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Aug. 31 (UPI) — Oil prices surged early Monday after fighting flared in the U.S.-Iran conflict for the first time in four weeks since U.S. President Donald Trump announced a “pause” in U.S. military strikes on Aug. 1.

The contract for the benchmark Brent crude for November delivery jumped by 3.4% to $91.09 a barrel and the October contract for American crude saw a similar-sized increase to $86.22 after U.S. forces hit rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Hormuz Strait on Sunday night and Iran’s military retaliated, targeting American bases in Jordan.

The hikes were driven by the renewed hostilities stoking fears ongoing supply disruption caused by a drastic curtailment of tankers traffic transiting the Strait of Hormuz would be made worse and persist for longer, according to experts.

“Supply risk will persist and oil inventories will continue to deplete in the coming weeks and months. The Iranian crisis has likely changed the security status quo in the Middle East,” said PVM Oil Associates’ London-based analyst Tamas Varga.

Investment bank Goldman Sachs, the impact of destructive attacks on refining capacity was responsible for upward pressure on margins.

“Rising strikes on refineries in the Middle East and Russia have further constrained already-stretched global refining capacity, pushing refined products margins to new highs,” the bank said in a note.

Prices at the pump in the United States on Monday remained broadly flat from the previous day, with the average price of a gallon of regular unleaded up 0.2 cents at 4.08 a gallon, and diesel down by a little over 0.3 cents at $5.60 a gallon, according to the American Automobile Association.

The developments came as the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to its lowest level since 1982.

President Trump said Sunday he would restock it with oil from his Venezuela deal giving the United States secure a stake in more than 65 billion barrels of oil despite the fact it could to produce take many years to before the agreements yields any significant volumes because the oil is reserves, as yet to be drilled.

The price of oil has seesawed over the past two weeks after rising in response to Trump’s Aug. 19 threat to wage a “crushing economic operation” against Iran that his officials said would cause the regime to collapse, and then retreating again in the hours before the mainly-sanctions package of measures were unveiled on Aug. 24.

Aug. 31 (UPI) — A Russian attack on Kyiv overnight destroyed a printing plant that was in the process of turning out 1.3 million school text books, about 10% of the total required, ahead of the start of the academic school year on Tuesday.

The blast and resulting blaze damaged the Konvi Group faciliity and printing presses beyond repair and reduced a large stockpile of books to ashes while printed material that was not burned was water damaged or otherwise rendered unusable.

It was the second strike on the company’s facilities in six weeks with Konvi Commercial Director Viktoriia Haida telling the BBC that it was part of a concerted Russian effort targeting Ukraine‘s national identity.

“I believe it is deliberate on the part of the Russian Federation. Over the past two months, some of the largest publishing houses have lost their logistics warehouses, where very large quantities of books were stored. The Russians are also destroying printing houses in an attempt to erase Ukraine as a nation. But frankly they will not succeed,” said Haida.

A ballistic missile strike on another of Konvi’s plants on July 19 destroyed production workshops, printing and binding equipment, office premises and nearly 250,000 school books and and destroyed the materials for print-runs for 350,000 books for more than a dozen Ukrainian educational publishers.

A drone attack on a Nova Poshta fulfilment and sorting center on Friday in Sviatopetrivske outside Kyiv destroyed more than 60,000 books being stored at the facility from Ukrainian publishers and retailers including Vivat, Osnovy, Readeat and Book.ua.

The strike on the privately-held mail and logistics provider was one of more than 30 similar attacks over the past three months that have destroyed at least 13 million books, equivalent to the industry’s entire 2025 output, according to the Ukrainian Publishing Association.

The two largest single attacks were the Aug. 1 destruction of the automated logistics center of the Ukrainian publishing corporation RNK-Ranok in Kharkiv in which about 8 million books were lost, including 600,000 school textbooks for the new school year, and a strike on the central warehouse of the logistics partner of BookChef Publishing House in which about 800,000 books were destroyed on July 2.

In an earlier open letter Ukraine Publishing Association President Artem Bidenko urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to call an urgent meeting of his National Security and Defense Council warning that the survival of the sector was at stake.

He called for “urgent measures’ from the cabinet amid what he said were systematic Russian attacks on printing houses, warehouses and bookstores that had caused losses of at least $27 million, including compensation and the inclusion of goods in circulation in war risk insurance.

SEOUL, Aug. 31 (UPI) — North Korea on Monday condemned what it called the United States’ continued “hostile policy” and vowed to keep bolstering its nuclear arsenal despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent overtures to Pyongyang.

In a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry accused Washington of maintaining a confrontational stance toward North Korea in both “rhetoric and behavior.”

“The Trump administration has thus fully reconfirmed its invariable hostile policy to wantonly violate the sovereignty, political system and security interests of the DPRK through the ‘denuclearization’ racket, ‘human rights’ smear campaign and military threat,” the statement said, using the official acronym for North Korea.

“It is pointless to expect any detente in the region,” it added.

The statement comes amid a push from Trump to restart direct diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with whom the U.S. president has touted a “very good relationship.”

Earlier this month, Trump ordered Seoul and Washington to curtail their joint Ulchi Freedom Shield military exercise, citing its cost and saying the drills sent an “inappropriate and hostile” signal to Pyongyang. The exercise was subsequently shortened by almost a week.

Despite the move, the U.S. State Department last week reaffirmed its commitment to the “complete denuclearization” of North Korea in a statement to Yonhap News Agency.

The United States, South Korea and Japan also confirmed last week that their annual Freedom Edge trilateral military exercise will be held Sept. 7-11 in international waters east and south of South Korea’s Jeju Island.

The Foreign Ministry spokesperson called the multi-domain exercise a “threat to the DPRK and regional countries.”

North Korea routinely denounces joint military drills as rehearsals for an invasion and has carried out weapons tests around major allied exercises.

The spokesperson said North Korea’s nuclear status, which has been enshrined in its constitution, could not be “weakened nor diluted” by repeated U.S. calls for denuclearization.

“Our nukes serve as an absolute guarantee for defending its sovereignty and the nuclear weapons in possession of the DPRK and their sustained bolstering are the most responsible and correct option for ensuring regional peace and security,” the statement said.

“There is no change in our policy toward the U.S. to respond to its invariable hostile policy with the toughest stand to the last,” it added.

Leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), including Chinese President Xi Jinping, his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are set to gather in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek for an annual summit.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also attending the summit, which marks 25 years of its existence.

The two-day summit, starting on Monday, comes at a time when the world is grappling with the aftermath of the US-Israel war on Iran, which has upended global energy and financial markets, and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

So, what will be the main agenda of the summit, and will the SCO leaders try to use the gathering to push for a multipolar world and Global South cooperation on trade and security issues, as United States President Donald Trump’s unilateral foreign policy has eroded the global rules-based order?

Here’s what we know:

Who is attending the SCO summit and where is it being held?

This year’s summit is taking place in Bishkek under the motto: Together for Sustainable Peace, Development and Prosperity.

Xi, Putin and Modi will be joined by the Iranian president and leaders of Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, among others.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn are also expected to attend the summit.

William Yang, senior analyst for Northeast Asia at the International Crisis Group, noted that the ongoing wars are putting more strain on the rules-based international order, and against this backdrop, the summit serves as an important occasion for several of the world’s rising great powers, including China and India, to elevate their global influence and deepen their engagement and cooperation with other countries in the Global South.

