Authored by Lipton Matthews via American Greatness,

Sentiment and economic development are not the same currency, and confusing them costs a small country more than it can afford.

Washington has quietly begun cancelling the visas of prominent Jamaican officials, and the reason is no mystery. American law enforcement partners have grown frustrated with how Kingston handled a cocaine scandal inside its own police force. Operatives cited by the Sunday Gleaner on September 6, 2026, say the revocations “include public officials within the government and the security forces” and that the cancellations amount to a deliberate signal of Washington’s displeasure with the affair.

At the center of that affair sits the now-disbanded Counter Terrorism and Organized Crime division, known as C-TOC. U.S. authorities suspect that police officers assigned to the unit significantly understated the amount of cocaine they confiscated during an operation in Green Island, Hanover, in 2025. An internal audit later turned up two illegal parcels of cocaine sitting inside C-TOC’s own storage facilities, a discovery that triggered the unit’s collapse. Commissioner Kevin Blake transferred more than 40 officers out and effectively dissolved the eleven-year-old division. A police inspector who was attached to C-TOC was arrested and charged after cocaine was allegedly found in his private vehicle, and that arrest is what set the audit in motion. Investigators have since expanded their probe to nearly a dozen high-ranking police and former army personnel, and searches have been carried out at the homes of senior officers once tied to the unit. Whatever the eventual findings, the optics could hardly be worse for a country trying to convince the world it can police its own coastline.

Add to that a second embarrassment, smaller in scale but telling in what it says about institutional discipline. Thousands of Jamaican students failed to show up for this year’s regional CXC examinations, leaving taxpayers facing a bill that could reach several million dollars for mathematics and English papers that were subsidized but never sat. Widen the lens to every subject the government helps fund, and the waste grows larger still. A country running a security deficit and an exam-attendance deficit in the same news cycle is not projecting the image of a nation on the rise.

None of this means Jamaica has stood still. Quite the opposite. Police intelligence now counts fewer than one hundred active gangs, down from a peak of 350 in 2016, a decline the government credits to sustained, intelligence-led operations rather than one-off sweeps. In July, Prime Minister Andrew Holness traveled to San Diego to accept the Esri President’s Award on behalf of the Jamaican government, Esri’s highest honor and one personally selected by the company’s founder. The award recognized Jamaica’s use of geographic information systems to build an integrated national geospatial infrastructure, the same system that helped coordinate the country’s drone and emergency response during Hurricane Melissa. Esri is the dominant name in GIS software and location intelligence worldwide, and having a small island nation singled out among its global user base is a genuine credential, not a participation trophy.

The prime minister understands that reputation is a strategic asset. His government has already engaged an international consulting firm to refresh what he calls Brand Jamaica, hoping to push the country’s image beyond sun, sea and sand toward safety, sustainability, and technological competence. That is the correct instinct. So it is worth asking why, in the same season that Jamaica is trying to sell itself as a serious, forward-looking economy, its government sent a delegation to London to petition King Charles over slavery reparations.

The petition is a frivolous use of a developing country’s time and money. It asks the king, as Jamaica’s head of state, to refer three questions about the transatlantic slave trade to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the island’s highest court of appeal, in the hope that royal involvement lends weight to a claim that has been dismissed and re-dismissed for over a decade. Culture Minister Olivia Grange, who led the delegation, has called it a milestone moment built on five years of legal groundwork. Five years spent building a case that a man who once sat on the Privy Council itself calls empty. Lord Sumption, the former Supreme Court justice, told the BBC that Jamaica was relying on a Britain that has grown “riven by self-doubt and guilt” and dismissed the entire legal push as, in his words, “a bit of nonsense.” Reading the public commentary that has followed online, much of it agrees with him, and much of it is far less polite. People say Jamaica should focus on its drug problem instead of chasing the Crown for money, or they make the condescending suggestion that the country is too poor to do anything but beg. That is the return on investment this petition has bought: ridicule, not investments.

None of that petitioning does anything to make Jamaica look like a place where an investor should park capital or where a skilled professional should build a career. Sentiment and economic development are not the same currency, and confusing them costs a small country more than it can afford. Consider the alternative use of that same delegation’s time and budget. Imagine a Jamaican mission to London built around studying the city’s technology sector instead, meeting with founders, venture investors, and policymakers who have made Britain’s capital one of Europe’s leading tech hubs. That kind of visit signals ambition rather than grievance. It tells the world Jamaica wants a seat at tomorrow’s table, not compensation for yesterday’s wrongs.

