World

OPINION — Last week’s Fourth Plenum of the Chinese Communist Party witnessed a purge of China’s senior military leaders, culminating in over two years of the removal of senior military officials once loyal to President Xi Jinping. The last two defense ministers – Wei Feng he and Li Shangfu – were removed in October 2023 and June 2024. And now, …

One of Vladimir Putin’s top propagandists has said Ukrainians should flee Kyiv as he urged Russia to strike a dam in the capital. Kremlin loyalist and TV host Vladimir Solovyov said Moscow’s forces should carry out the action in response to Ukrainian strikes on a dam inside Russian territory. The Ukrainian military earlier this week claimed the attack on the …

“Targeting fast boat operators will not stop major drug trafficking kingpins from sending multi-ton quantities of drugs to our country and around the world,” Michael Chavarria, a former DEA supervisor who spent 26 years investigating drug cartels in Mexico, the Caribbean and the Southwest border, told The Cipher Brief. “The drug trade is the most profitable business in the world, …

The US government shutdown barrelled towards its second month on Friday and the pain is spreading fast – with federal workers broke, food aid vanishing and millions of Americans caught in the crossfire. What started on October 1 as a Washington sideshow has morphed into a slow-motion implosion of public services and a growing economic convulsion, with federal offices dark …

Members of the Trump administration have been seeking increased security after the killing of Charlie Kirk, the outlet has said High-ranking US officials, including Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have left their homes in Washington and moved to military bases outside the capital, The Atlantic has reported. Members of the administration of US President …

A 16-year-old boy has admitted joining a Taiwan-based political group to seek Hong Kong’s independence in breach of the national security law. The Form Three student pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit secession between November 2024 and July this year for his role as secretary of the Hong Kong Democratic Independence Union. The District Court heard that the …

A British man tragically died after a fire broke out in a spa at a luxury hotel in Morocco. Anthony Barnes, 48, was in the North African country on a business trip with colleagues and was staying at the five-star Jaal Riad resort. The trip was part of a work celebration event that took place in March 2023, an inquest …

Roman Marshavin has said energy justice in Africa requires infrastructure and training Russia plans to launch a pilot engineering education program in Burkina Faso by late 2025, Deputy Energy Minister Roman Marshavin announced on Thursday.  Speaking at the Russia-Africa Raw Materials Dialogue in St. Petersburg, he noted that the initiative is intended to build local technical capacity and support long-term …

Russian strikes at two nuclear power plants in Ukraine have sparked a safety warning from the world’s nuclear energy watchdog. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned that military activity at Ukraine‘s South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant (SUNPP) and Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant (KhNPP) was jeopardising “nuclear safety”. The organisation said: “The IAEA has been informed of military activity in …

Robot dogs might not be able to survive a potential assault on Taiwan, based on the results of an amphibious landing exercise carried out by the People’s Liberation Army and broadcast in a documentary aired by state broadcaster CCTV. The four-legged robots, loaded with explosives, were released by the first wave of landing forces in the exercise. They ran across …