“For years, SCO has been viewed as one of the avenues for China to promote the multipolar world order and form its own bloc with other developing countries. Despite its narrow scope of cooperation at the beginning, SCO member states have sought to expand the scope of their mandate and the number of member states,” Yang told Al Jazeera.

Amid the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Europe, Yang said, “China could use this year’s summit to present itself as a great power that advocates for a peaceful resolution of the conflicts, thereby sharpening the contrast with the US.”

“However, these efforts are likely to be limited to rhetoric rather than any substantive proposal for conflict resolution,” he said.

Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at French investment bank Natixis, said the summit is particularly significant because it marks the grouping’s 25th anniversary and offers the first chance to turn last year’s Tianjin strategy, which called for a multipolar world order that fosters mutually beneficial international cooperation, into action. Last year’s summit took place in China’s Tianjin region.

“Putting Modi, Putin and Xi in the same room, with India-China border talks still live and a scheduled Modi-Putin bilateral, is a visible test of how far the recent thaw goes and how Eurasia wants to organise security, connectivity and trade without defaulting to Western institutions,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to the recent India-China talks amid the warming up of New Delhi-Beijing ties.

What is the SCO?

The SCO started in 1996 as a security bloc, dubbed the “Shanghai Five”. It was formed by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to settle their border disputes following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But in June 2001, the grouping evolved into the SCO, and expanded to include Uzbekistan, with headquarters in Beijing. In 2017, the bloc expanded to include India and Pakistan. Iran and Belarus were also added as full members in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

In addition, the organisation has 14 key dialogue partners, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Turkiye, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Cambodia.

SCO member states account for 43 percent of the world’s population and 23 percent – or almost a quarter – of the global economy.

Analysts have pointed out that while the SCO emerged with a focus on regional security, the expansion of its mandate to include trade and other Global South concerns means it is difficult to understand what sets the grouping apart from other Global South organisations like the BRICS, which is an acronym derived from the initials of the founding member countries, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Alejandro Reyes, adjunct professor in the department of politics and public administration at the University of Hong Kong, said the SCO has grown into a “counterbalance” to the US-led Asia Pacific alliance aimed at countering China’s rise. India is part of both groupings. “Interestingly, India is part of the SCO, and the US appears to have dropped the Indo-Pacific nomenclature,” he said.

Reyes emphasised that “the SCO is not a coherent anti-US, anti-Western alliance”. “It is better understood as a forum in which countries with very different interests can demonstrate that they have alternatives and strategic room for manoeuvre – agency in this more volatile geopolitical order, dominated by China and the US. It is less an anti-American alliance than a venue for countries hedging against and hinging away from American power,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The significance this year is that current US policies, especially with regard to Iran and continuing US tariff and sanctions action, may be making that hedging more attractive and necessary,” he added.

What is on this year’s agenda?

The US-Israel war on Iran, the Russia-Ukraine war and the economic and social situation in Afghanistan are key issues leaders are expected to discuss this year, according to the SCO Secretariat.

Relations between India and China – Asia’s two major economies – are also expected to be discussed. Last year, Beijing and New Delhi began a rapprochement after five years of tensions over a 2020 deadly border skirmish. Trump’s tariff war on Indian goods last year forced New Delhi to mend ties with Beijing. For the first time since 2018, Modi visited China last year for the SCO summit.

Border tensions between India and Pakistan also persist, and the issue is expected to be discussed at this summit.

Manoj Kewalramani, chairperson of Bengaluru-based think tank Takshashila Institution’s Geostrategy Programme, told Al Jazeera that apart from the traditional security agenda, this year’s summit might include any forward movement on issues of economic integration or financial cooperation architecture.

“In Tianjin, we had the agreement on establishing the SCO Development Bank,” Kewalramani said.

“The Kyrgyz leadership has said that its priority will be to move the needle on the bank, the SCO Development Fund and SCO Investment Fund,” he said, adding that while talks have reportedly been taking place in this direction, there is no clarity on whether any agreements will be announced at this year’s summit.

According to the SCO Secretariat, economic connectivity will be a key topic the group will discuss as the US and Israel’s war on Iran continues to paralyse key maritime routes like the Strait of Hormuz, which has upended global supply chains, the energy market and financial markets.

The group is expected to discuss new trade and transport corridors, such as the 7,200km (4,474-mile) International North-South Transport Corridor, which links the Russian port city of St Petersburg with India’s financial capital, Mumbai, through Iran and ports on the Gulf.

Herrero pointed out that with Modi and Putin scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting, discussions on the Northern Sea Route, which runs through the Arctic coast, are also expected. China last month announced a new shipping route through the Arctic Ocean, aimed at easing global trade amid the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks in the Bab al-Mandeb in the Red Sea, which will pass through the Northern Sea Route.

According to Indian media reports, Moscow and New Delhi could negotiate the use of the Northern Sea Route by India as the crisis in West Asia continues to affect trade routes.

The SCO will also seek to establish a network of Silk Road stations to support international freight traffic across Eurasia.

Can the SCO agree on all issues?

The Eurasian grouping has often been unable to agree on global geopolitical issues.

For instance, Russia has been able to get most SCO members to align with its interests when it comes to its war in Ukraine, but India has attempted to play a more balanced role – seeking peace and stronger ties with Ukraine, while also buying record levels of oil from Russia.

But this year, Ukraine is expected to feature in discussions, with Turkiye’s Erdogan and Russia’s Putin holding bilateral talks on the matter, according to a Kremlin aide. Europe’s deadliest war since World War II is in its fifth year.

Yury Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said the meeting would take place on the sidelines of the SCO summit.

“There are many issues to discuss. Of course, these include the situation in the Black Sea and the Ukraine issue in general,” he told reporters, referring to the rise in attacks in the Black Sea.

The SCO has, however, taken a more collective position on the US-Israel war on Iran and Israel’s genocidal actions in Palestine.

In March, the SCO condemned the US-Israel war on Iran. “The SCO member states considered the use of force as unacceptable and advocate for the resolution of existing differences exclusively by peaceful means, based on dialogue, mutual respect, and taking into account the legitimate interests of all parties, in accordance with the norms of international law and the principles of the UN Charter,” it said in a statement.

India, which has strong ties with Israel, had refused to endorse an SCO joint statement condemning Israel for its attack on Iran in June 2025.

Iranian President Pezeshkian is also scheduled to meet Putin on the sidelines of the summit, according to Iran’s official IRNA news agency. Russia is a close ally of Iran and the two countries cooperate on defence issues. China has emerged as Iran’s biggest economic lifeline as it buys more than 80 percent of its crude oil. Moscow and Beijing have also lent diplomatic cover to Tehran at the UN.

Frictions also exist on how the group views border tensions between India and Pakistan. New Delhi has repeatedly called on the organisation to condemn “cross-border terrorism”, for which it blames Islamabad, a close economic and defence ally of China.

Last July, India demanded that the grouping condemn the April 2025 attack by armed men in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which 26 people were killed. Pakistan has also blamed India for armed attacks inside its territory.

During the Tianjin summit, the bloc condemned “terror” attacks in both India and Pakistan, taking a more balanced position on the issue.

What are Russia, China and India going to gain at the summit?