Austria offers a useful model here. It is a considerably wealthier country than Jamaica, yet it still felt the need to station a dedicated tech ambassador in Silicon Valley, first appointed in 2020 under the Open Austria initiative, specifically to build relationships with the frontier companies shaping the next economy. Jamaica has no equivalent presence anywhere near San Francisco or London’s tech corridors. If a country as developed as Austria judges that kind of outreach as essential, a developing nation with Jamaica’s ambitions should judge it as extremely important.

There is precedent for this kind of strategic humility. When Japan sent the Iwakura Mission to Western Europe and North America in the 1870s, its purpose was not to re-litigate old grievances with the powers it had once been forced to deal with on unequal terms. It was to learn, deliberately and systematically, how industrializing nations built their institutions, their industries, and their infrastructure, then bring that knowledge home. The mission helped lay the groundwork for Japan’s transformation into a global industrial power within a generation. Jamaica does not lack the talent or the imagination to attempt something similar. What it currently lacks is the discipline to choose that path over the more emotionally satisfying one.

Sentimental projects carry a real appeal. They offer a sense of moral vindication that a spreadsheet never will. But feeling righteous and being prosperous are not the same achievement, and a country of Jamaica’s size cannot afford to spend its limited diplomatic capital chasing the former while starving the latter. The episode also exposed the practical limitations of the campaign: Jamaican officials spent taxpayer money traveling to London with a formal petition on reparations, yet King Charles declined to meet them. Royal officials indicated that his schedule made a meeting impractical while also stressing that the King does not have the constitutional authority to make a decision on reparations himself. Any such decision would ultimately have to be made by the British government, rather than the monarch.

If the delegation had instead been traveling to London to learn from one of the world’s leading technology hubs and to meet entrepreneurs, investors, and technology companies, the country could at least have come away with something tangible. It could have generated favorable international press, strengthened business relationships, and helped present Jamaica as an emerging technology player. That would fit far more naturally with the brand of Jamaica that the Prime Minister appears to envision, a modern, ambitious, investment-friendly country positioning itself for growth rather than defining its international identity primarily through historical grievance.

Nike shares are down nearly 10% in pre-market trading in New York after the struggling athletic footwear and apparel company warned its sales slump will deepen and unveiled a restructuring that will eliminate jobs.

As of Thursday’s close, year-to-date performance had been absolutely abysmal, with shares down 45%. The extended decline could now put the stock on track for its worst annual loss on record.

The decline follows the sportswear giant’s earnings release after hours on Thursday, when it stated that it now expects revenue to decline by a high-single-digit percentage this fiscal year, substantially worse than the 2.4% drop analysts tracked by Bloomberg forecast.

Nike spent years catering to woke culture while neglecting to stay ahead of the industry as competitors ate into its market share. It now plans to fold its Greater China unit into its broader Asia Pacific division and combine Latin America with North America.

This restructuring is expected to deliver $2.5 billion in savings over five years while generating roughly $1 billion in pretax charges.

CEO Elliott Hill wrote in a memo to investors that this restructuring “will require fewer roles over time.”

Hill, approaching his third year as CEO, has focused on rebuilding retail relationships and organizing Nike around individual sports.

The ugly guidance on Thursday comes after BofA retail analyst Lorraine Hutchinson downgraded the stock last week and warned that its “turnaround is taking longer” than expected.

UBS retail analyst Jay Sole wrote in a note shortly after earnings about “why it’s still not time to buy Nike” and maintained a “Neutral” rating on the stock, lowering his 12-month price target to $34 from $42.

Sole explained:

The key downside risk is Nike’s downward EPS revision cycle may persist:

The pivotal Nike question remains “Is all the ‘bad news’ now priced in?” Despite the pullback in Nike’s stock price, we still don’t see a good entry point. Nike’s stock price is still not cheap at ~28x our FY27 EPS estimate, in our view, and this suggests a solid rebound remains priced in. We continue to see a balanced upside/downside skew. The main upside risk is Nike’s November Analyst Day convinces the market the stock’s downward earnings revision cycle has ended and investors are willing to put a peak multiple on their FY27 EPS outlook. The main downside risk is the rebound takes much longer than the market anticipates and therefore the downward earnings revision cycle may not be over.

