-term rivalry?

Ankara is now reportedly even building nationwide bomb shelters—something many in Iran criticized their own govt for neglecting when war broke out with Israel.

🔗 Sina Toosi

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🇨🇳🇷🇺🇮🇳⚡- Shanghai Cooperation Organization 2025 summit, Tianjin, China.

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🇫🇷 New Parliamentary election poll shows Macron's party, Renaissance, at 13% in the polls or 100 seats out of 577.

Renaissance and the other allied parties have 159 seats in the French Parliament currently.

National Rally of Marine Le Pen and The Union of the Right for the Republic led by Eric Ciotti, are polling at an all time high of 31%.

Leftist parties like the Socialist Party, Ecologists, La France Insoumise collectively poll at 26%.

With the toppling of the Bayrou cabinet imminent, it is unlikely that Macron will call for another snap election as it won't be possible to form another minority government like the Barnier and Bayrou cabinets if Renaissance gets just 100 seats.

Macron has two terrible options: try and form a 3rd minority cabinet with the center-right and left, which will fail like the previous two or trigger the dictatorial powers provided by art. 16 of the French Constitution.

These dictatorial powers come under review every 60 days by Parliament who can withdraw them and if Macron refuses, he will be ousted.

Emmanuel Macron being ousted before his term ends in 2027 looks ever more so certain.

@CIG_telegram

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🇾🇪 Houthi-run media channels have now confirmed the death of Prime Minister Ahmed al-Rahawi as well as several other unnamed ministers who were part of the Houthi Political Council, as a result of a series of targeted strikes by the Israeli Air Force against the Yemeni capital of Sana’a on Thursday.

In addition, an untold number of ministers and other senior officials were injured in the strikes, which reportedly targeted them while they were participating in a “routine workshop” for the civilian government held virtually by Houthi Leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi.

🔗 OSINTdefender

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⛵️ The NGO vessel Open Arms has restarted its taxi service for human traffickers by sailing toward Libya and Tunisia to pick up illegals migrants just off the coast and then take them to Italy.

Mass-immigration to Europe continues

🔗 Visegrad24

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🇦🇺🛂📹 — Australian media reports that Hundreds of Australian citizens took part in Canberra of an Anti-immigration rally

🇦🇺 Protesters carrying Australian flags, including the Eureka Flag were seen at the event

A smaller counter-rally was kept separate by police

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🇪🇺⚔️🇷🇺 How does the EU plan to defend against a possible Russian invasion?

Build a competent war industry and field large armies? No. The EU will turn the continent into one giant bog.

European countries have dried up their bogs and swamps centuries ago to make room for the expansions of farms and cities. Now the EU is preparing to literally destroy human settlements in order to "revive" these bogs.

Another reason the EU is supportive of this plan to revive the continent's long gone swamps is that it will "combat" climate change! Bogs are very good for "carbon retention".

Even POLITICO's authors recognise this plan as an "act of desperation" after the EU failed to kickstart its defense industry, three and a half years after war broke out, a war which Russia had been building up for since 2008 and refuses to negotiate with Russia, clinging on to its international law, except when Israel is involved.

@CIG_telegram

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🇯🇵❌🌍⚫ — An Anti-immigration protest erupted in Midosuji, Central Osaka as the controversy regarding the Prime-Minister Shingeru Ishiba's plan to bring dozens of thosaunds of overseas exchange students and workers from Africa under the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

🔗 湯浅忠雄 YUASA TADAO (@GrwaNnKqMn5nG68)

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🇺🇸Pete Hegseth on X: Hostile drones are growing by the day.

That’s why I’ve directed the Secretary of the Army to establish the Joint Interagency Task Force 401 to secure our skies.

🔗 SecDef

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🇺🇸❌🇵🇸❗️ — Axios also reports that the U.S. State Department has denied visas to Palestinian officials for the September UN General Assembly.

➡️ This unprecedented action violates the U.S.-UN agreement, which requires the U.S. to grant visas to UNGA delegations.

📝The decision comes amid Western countries’ plans to recognize a Palestinian state at the Assembly.

@TabZLIVE

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🇫🇷 Updated graphics on the French national debt and the retirement pensions:

Since 2017 when Emmanuel Macron took office, France accumulated 1 trillion EURs in debts and 490 billion of it was spent on French boomers and their retirement pensions, or ~50% of all the debt was wasted for the comfort of people who had a few short more years to live, which the new generations now have to spend decades to pay back.