Reyes from the University of Hong Kong pointed out that all eyes will also be on Russia, China and India.

“For China, the SCO is partly about institution-building. Beijing wants to demonstrate that it can convene a large part of Eurasia around an agenda of security, connectivity, trade and development, while promoting a more multipolar, agentic international order. It also reinforces China’s increasingly important economic position in Central Asia, a strategically key region of the Eurasia landmass,” he said.

“For Russia, the summit is an opportunity to show that it is not isolated internationally. Maintaining strong relationships with China, India, Iran and Central Asia is economically and diplomatically important, given the Ukraine war and Western and other sanctions. But Moscow also has an interest in preserving its own influence in Eurasia rather than simply becoming more and more dependent on China.

“India is in an intriguing position. Modi’s participation is not an indication that India is joining the China-Russia axis, such as it is. India itself describes its SCO priorities as ‘security, connectivity and opportunity’. That is much more consistent with India’s longstanding pursuit of strategic autonomy – its agency amid the great-power rivalry,” Reyes explained.

He added that New Delhi wants “access and influence in Central Asia, continued relations with Russia [from which it buys the bulk of its defence equipment], and a mechanism for managing its difficult but gradually stabilising relationship with China”.

“At the same time, New Delhi maintains important relations with Washington, including through the Quad security arrangement.

“So China and Russia may see the SCO partly as an instrument for building a less US-dominated international order. India, meanwhile, sees it more as one of several overlapping platforms through which it can maximise its own agency.”

What does all this mean to the US?

As part of his unilateral foreign policy vision, Trump has undermined the Western-led international order and lashed out at Global South blocs, such as BRICS, which he sees as a threat to the US’s economic dominance. He has called the grouping “anti-American”.

However, Kewalramani noted that the Trump administration has continued some of its predecessors’ approaches and deepened engagement with countries in the region where this year’s SCO is being hosted, especially with the C5 or Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

“Joe Biden had established a leader-level meeting mechanism with C5 countries in 2023. Trump also hosted them in DC in November 2025. [US Secretary of State] Marco Rubio and subsequently Trump are expected to visit the region later [this] year. Kazakhstan has announced accession to the Abraham Accords, becoming the first Central Asian state to join [the Trump-led diplomatic efforts to cajole Muslim countries to recognise Israel]. The US has been engaged with the region on critical minerals and other business deals,” he said.

“In other words, C5 members are also adopting a diversified diplomatic approach, seeking to balance China and Russia’s dominance,” he noted.

“But the fact that you are witnessing these countries meeting with far more purpose to think about alternative financial and energy architectures is a reflection of the limitations of the US’s disruptive foreign policy,” Kewalramani added.

Herrero said for the US, the SCO summit is a reminder that countries like India will keep practising strategic autonomy: it will sit in the Quad and buy US defence equipment while also talking to Moscow and Beijing in a China-heavy forum.

The Quad or Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was established by India, Japan, Australia and the US in 2007 to counter China’s growing influence in the Asia Pacific region. Over the past quarter-century, India has grown closer to the US and its allies, amid shared concerns over Beijing’s rise.

Reyes warned that Washington should be careful not to read the SCO as a consolidated anti-US coalition, even though China, Russia and Iran are members.

“The differences among China, Russia and India are far too substantial to substantiate that label. The more important message is that American economic and geopolitical pressure can sometimes produce convergence among countries that otherwise might disagree with one another more,” he said.

“The SCO’s criticism of unilateral economic measures is significant in that respect. China and Russia explicitly want a less US-dominated international order. India does not necessarily share that objective, but it does want a world in which Washington cannot dictate its foreign-policy choices.”

Kyiv, Ukraine – The 2022 destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, whose construction cost $19bn, epitomised the failure of “change through trade”, Berlin’s policy of softening Moscow’s hardline leadership through mercantile ties, according to some analysts.

Pressurised gas was pumped from Yamal, Russia’s Arctic peninsula of deer herders and treeless tundra, to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany’s Baltic region of chalk cliffs and medieval castles.

But on September 26, 2022, several underwater blasts created a kilometre-wide (0.6-mile) bubbling geyser of natural gas that became history’s worst release of methane and screeched the pipeline flows to a halt.

Dubbed an act of sabotage, the apparent operation has drawn the attention of Hollywood director Doug Liman, known for blockbusters such as The Bourne Identity and Mr & Mrs Smith.

Oscar-winning actors Sean Penn and Adrien Brody star in Liman’s upcoming drama, titled Snake Island, about Ukrainian divers who plunge into the Baltic’s blue waters from a sleek rented yacht to blow up the world’s longest undersea pipelines.

Back in the real world, one of the suspected divers, Volodymyr Zhuravlev, a 46-year-old father of three with more than two decades of free-diving experience, was a consultant on Liman’s film set in Croatia. He was arrested in the Croatian city of Pula on August 19 and is to be extradited to Germany.

Last year, another accused member of the sabotage team, Serhii Kuznetsov, was arrested in Italy and extradited to Germany.

The 49-year-old reportedly worked for Ukrainian intelligence and complained that he had been “abandoned by his country and president”.

Their arrests and upcoming trials have highlighted how the sabotage shocked Germany’s economy, overhauled its energy exports and consumption – and still affects ties between Berlin and Kyiv.

“The Nord Stream sabotage reinforced a key lesson from the 2022 energy crisis – Germany had become far too dependent on Russian fossil gas,” Claudia Kemfert, a professor with the Institute for Economic Research in Berlin, told Al Jazeera.

The pipelines were designed to deliver 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic ft) of natural gas a year and made Germany “captive to Russia”, United States President Donald Trump said in 2022.

Nord Stream 2 never became operational but did contain pressurised gas at the time of the explosions. Nord Stream 1 along with other Russian pipelines provided 55 percent of Germany’s natural gas.

It heated homes, generated energy and fuelled the economic pillars of Europe’s largest, export-oriented economy, the chemical and steelmaking industries.

The alleged sabotage “changed the debate on energy security fundamentally”, Kemfert said. “Today, security means reducing fossil import dependence through diversification, renewables, efficiency, grids and storage.”

The crisis also prompted a major, rapid expansion of infrastructure for liquefied natural gas. The latter proved to be a silver lining.

“The central lesson is clear: The less Germany depends on imported fossil fuels, the more resilient its economy and energy system become,” Kemfert said.

‘Politically sensitive’ questions

Meanwhile, the unresolved questions surrounding Nord Stream “remain politically sensitive” in Berlin-Kyiv ties, she said.

After Trump removed Washington from the political chessboard of the Russia-Ukraine war, Berlin became Kyiv’s largest and staunchest Western backer.

But Germany seems adamant about prosecuting the sabotage team.

“It’s a matter of principle for the German government, but it’s also a matter of the rule of law,” Cristian Vlas, an expert with ACLED (Armed Conflict Location & Event Data), an international think tank, told Al Jazeera.

And Ukraine’s most coveted post-war dream – integration into NATO and membership in the European Union – could be thwarted if the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party comes to power.

AfD opposes military and financial aid to Ukraine, wants to block its EU and NATO membership, lift Western sanctions slapped on Moscow for invading Ukraine and resume Russian energy imports.

“We can certainly see the rejection of Ukraine’s application as one of the key points on AfD’s agenda,” Vlas said. “It rejects delivering further military support to Ukraine with the purported pretence that it extends the war.”