We see 3 reasons NKE’s downward EPS revision cycle may not be over:

1. The market may be underestimating the negative impact on unit demand as Nike tries to reduce discounts. Nike’s FY27e gross margin likely hits a 20-year low. To drive a gross margin recovery, Nike would have to significantly reduce discounts. We believe the elasticity of demand in this situation could be greater than 1. However, we don’t think Nike’s -HSD% FY27 revenue guidance incorporates this. We believe the sales guide reflects weak demand, elevated inventory levels and a major China pullback. Thus, we see risk pulling back on promotions drive another big drop in sales in FY28.
2. The market may be underestimating the negative impact on sales from Nike having to reset its Sportswear and Jordan businesses. Nike brand Sportswear plus Jordan Streetwear equates to roughly 60% percent of NKE revenues. 1Q27 sales in these categories fell at least -LDD% y/y. We believe fashion trend shifts and a lack of brand momentum are hurting Nike in a major way. The risk is Nike can’t impact these trends soon and this leads to more pressure well into FY28.
3. The market may be underestimating the negative impact on margins if sales slow. Nike announced its 3rd big cost adjustment program since 2020. The concern is Nike may not have very many easy cost reductions left to make and will need to ramp up investment in order to grow. If so, more downside revenue surprises could pressure margins more than we and the market expect.

We lower our FY27-FY29 EPS estimates ~4-6%, respectively:

We lower our FY27 and FY28 revenue growth forecasts related to Nike’s reset of its Jordan and Greater China businesses. We note Nike mgmt. expects these actions to weigh on revenues over FY27 and into FY28. Additionally, we now anticipate greater fixed cost deleverage driven by our weak topline forecasts. Lastly, we now model a higher share count given lower than expected buybacks during Q1 and expected going forward given our reduced FCF forecasts. This is partially offset by a reduced SG&A forecast given Nike’s newly announced Pace cost savings initiative. These factors are the main drivers of the 4-6% reduction in our FY27-FY29 EPS estimates, respectively. Please find much more forecast detail inside.

Valuation: We lower our PT 19% to $34 and remain Neutral:

Our $34 PT is based on 18x our $1.90 FY29 EPS estimate. Our prior was based on 21x our old $2.00 FY29 EPSe. We lower EPS estimates and the P/E used to value NKE given our view fundamental trends in China and Nike’s Jordan business are weaker than previously thought. Our multiples analysis indicates a $34 PT puts NKE’s valuation in-line with peers in terms of P/E, P/Sales, & FCF yield (Fig. 6). Our DCF analysis also supports a $34 valuation (Fig. 9).

Other Wall Street analysts offered their first take assessments, courtesy of Bloomberg:

Morgan Stanley (underweight, PT $27 from $31)

• Nike’s 1Q print “did little to change” our underweight rating, “with negative EPS revision & valuation de-rating risk remaining intact,” analyst Alex Straton says
• “The Investor Day is the next key catalyst, with our focus on the magnitude of further topline right-sizing”

Guggenheim (buy, PT to $50 from $60)

• “With yet another downward revision, the questions remain when guidance cuts will represent the band-aid rip versus slow bleed as they continue to debate the path potential stabilization ahead,” analyst Simeon Siegel says

Vital Knowledge

• Analyst Adam Crisafulli says Nike’s first-quarter numbers were fine, but the guidance “is pretty ugly”
• Expectations “were very low” after earlier results from peers Dick’s Sporting Goods and JD Sports, but the inability of management to get a handle on the business “is going to grate on investors (and might even start spurring talk about potentially changing the CEO position, even though Hill has only been in the role for ~2 years).”

CFRA (buy, PT $62)

• “We are disappointed with the results and expected better full-year EPS guidance,” writes analyst Zachary Warring
• Says growth in North America was more than offset by continued deterioration in Greater China and a sharp ongoing decline at Converse

According to Bloomberg data, 15 analysts are “Buy” rated on the stock, another 25 with “Holds,” and 7 “Sells.” The average 12-month price target is $40. 

UBS Sole makes a great point: the stock is still not at the bottom.  

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

A London mosque with charitable status is under investigation for posting sermons that tell husbands to hit disobedient wives and setting out execution methods for gay men, including being thrown from tall buildings.

The lectures were not smuggled out of a private meeting. They sit on the Hackney Islamic Community Centre’s own YouTube channel, delivered from the mosque also known as Masjid Daar Al-Hadeeth. The National Secular Society referred the material to the regulator. The Daily Mail published the tapes. Britain’s official response is a case file.