The total national debt of France is worth 3.3 trillion EURs or 113% of the French GDP and one third of it was acquired in the last 8 years. This is unsustainable.

@CIG_telegram

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🇮🇱✈️🤝🇹🇷 — TRACKED: Despite Turkey’s announcement less than 24 hours ago that its airspace was shut to all Israeli flights, Israeli airlines are still transiting Turkish skies without restriction.

➡️Arkia Israeli Airlines flight AIZ388 (IZ388), an Airbus A320-214 from Belgrade to Tel Aviv.

➡️The flight path shows it crossing Turkish airspace near Izmir, despite Ankara’s recent announcement that Israeli flights were banned from entering Turkish skies.

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🇨🇦 Someone needs to check on Canada

Capital is flying out of the country at a record pace, like it just got "elbowed" in the head

This kind of outflow creates a chain reaction.

The dollar gets volatile. Borrowing costs rise. Institutional confidence fades.

And domestic capital becomes harder and more expensive to raise.

🔗 Katusa Research

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🇺🇸🤝🇮🇱 Texas AG, Ken Paxton, on X/Twitter:

I'm announcing an investigation and demanding documents from Plano ISD following several antisemitic incidents.

Any teacher or administrator that has facilitated or supported radical anti-Israel rhetoric in our schools should be fired immediately.

🔗 Ken Paxton

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🇺🇸❌🇻🇪 President Trump ordered seven warships carrying 4,500 personnel — including three guided-missile destroyers and at least one attack submarine — to the waters off Venezuela. — Axios

"This is 105% about narco-terrorism, but if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying," said one Trump administration official familiar with the policy discussions.

Another administration official had a different view. "This could be Noriega part 2," the official said, referring to the U.S. military's 1989 operation to capture Panamanian President Manuel Noriega, who — like Maduro — faced U.S. drug-trafficking charges.

However, Trump's deployment does include 2,200 Marines, the boots-on-the-beach branch of the military. That's hardly typical in drug enforcement.

In December 1989, the U.S. invaded Panama with a force of 27k troops, The U.S. Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Coast Guard and 300 aircraft in Operation Just Cause. The invasion force was met by the 16k strong Panama Defense Force (PDF).

Panama was defeated after one month of fighting, with 23 U.S. soldiers killed (two by friendly fire) and 314 PDF soldiers dead and close to 2000 captured. The Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega was captured and sent to the U.S. by George H.W. Bush to face drug trafficking charges.

Venezuela on the other hand, is a country far bigger than Panama and has a far bigger military, with 137k troops (all branches) in addition to an estimated 3 million militiamen.

In 1989, when Panama was invaded, Manuel Noriega had no allies. Nicolas Maduro does, in the form of Columbia's Gustavo Petro, who has already deployed some 25k troops to the Catatumbo region in case the U.S. wanted to attack Venezuela over Maracaibo Lake.

Another ally is Lula da Silva's Brazil, although he won't directly contribute with Brazilian troops to Venezuela's defense in case of war, but may send humanitarian and military aid.

📝:The real play by the Trump Administration will likely be bombing the Venezuelan Army from the Leeward Antilles. Three key islands off the coast of Venezuela are the Dutch islands of Aruba, Curaçao and Bonaire. Another U.S. ally is Trinidad & Tobago in Venezuela's east, with the only other islands in the Leeward Antilles with an airbase being the Nueva Esparta/Margarita islands, controlled by Venezuela.

While the U.S. Air Force and Navy bomb the Venezuelan military, civil uprisings will be encouraged as well as army mutinies.

@CIG_telegram

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‼️🇹🇷 ❌ 🇮🇱 - Turkey says it bars Israeli ships from its ports, restricting airspace

urkey has decided to bar Israeli vessels from using its ports, forbid Turkish ships from using Israeli ports and impose restrictions on planes entering Turkish airspace, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Friday.

A source had also said that Turkish-flagged ships would be prohibited from calling at Israeli ports.

"We have totally cut our trade with Israel, we have closed off our ports to Israeli ships and we are not allowing Turkish vessels to go to Israel's ports," Fidan told an extraordinary parliamentary session on Israel's attacks on Gaza.

"We are not allowing container ships carrying weapons and ammunition to Israel to enter our ports, and airplanes to go into our airspace," he added, without giving details.

🔗 Reuters

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