EU and NATO integration could be “further in time”, Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch told Al Jazeera, but the suspected act of sabotage still succeeded in severing the “umbilical cord” of the Berlin-Moscow alliance that hurt Ukraine economically and politically.

In 2008, Berlin and Paris blocked a NATO membership invitation to Ukraine, insisting it would “provoke” Russia.

After Nord Stream 1 was launched in 2011, Kyiv lost half of its annual $3bn in transit fees for Russian gas pumped westwards through Ukrainian pipelines.

Berlin also denied arms deliveries to Kyiv after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, Berlin admitted it was wrong about the “change through trade” approach to Moscow’s belligerence.

“We failed on many points,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the ZDF broadcaster in 2022. “It’s true that we should’ve taken the warnings of our Eastern European partners more seriously, particularly regarding the time after 2014.”

After the pipeline blasts, no country or group claimed responsibility, and pundits pointed fingers at Washington, which was opposed to the pipeline’s construction, and Moscow, which some believed would benefit from higher natural gas prices and chaos in Europe’s energy markets.

In turn, Moscow accused “Anglo-Saxon powers” of masterminding the explosions.

It took German prosecutors almost two years to zero in on the sabotage team and accuse Kyiv of organising the bombing.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly denied Kyiv’s involvement.

Germany “knows very well that Ukraine wasn’t behind the implementation and the very conception to carry out this particular operation”, he recently said at a news conference.

So far, the upcoming trials of Zhuravlev and Kuznetsov are not affecting aid from Berlin.

“Germany still has a huge credit of trust towards Ukraine, which, however, won’t prevent prosecutors from doing their job and finishing the case and courts from convicting average executioners,” Nikolay Mitrokhin of Germany’s Bremen University told Al Jazeera.

But aside from the pipeline blasts, tensions have been seen before between the German political establishment and Ukrainian politicians.

In 2022, Andrii Melnyk, Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin at the time, lambasted Germany’s then-Chancellor Olaf Scholz for not providing enough lethal weapons, calling him an “offended liver sausage”.

Also in 2022, Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s then-foreign minister, bristled at Berlin’s slow arms deliveries, calling them “disappointing signals”.

“For Ukraine’s future, things are bad because [Ukrainian] elites are confident that that’s the way to get things done and this style, not this individual case [with the sabotage], can cost them membership in the European Union,” Mitrokhin said.

“Germany remembers everything, and after [German Chancellor Friedrich] Merz, who is kind to Ukraine, somebody else who is not that kind could come to power,” he said.

Who: Aston Villa vs Arsenal
What: English Premier League
Where: Villa Park, Birmingham, United Kingdom
When: Monday, August 30, at 8pm (19:00 GMT)
How to follow: Al Jazeera Sport will bring you all the build-up from 16:00 GMT.

An early-season highlight in the English Premier League pits the dark horse for the title in recent years, Aston Villa, against the side that last season finally ended a 22-year wait to lift the top-flight trophy.

Villa had been making the early running in recent seasons and pushing the contenders most of the way, but it finished fourth last season – with only a late-season scramble securing their Champions League qualification as a result.

They did, however, secure the UEFA Europa League in their last campaign.

The Gunners, meanwhile, fired their way to the title to end Manchester City’s recent grip on the Premier League, having won the previous four titles, and show little sign of loosening their own hold this season.

This is a match that has produced some tasty encounters in recent years with revered Spanish coaches in either dugout.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a closer look at Monday’s match.

How have Arsenal started the new Premier League season?

Arsenal are a side brimming with the confidence of champions.

Mikel Arteta’s men have swatted aside Manchester City and Coventry City 3-0 to pick up the Community Shield and make a perfect start to their title defence respectively.

How have Aston Villa started the new Premier League season?

Aston Villa were thrashed 4-0 by Brighton in their opening match of the new Premier League season last week.

A depleted Villa conceded four goals inside the opening 31 minutes at Brighton, and also had Joao Gomes sent off in the first half in a miserable start to the season.

They were also defeated by Paris Saint-Germain in the UEFA Super Cup to kick off the return of European top flight football.

Arsenal’s Konsa set for frosty Villa return after summer transfer

Ezri Konsa could make his Arsenal debut to a frosty reception on his return to Villa Park, following his recent switch.

The England international is just one of a series of departures from Villa in recent months, which has torn apart a much-respected side.

The depth of options available to the Gunners means Konsa may even have to wait for his chance to shine despite the absence of William Saliba due to a long-term back injury.

Will Arsenal have more business to do in the transfer window?

Arteta has revealed that he has had difficult conversations with forwards Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus as both Brazilian internationals appear set to depart Arsenal.

“It’s inevitable. At some point you need to have certain discussions and say certain things that sometimes are tough,” said Arteta.

Martinelli left training early on Thursday amid speculation that he is set for a move to Saudi side Al Hilal for a fee that could reportedly rise to 50 million pounds ($68m).

“I think everybody knows and recognises how much we love Gabi [Martinelli]. Whatever the outcome is, it will be because everybody agrees to that,” added Arteta.

Jesus has fallen well down the pecking order during an injury-disrupted time in north London and was not even included in training on Thursday as he enters the final 12 months of his contract.

“It’s something to do with the numbers that we have in the squad at the moment and the way we’re managing that kind of situation individually with all the players – they have some personal situations,” Arteta said of the former Manchester City striker.

Will Arsenal sign Atletico’s Alvarez?

Arsenal have been linked with bolstering their forward line with a move for Atletico Madrid’s Julian Alvarez.

The Argentinian is caught in an acrimonious standoff after Atletico refused to let him depart the Spanish capital for Barcelona.

“Don’t go there,” said Arteta about Arsenal’s interest in Alvarez. “I’m not going to make any comment about any player that is not with us.”

What is the latest transfer news at Villa after Watkins sale?

Villa manager Unai Emery said Ollie Watkins should be remembered fondly by Aston Villa fans despite not playing in the defeat by Villa, as he neared his move to Al Hilal.

The England international made a 50 million-pound ($68m) exit and has been replaced by Chelsea’s Nicolas Jackson.

Watkins will follow Konsa, Morgan Rogers, Youri Tielemans and Lucas Digne out of Villa Park, as the side that won last season’s Europa League has been torn apart.

But Emery said a disagreement over his availability last weekend should not mask Watkins’s legacy after netting 108 times over the last six years.

“Last week, I was a little bit disappointed. I was disappointed, but we spoke about it, and now [it’s] clear. He is a fantastic player, fantastic guy, and one mistake is not closing all the good things he did here,” Emery said.

“He was wrong, but we accepted it. The players as well, because he always had very good behaviour and commitment with the club and with me.

“I told him ‘bye’ with a huge hug and with small tears. But now, it’s a new chapter here with Nicolas Jackson.”

Jackson will reportedly cost Villa an initial 47.5 million pounds ($64.3m), with a further 17.5 million pounds ($23.7m) in potential add-ons.

Goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez has also moved in the other direction to join Chelsea – and the Villa exodus.

Why have Villa sold so many of their star names?

Villa have been forced to cash in on many of their stars due to financial sustainability rules.

But Emery is determined to continue driving the club forward after qualifying for the Champions League twice in the past three seasons, and ending Villa’s 30-year wait to win a trophy.

