Moroccan police arrest more than 100 people as they attempt to enter Ceuta

• Five years after the Taliban seized power in 2021, Afghanistan is facing a systemic collapse characterized by extreme poverty and a failing healthcare system. • The regime has effectively erased women from public life, while desperate families are increasingly forced to marry off their daughters due to economic hardship.

• Five years after the chaotic US withdrawal, Afghanistan remains gripped by one of the world's most severe humanitarian and human rights emergencies. • The situation has worsened following the US president's decision in early 2025 to terminate nearly all USAID humanitarian and development contracts.

• Former President Donald Trump announced on August 14, 2026, that he intends to declare the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. territory "pretty soon." • This statement comes amid escalating tensions and ongoing conflict involving the United States, Israel, and Iran.

• Pakistan has historically utilized mediation as a core pillar of its foreign policy to manage conflicts between neighboring adversaries. • Unlike global superpowers driven by ideology, Pakistan's mediation efforts are motivated by the direct security threats posed by regional instability.

• Human rights campaigners are expressing growing concern that increasing global diplomatic ties with the Taliban are undermining pressure for human rights improvements in Afghanistan. • Fereshta Abbasi of Human Rights Watch highlighted the tension between the necessity of engagement for aid agencies to mitigate the humanitarian crisis and the ambiguity of the long-term goals of these contacts.

• Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan have signed the Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, a landmark mutual defense pact. • Geopolitical Futures experts George Friedman and Kamran Bokhari analyze the agreement as a potential "Islamic NATO" that alters the regional balance of power.

Fans line streets, singing Total Eclipse of the Heart ahead of Welsh singer’s Swansea funeralThousands of Bonnie Tyler fans lined the streets of her home town in south Wales to pay respects to the singer as her coffin was brought back to her former home.The singer, whose real name was Gaynor Sullivan, died unexpectedly on 8 July in Portugal at the age of 75. Continue reading...

Family paid tribute to Bristol University geology student, 18, after being notified by Avon and Somerset policeA body has been found in the search for an 18-year-old British man who went missing last year while hiking in Romania, UK police said.George Smyth, a geology student at the University of Bristol, went missing in November. Continue reading...

Exclusive: More than 100 homes on King Charles and Prince William’s inherited estates have EPC ratings of F or G• ‘It’s archaic’: the struggle to heat poorly insulated homes let by royal estatesMore than 100 homes on the inherited royal estates of King Charles and Prince William fail to meet the legal minimum energy standards for landlords, the Guardian can reveal.An analysis of a large sample of domestic lets on the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall and the Sandringham estate found that one in five have Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) ratings of F or G. Continue reading...

1.6m dozen eggs from Texas recalled amid one of the largest recorded foodborne illness outbreaks in US historyA massive egg recall affecting nearly 1.6m dozen eggs has been elevated to the US Food and Drug Administration’s highest-risk warning as officials investigate a salmonella outbreak that has sickened nearly 100 people.The FDA on 12 August reclassified the recall of nearly 1.6m dozen white and brown cage-free eggs over concerns they may be contaminated with salmonella. Continue reading...

Many complained online that piercingly loud tone was ‘overreach’ while others lamented lack of action on decarbonisationOn Friday at 7pm, Thérèse Coffey was nine miles away from a nuclear power station when her phone made a loud, piercing and very worrying sound: it was a “severe” emergency alert. “Was expecting [a] much more specific alert, not a generic message on wildfires,” the former Tory cabinet minister said on X.She wasn’t alone in being alarmed by the alarm sent to phones in England and Wales. In the aftermath, thousands of social media users expressed their shock at alert. Some shared funny memes and others lamented what they viewed as lack of government action on decarbonisation. Academic John Ritzema called it a “massive overreach” and said the alert system should be “meant to be for ‘drop everything and prepare for something terrible’ situations”, something Coffey echoed, saying alerts should not become commonplace to avoid “Peter cries wolf situations”. Continue reading...