The Charity Commission has opened a regulatory compliance case. It has not, so far, taken the charity’s status away.

WATCH: Islamic preacher at London mosque encourages worshippers to hit their wives if they refuse to obey themhttps://t.co/YgOqAvbRtU pic.twitter.com/J103nBPrmO

— Video Forensics (@Video_Forensics) October 1, 2026

Yasin Munye, described as an ustaadh at the centre, reads in one lecture from Manthumatu al-Kaba’ir, a poem listing what the tradition treats as major sins. One of them, in his words, is “disobeying the husband, leaving the house without his permission, and disobeying the husband when it comes to calling her to bed, when it comes to calling her for intimacy, when she says ‘no’ without any excuse.”

The remedy he sets out is not a row and a solicitor. “Advise her, and boycott her in bed, don’t touch her in bed – and discipline them physically as well, by lightly hitting them to show them who is in charge.“

If she still refuses, he says husbands “don’t have to give her a house anymore.” He adds: “If a person has multiple wives, then he doesn’t have to stay with her; he can abandon her and stay with the other wife until she becomes obedient again.”

The same lecture turns to sex between men. Munye calls it “one of the most evil acts” and “a crime” that sees both participants “executed in the Sharia.” On the method, he is specific. “Scholars, they differ on how the execution occurs. Some of them say he is executed through the sword, like every other normal execution. Others say that they are thrown off of a tall building and rocks are thrown after that on top of them.“

Author and Head of Public Policy at Christian Concern, Tim Dieppe, reacts after a preacher at a London mosque reportedly encouraged Muslims to beat their wives to ‘discipline’ them.

?? Become a Friend of GB News: https://t.co/c2dfqbeDpJ pic.twitter.com/xF25ZZPvZd

— GB News (@GBNEWS) October 1, 2026

The National Secular Society says the videos were published on the charity’s YouTube account in 2023. They were still there when campaigners and reporters went looking this week, but have since been made private.

A separate lecture praises a state that still kills people accused of witchcraft. “Sihr (magic) is real, it is true,” Munye says. “In Saudi Arabia, they are killed, alhamdulillah (praise be to God), bless that, because a lot of Muslim countries today you don’t find this ruling applied. Alhamdulillah, in that country, that punishment is still applied.”

A community elder at the same mosque, Abu Sa’ad Muhammad Al-Iraqi, treats the British police as the problem. If a husband “is not nice to you and mistreats you,” he says, “there is a way: you bring your family, speak to his family, to teach him a lesson. But you have to give his right, otherwise don’t be his wife.”

He goes on: “Women think these days, our sisters think, that you only be kind to him if he’s been kind back… it doesn’t work like that.” Then the line that should have ended the tax exemption on the spot. “In another country they can’t do that, they won’t. But it is an unfortunate reality of this country that they turn wife against husband. They know if you slap them once, they’ll call the police for you. They don’t fear Allah.”

The centre has been a registered charity since 2006. It re-registered as a charitable incorporated organisation in April, a change that separates trustees from the charity’s debts and lets it hold property under charity law. Its objects include advancing the Islamic faith. In the year to March 2025 it took in £191,097, almost £155,000 of it in donations, and paid no tax on any of it.

Megan Manson, head of campaigns at the National Secular Society, called the renewal alarming. The charity, she said, has hosted “lectures which promote violence against women, say women cannot refuse their husbands sex, and condone the death penalty for gay men and those accused of ‘witchcraft’.”

“Hackney Islamic Community Centre is just one of many charities promoting misogyny, homophobia and other harmful ideologies through the charitable purpose of ‘the advancement of religion’,” she said. “This charitable purpose must be urgently reviewed. It is evidently facilitating the advancement of ideas which, far from benefiting the public, could fuel discrimination, division and abuse.”

The Charity Commission provided a stock reply, noting that the commission “has clear expectations that all charities, regardless of their purpose, must operate for the public benefit and provide a safe and trusted environment for all.”

It added that concerns had been raised “about alleged sermons and social media content linked to Hackney Islamic Community Centre and we have opened a regulatory compliance case to further assess these. This will determine any next steps.“

A compliance case is not a statutory inquiry. Earlier this year a preacher at Hatch End Islamic Centre, Ahmed Shah, told worshippers it was mandatory for women to do the housework and serve their husbands. The sermon came down. The commission offered advice and guidance, but the centre’s charity status remained in place.