“We don’t want to be a club to sell players, but the responsibility is there,” added the Spaniard.

“It’s not changing our objective – our priority for the next year is to be competitive and to fight again to be in the top positions.”

What happened the last time Aston Villa played Arsenal?

Arsenal were 4-1 winners in the Premier League at Emirates Stadium when these sides last met.

After a goalless opening 45 minutes on December 30, the Gunners fired their way towards the new year – and the eventual title – with goals from Gabriel Magalhaes, Martin Zubimendi, Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus.

Watkins scored a late consolation for Villa.

What happened in the corresponding match between Villa and Arsenal last season?

Villa were 2-1 winners in the corresponding fixture last season on December 5.

Matty Cash gave the home side the lead in the first half at Villa Park.

Leandro Trossard levelled early in the second period before Emiliano Buendia secured an injury-time winner.

Head-to-head

This will be the 208th meeting between the sides, with Arsenal winning 89 of those fixtures and Villa emerging victorious on 72 occasions.

The sides first met in October 1904, with Arsenal winning 1-0 in their English top-flight encounter in London. Villa won the reverse fixture 4-1 two months later.

Stat attack

There has not been a goalless draw between these sides in the last 21 matches, which have produced 63 goals and resulted in 13 wins for Arsenal and seven for Villa.

Villa did go on a four-match winning streak against the Gunners, and have won six of the last 13 meetings with one draw.

Prediction

The Opta supercomputer has given Arsenal a 63 percent chance of winning that game, while handing Villa – the home side – only a 16 percent chance.

Clearly, the supercomputer is not a fan of Villa’s summer transfer business.

Aston Villa team news

Villa have registered Jackson in time to face Premier League champions Arsenal, while Leon Goretzka could also make his debut after joining on a free transfer from Bayern Munich.

Alexandra Gomez is suspended for violent conduct and started the first of a three-game ban, while Amadou Onana misses out with a knee injury.

Aston Villa predicted starting lineup

Suzuki; Cash, Lindelof, Torres, Ruggeri; Bogarde, Kamara; Buendia, Barkley, McGinn; Jackson

Arsenal team news

As well as Saliba, the Gunners will be without Jurrien Timber at the back.

Bruno Guimaraes could return from a minor groin issue.

Arsenal predicted starting lineup

Raya; White, Mosquera, Gabriel, Calafiori; Rice, Lewis-Skelly; Saka, Odegaard, Tzolis; Havertz

Aug. 31 (UPI) — A supertanker transiting the Strait of Hormuz struck two sea mines, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Monday, days after the Trump administration said it had cleared the vital transit route of the explosive devices.

According to a statement from the IRGC Navy carried by semi-official Tasnim News Agency, the unidentified tanker struck the mines, caught fire and came to a stop.

The IRGC Navy said the vessel had attempted to pass through an “illegal route south of the Strait of Hormuz” when it came into contact with the mines.

The IRGC Navy once again warns that the fate of ships that violate the security regulations of the Strait of Hormuz will be no different from this,” it said.

“Compliance with the regulations issued by the IRGC Navy for passage through the strait is mandatory.”

The U.S.-Iran war has for months been focused on the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has restricted commercial passage through with the use of mines, drones and artillery since the start of the conflict.

The U.S. military has been fighting to regain freedom of navigation through this chokepoint, and President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that vessels are freely able to transit it despite only 8.3% of the normal daily volume passing in the last 24 hours with hundreds of vessels waiting, according to the independent Hormuz Strait Monitor.

Last week, Trump claimed all mines planted by the IRGC in the strait had been cleared and Iran had been warned that any ship planting new mines would be “destroyed.”

U.S. Central Command Commander Adm. Brad Cooper later in the week echoed Trump, saying, “We have successfully cleared sea mines in the strait’s international shipping lanes.”

Neither claim could be independently verified.

The announcement came hours after U.S. forces said it struck a pair of rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday, the first U.S. military action taken against Iran in weeks.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — Karina rapidly strengthened into a major Category 3 hurricane Sunday evening and was moving west over the Pacific Ocean, forecasters said.

The hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 125 mph and was located about 960 miles west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California in northwestern Mexico, the National Hurricane Center said in its 5 p.m. PDT update.

It was moving west at 9 mph. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 5 miles, according to the NHC.

Forecasters said the storm is expected to take a slower westward to west-northwest motion over the next few days, with some additional strengthening possible.

Swells generated by the storm are forecast to affect the coast of southwest Mexico and the Baja California Peninsula during that time, according to the NHC, which warned that they are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — Two people were killed and eight others were wounded in a shooting that erupted early Sunday during what officials have called “a large unauthorized adult gathering” in the New Jersey capital of Trenton.

No arrests appeared to have been made as of late Sunday.

The Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that police responded to the 100 block of Locust Street at about 12:33 a.m. EDT following reports of multiple shots fired, arriving on the scene to find 10 people struck by gunfire. Officials initially reported 11 people shot.

Little information about the cause of the shooting has been made public, but the prosecutor’s office said it occurred as an estimated 100 people were on the street. Trenton Mayor W. Reed Gusciora said it was a gathering of 200 people or more.

The prosecutor’s office identified the two dead victims as a 33-year-old woman and a 42-year-old man.

The eight other gunshot victims, identified as two women and six men ranging in age from, 23 to 43, were treated for their injuries at Capital Health Regional Medical Center and have been stabilized, according to the prosecutor’s office.

The identities of the deceased were being withheld, but Gusciora said the man “had been working to turn his life around after returning home from incarceration and had recently been recognized for his commitment to re-entry and positive change.”

“My heart goes out to the families of the two people whose lives were taken, to everyone who was wounded and to the residents of the Wilbur Section who awoke this morning to another painful reminder of the consequences of gun violence,” Gusciora said in a statement.

“One of the things that makes an incident like this particularly painful is that people’s lives are often far more complicated than a police report can capture.”

More than 50 spent shell casings were located at the scene, authorities said, adding that multiple cars were struck by gunfire.

Authorities and officials said someone in attendance must have seen what occurred and called on those with information about the shooting to come forward.

“Protecting someone responsible for taking a life only puts another neighborhood at risk,” the mayor said.

The shooting is being investigated by the Mercer County Homicide Task Force and the Trenton Police Department.

City officials will be seeking to crack down on large, unauthorized gatherings and are examining strategies used by other cities to prevent further incidents from occurring. Police will immediately engage community partners in the Wilbur Section of the city and talk to residents to “prevent retaliation or additional violence,” the mayor said, adding that a gathering of the size seen overnight creates serious safety concerns for those in attendance as well as residents of the surrounding area.

“This is not about criminalizing people for gathering together. It is about recognizing the difference between a gathering and hundreds of people occupying a residential street without authorization, particularly when firearms and violence become part of that environment,” Gusciora said.

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said she’s been briefed on the shooting.

“My attorney general remains in close contact with officials on the ground,” she said in an online statement.

“I’m thinking of the families who lost loved ones, those who were injured and the Trenton community.”

According to The Gun Violence Archive, there have been at least 317 mass shootings involving four or more victims so far this year.

Washington has recently stepped up efforts to economically pressure Tehran amid the deadlocked truce talks.

Washington plans to impose sanctions on another bank this week as it steps up its campaign to economically isolate Tehran amid the deadlocked truce talks, the US Treasury chief has said.

