Headlines

U.S. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters parked at Camp Humphrey during annual US-South Korea Ulchi Freedom Shiel joint military exercise on Aug.21, 2026.

Washington DC, Aug. 25.– The South Korean marine corps said Monday that Washington had canceled joint drills originally scheduled for September, citing competing demands in Iran. The announcement comes days after President Donald Trump curtailed another round of high-profile defense exercises, noting that he was disappointed in South Korea’s refusal to help with the U.S. war in the Middle East.

In Seoul, the dual cancellations have added to the sense that U.S. military support has become conditional – and are reigniting calls for South Korea to develop its own nuclear arms.

Aug. 23 (DPnet).– In his speech on August 22 at the United Russia Party congress, President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed the party’s identity as the "party of war." He argued that the unavoidable conditions resulting from what he perceives as his party's inevitable victory in the upcoming State Duma elections demonstrate that the Russian people support a prolonged war in Ukraine, leading to total victory. This stance further solidifies the pro-war position as a fundamental aspect of Russia's informal state ideology. 

Putin declared that the United Russia Party has a duty to do "everything possible to achieve victory" in Ukraine. He also reiterated that the indiscriminate bombing of Ukrainian cities aims to compensate for Russia’s lack of tactical success on the battlefield, disrupt Ukraine’s domestic defense industry, and exert strong psychological pressure on the population to weaken their resistance.

However, as a matter of fact, Russian forces are currently facing significant setbacks, having lost control of 27.09 square kilometers in August 2026 alone, excluding areas previously infiltrated by Russian troops. This decline in territorial gain is alarming, as Russia's rate of advance has been steadily decreasing since January 2026. Furthermore, the reports from the Ukrainian General Staff are striking: roughly 29,120 Russian casualties were recorded from July 31 to August 22, 2022, resulting in a staggering average of 1,074 casualties for each square kilometer of territory seized.

Moreover, President Putin has candidly acknowledged the detrimental effects of Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russia’s crucial fuel infrastructure. He emphasized the urgent need to bolster the country’s air defense systems. In his August 22 interview, Putin admitted that these Ukrainian strikes not only inflict casualties but also cause significant “economic damage.” This recognition highlights Russia's ongoing struggle to safeguard its vast territory against the increasing effectiveness of Ukrainian attacks.

In the Middle East, the situation seems to have reached a stalemate, with no sign that economic pressure on the regime has shifted the anti-concessions stance of some high-ranking Iranian officials.

Tel Aviv, Aug. 14 (DPnet).– The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC), was unveiled at the G20 summit in New Delhi. Envisioned as a network of ports, railways, energy infrastructure, fibre-optic cables, and logistics links connecting India to Europe through the United Arab Emirates, avoiding the Strait of Hormuz, through Israel, and from Haifa to the Port of Piraeus in Greece, it was widely seen as the democratic world’s answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and to Iran's aggressive influence over the Strait.

The original vision was elegantly simple. Goods would move from India across the Arabian Peninsula, through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, into Israel and onwards through Haifa to Europe, bypassing both dangerous maritime bottlenecks and unstable countries including Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon – and building a wide-ranging tech ecosystem around the corridor.

For Israel, the IMEC has the potential to become its most consequential strategic-economic project in decades, but the deal might be stillborn if Israel can’t engage in smart diplomacy and long-term thinking. “The question right now is whether Israel can be bypassed,” says former Knesset member Doron Avital, the former commander of the elite Sayeret Matkal unit who has become one of the initiative’s leading advocates.  

On June 4, 2026, a China-based American journalist, Thomas Pauken II, pleaded guilty in a Virginia court to charges of acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government. He had been detained during his most recent return to the United States in February 2026 and was accused of trying to recruit people to pass information to Chinese intelligence services. The FBI, which was monitoring him, said over the course of seven years, the Chinese government paid Pauken a total of $100,000 as well as bearing expenses for his frequent travels from China to the United States for his service. If convicted, he faces up to ten years in prison.

Pauken is not an isolated case of Americans being deployed by Chinese intelligence to do their dirty work in the United States. There have been others who have been involved in industrial and political espionage for China. Nevertheless, as insidious as his action was, my attention to him was drawn by another fact — his cover in China was working for Chinese state media outlets like Xinhua, China Radio International, China Central Television and China Global Television Network (CGTN).

Journalists Thomas Pauken (right) and Shamin Zakaria (left)
working for Chinese state media.

Seeking recourse to a pseudonym “Tom McGregor” (on the suggestion of his father Thomas Pauken, a politician from Texas), he has written many articles in English for Chinese state media outlets. While it’s not unusual for journalists to find work in different media outlets in countries other than their own, the difference with “McGregor”/Pauken was that rather than serving as an impartial journalist, he let himself be a tool in the Chinese government’s campaign to reshape its global image.