In an interview with The Associated Press news agency on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declined to name the bank to be targeted by sanctions.

The announcement comes just days after Washington said it would cut off the United Arab Emirates’s operations of Basque Misr from the US financial system after accusing Egypt’s second-biggest bank of doing business with the Iranian government.

“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent told AP on Sunday. “We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop.”

⁠In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Bessent said the next step may be cutting off an institution entirely from the dollar-based financial system.

“You’re going ⁠to see a lot ⁠more of these every week,” he said on Sunday, ahead of a Group of 20 finance leaders ⁠meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. “We’re starting with the banks, and we’re telling ⁠the banks it’s not OK ⁠to have Iranian money and to aid the regime.”

The US has stepped up efforts to economically pressure Tehran to submit to Washington’s demands, a campaign dubbed “Operation Economic Outcast”, amid the stalled truce talks between both parties.

Last week, the Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on nearly 60 individuals and entities that Washington accused of being part of networks helping Iran generate oil revenue, procure weapons and conduct cyber-operations.

Iran, however, has rejected the latest US sanctions, with Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Ali Madanizadeh saying they will fail.

Violence in the conflict resumed on Sunday, the first time since late July, with Iran launching missiles at two US bases in Jordan following a US attack on Larak Island in southern Iran.

Cooperation against Iran

Bessent is preparing to host the meeting of the G20’s finance leaders, where he will huddle individually with his counterparts from the world’s major and developing economies to encourage cooperation against Iran.

The US Treasury chief also told AP that he would speak to his Chinese counterparts at the meeting and “all options are on the table” in terms of sanctioning Beijing for its continued trade with Tehran. 

But he rejected the idea that the US was reluctant to confront China, calling it “a completely false narrative that the media picked up on”.

He insisted that Beijing and Washington agreed on the need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

A new deal between Caracas and Washington would give US companies access to more than a fifth of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

But there’s opposition in Venezuela, as well as debate about whether the plan is legal.

What could the agreement mean?

Presenter: Tom McRae

Guests:

Jose Chalhoub – political risk and oil analyst

Cornelia Meyer – commodity specialist and CEO of Meyer Resources

Francisco Rodriguez – senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research at the University of Denver, former head of the Economic and Financial Advisory of the Venezuelan National Assembly

Aug. 30 (UPI) — A pair of wildfires burning along California’s Big Sur region expanded quickly over the weekend, jumping containment lines, closing roads and triggering extensive evacuations.

The Plaskett fire and the Timber fire have been burning for weeks in the rugged terrain of Monterrey and San Luis Obispo counties about 200 miles south of San Francisco.

But strong, gusty winds on Saturday sparked a rapid escalation, prompting officials to close the scenic State Hwy. 1 and issue a series of new evacuation orders after the Plaskett Fire jumped containment lines overnight.

That fire ballooned to nearly 15,500 acres and was only `1% contained as of Sunday afternoon, while the Timber Fire had spread to 24,700 acres and was 21% contained.

Firefighters fought to save structures near Sand Dollar and Plaskett Creek, executing “tactical firing operations overnight as the fire backed toward structures and residences,” according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire.

The Plaskett fire crossed over the primary bulldozer containment line, officials said, even as ground teams supported by night flying helicopters fought to put out the “slop-overs.”

Monterrey County officials warned residents of Carmel Valley, Calif., to be ready for possible evacuation orders on Sunday as the fire advanced on the community. A mandatory evacuation order was issued later in day for an area southeast of Salmon Creek Trail and north of the San Luis Obispo County line.

The California Highway Patrol, meanwhile, closed Hwy. 1 just north of the county line, as well as further north at a location south of Little Sur River.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday said the crude oil from Venezuela will be used to “fill up” the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

“One of the things I am going to do with the Venezuelan Oil is fill up the Strategic National Reserves which, because of Sleepy Joe Biden, has been virtually emptied,” Trump wrote. The “topping out” process will begin very shortly, and is a Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States.”

Trump’s remarks came after he announced late Friday on social media that the South American country’s oil reserves will fall under “majority U.S. control” under a deal negotiated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez.

“The United States of America has just entered into an Agreement with the Country of Venezuela on, THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!” Trump wrote.

In a televised address Saturday, Rodriguez said the “historic” deal with the U.S. to deliver 65 billion barrels of oil over 25 years will allow Venezuela to develop its oil industry. She added that the country’s “ownership and sovereignty” of its resources will be preserved.

The SPR held 289.7 million barrels as of Aug. 21, nearly a 44-year law, according to government data. The Biden and Trump administrations each drew down from the reserves after supply disruptions, such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the US-Israel war with Iran. The SPR level stood at nearly 395 million barrels at the end of the Biden administration in January 2025.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — U.S. forces struck a pair of rocket launchers on an island in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday in the first military action taken against Iran in weeks, military officials said.

The strikes on Larak Island were carried out to prevent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces from deploying new sea mines into the strait, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command said in a statement issued to media outlets.

The strike comes after two days after CENTCOM announced it had completed clearing sea mines from the main shipping lane in the strategic waterway.

Sunday’s military action represents the first publicly announced attack against Iranian forces since Aug. 1 when President Donald Trump began a pause in the hostilities after saying the “perimeters of a deal” to end the U.S. war against Tehran had been reached.

The Strait of Hormuz is a seen as a key factor in the conflict. Iran has been restricting maritime traffic at the chokepoint through the use of mines, missiles and military drones since the conflict began in February.

Despite Trump’s frequent assertions that the strait is open, only three vessels were transiting the waterway on Sunday — just 5% of the normal daily volume — while 383 vessels were waiting to pass through, according to the Hormuz Strait Monitor.

Iran and Oman reached a revenue-sharing arrangement and agreed to temporary shipping lane coordinates last week but the IRGC is maintaining its closure until the United States meets its conditions.

Trump earlier this month threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” with a deal to reopen the waterway. However, direct talks between Washington and Tehran talks expired on Aug. 17 with no deal reached and no new negotiations have been announced.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — More than 20 people are missing after “significant” flash flooding struck areas around the Grand Canyon, officials said Sunday.

The National Park Service asked for those who know of hikers or backpackers who were in the Grand Canyon National Park areas of Bright Angel Canyon and Phantom Ranch when the flooding hit to contact park officials.

“Grand Canyon National Park staff, in coordination with the Arizona Department of Public Safety, are continuing evacuation and response efforts and working to account for individuals who may have been in the affected area,” NPS said in a statement.

The NPS said it is also searching for anyone who may have been on the North Kaibab Trail from the North Kaibab Trailhead to Phantom Ranch, staying at Bright Angel Campground, or traveling or staying in the area known as “the Box” north of Phantom Ranch.

Officials said at least 62 people had been evacuated after significant damage was caused by the flooding.

Phantom Ranch, Bright Angel Campground, Phantom Ranch Canteen, the North Kaibab Trail, the Black and Silver bridges and traffic to the Colorado River in the area are closed “until further notice,” officials said.

A reopening date has not been announced.

Officials warned thunderstorms and heavy rainfall were possible Sunday and Monday that could “result in additional flash flooding, debris flows, rockfall and rapidly changing trail and river conditions.”

People were encouraged to stay away from the closed areas.

Grand Canyon National Park is the country’s fourth-most visited national park, with 4.4 million visits last year.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — Icelandic voters rejected restarting talks about the Nordic island nation joining the European Union.

Referendum results announced Sunday showed that 53% of people voted against the talks while 47% said yes. Overall, 68,135 were cast with 82.4% voter turnout.

Iceland had discussed joining the bloc in 2013 shortly after a banking collapse in the country and the global economic crisis. Talks ended because Icelanders were concerned about keeping sovereign control over fisheries, the country’s top export.

Iceland would not have become an EU member automatically if voters had approved the talks. The country’s representatives would have had to negotiate with Brussels, and Icelandic voters would have had to approve EU membership in a second referendum.

“This is a good day,” Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir said Saturday. “We have now reached the point where this is in the hands of the nation. Either we enter these negotiations, seek a good agreement and then see what happens, or we put the discussion about the European Union aside, at least for the time being.”

Frostadóttir last month said on the British podcast, The Rest is Politics, that Iceland currently follows 75% of EU rules.

“Joining it is not going to sink the country and joining it is also not fundamentally going to change every aspect of Icelandic, you know, economy,” she said at the time.

However, there was concern that the other 27 countries in the EU would drown out Iceland and the country would have to change its currency to the euro from the króna.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — At least seven people have died following a ferry capsized off northern Cyprus on Sunday, according to media reports.

Northern Cyprus Prime Minister Unal Ustel said 237 out of the 267 on the Filo Jet had been.rescue. He added the 23 people were missing.

None of the rescued were in critical condition, Ustel said.

According to Ustel, the ferry began taking on water 15 minutes amid bad weather after leaving port. The ship put out a call for help soon after, he added.

Turkey’s Interior Ministry said the ship was traveling from Kyrenia in northern Cyprus to Tasucu in Turkey.

Four coastguard ships and four helicopters and a civilian passenger ship were involved in rescue operations, according to the ministry.

It said search and rescue efforts were continuing.

Turkish parliament speaker Numan Kurtulmus in a post on X offered condolences to those who died in “this exceedingly tragic incident.”

The Federal Communications Commission under Trump has tried to target news outlets for spreading ‘fake’ news.

United States President Donald Trump says he will report a prominent NBC television journalist to the federal agency in charge of regulating broadcast news outlets for “rebuke or punishment”.

In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump took issue with Kristen Welker’s characterisation of his endorsements of electoral candidates as having “mixed results” in the primaries leading up to November’s elections.

“How can anyone be allowed to say this, working for freely given public airwaves?” Trump wrote. He also posted, without any attribution of where he got the data, a chart showing 98 percent of the candidates he endorsed had won their elections.

“Because of this purposeful inaccuracy, she will be reported to the FCC,” the Federal Communications Commission, he said.

Welker hosted the 2020 presidential election debate between Trump and former President Joe Biden and currently hosts NBC’s weekly news programme Meet the Press.

‘Crooked networks’

In June, Welker had a one-on-one interview with Trump that ended in a heated exchange as she pressed the Republican president on continuing to claim the Democratic Party had cheated in the 2020 presidential election, in which Biden defeated Trump.

“Your elections are crooked, and you’re crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked and so is ABC and CBS and CNN. You’re one-sided crooked networks,” Trump said shortly before pulling off his microphone and leaving the interview.

Trump, who has long had a tumultuous relationship with those US television news networks, has increasingly threatened to use the FCC to target what he says is false news.

This month, ABC News’s owner, Disney, sued the FCC, saying the agency was conducting an early licence review of eight of the network’s stations, a move that it said was “retaliation” against it. ABC said the FCC was seeking “a media industry too fearful of official reprisal to report the news freely”.

The review followed a row between the network and the FCC after Trump and his wife Melania called on it to fire late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke he had made about her.

President Trump has also filed several multibillion-dollar civil lawsuits against news outlets alleging defamation. Last year, he filed a $10bn lawsuit against the BBC, which he said unfairly edited a clip of him speaking just before his supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, to make it seem like he had called for violence.

Trump sued The New York Times for $15bn and The Wall Street Journal for $10bn, alleging defamation over reporting on issues such as how he amassed his wealth and his relationship to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A judge threw out the case against The Wall Street Journal. Trump refiled the case against The New York Times after a judge dismissed the first complaint against the newspaper last year.

Attempts to compel reporters to reveal sources

The warning from Trump also comes as his administration has taken the rare step of using the courts to try to pressure journalists into giving up confidential sources for stories that have pointed out wrongdoing.

This month, The New York Times said agents from the FBI showed up at the home of one of its reporters in February to deliver a subpoena seeking cooperation for an investigation into a story that revealed how a secret US Navy SEALs mission in North Korea had ended up with them opening fire on a North Korean boat.

In July, the US Department of Justice also tried to subpoena three other journalists from the newspaper after they reported on security concerns with the president’s new Air Force One jet. Investigators were seeking phone records of the journalists but withdrew the requests after a federal judge upbraided the tactic in court, saying they were violating the First Amendment, a provision in the US Constitution that protects freedom of the press.

Reporters at The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post have also been subpoenaed in recent months for national security coverage, including for reporting on internal Pentagon warnings about the US-Israel war on Iran.

News media freedom groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists have criticised the Trump administration for targeting critical media. In April, the group Reporters Sans Frontieres, or Reporters Without Borders, said the US has fallen to a “historic low” in its annual global press freedom rankings, dropping from 57th in the world to 64th.

Aug. 30 (UPI) — NASA used SpaceX‘s Falcon Heavy rocket to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope into space Sunday for a 1 million-mile journey to study some of the universe’s deepest secrets.

The rocket launched at 7:26 a.m. EDT from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Falcon Heavy rocket separated 31 minutes into the flight and returned back to the launch site for later reuse.

There had been a 60% chance of favorable weather for the launch.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman called the launch of the telescope “exactly the kind of success story we want to see across NASA.”

“Delivered ahead of schedule and on budget, this mission reflects more than a decade of dedication from the NASA workforce and our industry partners. Now, Roman will give us a new atlas of the universe, push the boundaries of discovery, and demonstrate what is possible when America’s space program pairs bold ambition with disciplined execution.”

NASA said the telescope deployed its solar panels and lower instrument sun shade 1 hour and 23 minutes after launch. In the coming days, it will also deploy its high-gain antenna and a visor-like deployable aperture cover, perform two course corrections, and power on the Coronagraph Instrument.

In a few weeks, the telescope’s Wide Field Instrument — an infrared camera considered to be its primary instrument — will activate.

The Roman Space Telescope will travel 1 million miles in three months to reach its final orbit, a location called the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point. There, it’s expected to rapidly scan the sky and survey the universe about 1,000 times faster than the Hubble Space Telescope.

NASA said it expects to release its first images from the Roman Space Telescope in early 2027.

This article is part of a series in which we speak to individuals who – due to a unique job, location or experience – share an insight they wish others could know.

What’s the one thing people should know? We’re all thinking differently about the same thing.

As a child, Constantina Makridakis, a 28-year-old jewellery designer from Greece, thought everyone could taste voices and names.

Her father’s name, Nicholas, tasted like caramel-coated chocolate, while her mother’s name, Maria, was pasta with prawns.

The tastes were usually pleasant; the name Paul, a rich chocolate liquor, was particularly delicious.

“I thought everyone had this ability,” she explained. “It seemed natural to me. We talk from our mouth, so it made sense [that] we also taste names and voices … it seemed connected to me, so I didn’t ask anyone about this.”

That was until one day in her late teens, when her sister, Amelia, whose name tasted sweet – often in the form of syrup or jam – told her about a documentary on synaesthesia.

After watching it, Makridakis realised she had a form of synaesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon in which sensory experience triggers another.

Music as colours

The experience of synaesthesia can vary significantly. For example, American singer-songwriter Billie Eilish experiences the names of days of the week as colours, numbers and shapes.

Hungarian composer Franz Liszt is also believed to have been a synesthete, experiencing musical notes as colours. In 1842, he is said to have confused musicians in the Weimar orchestra when he instructed them, “Gentlemen, a little bluer, if you please!”

Janina Neufeld, a researcher at the Centre of Neurodevelopmental Disorders at Karolinska Institutet (KIND) in Sweden, said that although it may seem surprising for non-synesthetes to hear about Makridakis’s experience, most of us can relate if we think about our own internal sensory associations.

“When we listen to music, most people can relate to the idea that sounds could be brighter, smaller or higher up in space … this is to some extent what a synesthete perceives,” she said.

It is estimated that 2 to 4 percent of the world’s population experiences some form of synaesthesia, although the true number may be higher, Neufeld said. Like Makridakis, many do not realise they have it – or that their experiences are unusual.

Neufeld herself experiences a form of spatial sequence synaesthesia, a milder variation that some people may have without realising. At KIND’s offices in Stockholm, she explained her version by closing her eyes and outlining a circle in the air with her finger, which she described as a full year.

On the circle, which she said exists in her “inner space” or mind, the year starts at the bottom of an undulating sphere, which she described as looking like a roller coaster track, and goes counterclockwise, with some months, such as December, longer than others.

Exploring the brain

How synaesthesia works on a neurological level is not yet fully understood, Neufeld explained.

One leading theory suggests that synesthetes may experience less “synaptic pruning” during childhood, a process in which neurons and synapses that are not needed are removed. For example, a child may strengthen the synapses related to a parent’s voice but prune those related to strangers, reinforcing useful connections and removing redundant ones.

The idea is that this pruning process is less extensive for people with synaesthesia, allowing extra cross‑sensory connections to remain. Neufeld, who has studied Makridakis’s case, said researchers have found strong evidence that sensory regions of people who experience synaesthesia exhibit more brain activation and increased interaction between different brain regions.

‘We see different things’

Makridakis said her synaesthesia can be over-stimulating at times. For example, if she is watching a film and an actor’s voice tastes like orange juice, she can find herself distracted by that sensory connection.

It can also lead to unhealthy temptations. The American accent tastes like Coca-Cola, which means when she is in the United States, she can find herself craving the sugary soft drink.

US President Donald Trump’s voice and name taste like melted cheddar cheese to Makridakis, while British actor Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry Potter in the popular film series, tastes like chocolate milk, while US hip-hop star Eminem’s voice tastes like Cheetos.

Overall, though, Makridakis is fascinated by her perceptions and feels that if synaesthesia is studied more, it could lead to a deeper understanding of the human mind.

At times, she has flirted with the idea that synaesthesia could hold some spiritual meaning, especially since she can also experience a form in which a colour can shimmer around people. Her sister, for example, appears sometimes with a dark green halo around her.

If there is one thing non-synesthetes can learn from her experience, she said, it is that “we’re all thinking differently about the same thing”.

“We should always remember that everyone’s mind is completely different. We could say that the same colour is red; we could call it red, but we see different things,” she said.

Neufeld echoed this sentiment.

“Usually we think that everyone perceives the world similarly … we think sensory inputs are perceived the same, but synaesthesia shows there is more to the sensory experience; there are also a lot of internal associations and experiences that can be very rich,” she explained.

“Synaesthesia illustrates perfectly how differently we actually perceive the world.”

Other articles in the series:

Aug. 28 (UPI) — Panama has brought home 17 citizens linked to the war between Russia and Ukraine as prosecutors investigate an alleged network accused of recruiting Panamanians for military service through false job offers.

The Foreign Ministry said Thursday that 11 of the citizens returned from Russia and six from Ukraine after diplomatic and consular efforts coordinated with Panamanian missions abroad. The statement did not identify the returnees or specify when they arrived.

Panamanian officials held four meetings with representatives of the Russian Embassy and two with Ukrainian Embassy officials to seek the release of citizens serving with military forces and arrange their return.

Foreign Minister Javier Martínez-Acha also sent diplomatic communications to Russian and Ukrainian authorities to request their cooperation on humanitarian grounds.

Panama’s embassies in Russia and Poland, which handle the country’s diplomatic affairs involving Ukraine, continue working to locate and assist other Panamanians connected to the conflict, officials said.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office began to investigate the alleged recruitment operation in June. A judge on Aug. 18 ordered the pretrial detention of a third suspect charged with aggravated human trafficking.

The suspect was detained Aug. 16 at Tocumen International Airport after arriving from Colombia under an Interpol alert, the prosecutor’s office said.

Prosecutors said Panamanians were allegedly offered jobs paying more than $2,500 per month, but were placed in forced military work after reaching Eastern Europe.

Two men who returned from Ukraine told reporters Aug. 12 they knew they were traveling to the country, but had been promised they would not be required to participate in combat missions.

They said their passports and phones were taken after they arrived and that they were required to sign contracts written in Ukrainian without receiving Spanish translations.

“We were told that they would not take our passports, that we would not lose contact with our families and that they would not take our phones,” one of the men said, according to Panama’s La Prensa. “When we arrived, that was the first thing that happened.”

The men said recruiters used TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp to find candidates. They spent about six weeks in Ukraine and said they did not receive the money they had been promised.

The Foreign Ministry estimated that approximately 30 Panamanians may have been or remained connected to the conflict, including 13 associated with Russian forces and 17 with Ukrainian forces.

The ministry stressed that the figures were preliminary, and said some people enlisted voluntarily while others reported being deceived by offers of civilian work.

Panama is not the only country in the region facing cases of deceptive recruitment. Peru has reported a significantly larger recruitment operation.

In early August, the Peruvian Foreign Ministry said that it had official information showing 459 Peruvians had enlisted, including 11 who died, 114 who were missing and three who were captured by Ukrainian forces.

Peruvian authorities evacuated 31 citizens, including 28 who returned to Peru and three who chose to remain elsewhere in Europe. Four of those evacuated said they had escaped forced recruitment.

Prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation May 1 after families reported that Peruvians had been offered security and other jobs in Russia before allegedly being forced into combat.

Similar allegations have emerged in Bolivia and Colombia.

Bolivia’s Deputy Consular Affairs Minister Héctor Huanca said in July that approximately 16 Bolivians might be in combat zones, although he described the figure as preliminary, Unitel reported. Bolivian prosecutors opened a human trafficking investigation involving false employment offers.

In Colombia, Noticias Caracol reported in early August that families had documented dozens of suspected recruits, although no nationwide official count was available. A Tolima regional official separately told Caracol Radio that authorities knew of at least six local cases involving allegedly false job offers.

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Arturo Hoyos said Panamanians are still traveling to become involved in the conflict despite repeated warnings.

“We urge, recommend and almost implore Panamanians not to go,” Hoyos said to El Siglo.