None of this arrives in a vacuum. In July the Home Office was still handing Skilled Worker sponsorship licences to Islamic bookshops stocking jihad texts and a guide that includes wife-beating. Reform MP Lee Anderson called it “a perfect illustration of 14 years of Tory failure: rather than doctors and engineers, we brought in staff for Islamic shops selling books on jihad.”

In August, West Midlands Police invited non-Muslim staff to fast for a day in Ramadan as solidarity. Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy said the police “should be a national force for all of us, observing the same standards regardless of creed,” and that encouraging non-Muslim staff to observe Ramadan was “wholly inappropriate.”

The same month a retired officer, Stephen Gray, 65, was convicted under the Communications Act for resharing a bacon meme about Islam. He was fined more than £1,000. “I made a joke, an ironic joke, about Islam. That is all it was at the end of the day. A joke,” he said. Lord Young of the Free Speech Union called it “a new low. No one making a similar joke about Jesus would face prosecution.”

Last month, Barnet Hill Academy in West Hendon moved onto the state payroll as a voluntary-aided Islamic primary, with a compulsory white hijab for girls from Year 3. Stephen Evans of the National Secular Society said it was “appalling that taxpayers are being asked to fund a school that forces girls as young as seven to wear the hijab.”

A recent YouGov survey for King’s College London found 34 per cent of British adults believe London already has no-go areas where Sharia dominates and non-Muslims cannot enter.

On the one hand, a former police officer can be fined for a joke about Islam. On the other, a Islamic preacher can tell men to strike their wives, abandon them for a second wife, and advocate for gay men being thrown from buildings, yet retain charity status.

Is there a clearer example of a two-tier state? Mock the creed and the courts come for you. Preach beating and killing, and nothing happens.

A sense of resource nationalism is gripping the world, whether it involves copper, rare earths, other critical materials or, of course, refined crude products.

Kicking off Thursday, a Reuters report said that the Trump administration has asked Germany and France to release emergency diesel inventories to help create a buffer against the supply squeeze in the industrial fuel or face a potential US diesel export ban.

President Trump has floated a diesel export ban for weeks, while US oil refining executives have warned against it, saying it would only send prices higher.

Now a separate Reuters report says Chinese refiners have suspended October fuel exports as Beijing prioritizes rebuilding domestic stockpiles, threatening to deepen the refining crisis and cause havoc on import-heavy countries. 

This adds to a toxic combination of Russian export halts on industrial fuel following Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries with one-way attack drones and ongoing hostilities at the Hormuz chokepoint. The latest data from Goldman indicate that, with ‘dark tankers‘ accounted for, crude flows through the critical waterway are back to pre-war levels, but refined-product flows are not.

More from Reuters: 

It was not clear whether Beijing would resume permitting refiners’ exports after the holiday ends on October 7, the sources said, adding it could depend on domestic fuel inventories and refining output.

China has the world’s largest refining capacity, but Beijing is clearly concerned about the global refining crisis and has prioritized boosting local inventories. 

“It highlights that the government’s focus remains domestic supply security. International markets are an afterthought,” said Michal Meidan, head of China energy research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

Zameer Yusof, a senior manager for clean oil products at Kpler, pointed out that Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines were some of the top destinations for Chinese fuel exports in September.

The risk is widening fuel protectionism, as governments worldwide could begin prioritizing domestic stocks ahead of the Northern Hemisphere winter. This could result in more export restrictions, leaving import-dependent countries competing for fewer available liquids on the open market. This protectionism doesn’t stop at crude products, as resource nationalism is accelerating.

Asian diesel markets have already responded to fears of missing Chinese supply, with October-November swap spreads hitting two-week highs. 

Authored by Joseph Solis-Mullen via The Libertarian Institute

Barely four years after the Pretoria Agreement formally ended one of the deadliest wars of the twenty-first century, serious fighting has returned to northern Ethiopia. As we begin October, Tigrayan forces have seized the airports at Mekelle, Aksum, and Shire, launched coordinated attacks into neighboring Afar and Amhara regions, and declared themselves once again in a state of full-blown war with the federal government in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian military responded with drone strikes, artillery, and claims to have killed or captured hundreds of attackers. Flights were suspended, telecommunications disrupted, and civilians in Tigray began stocking food and cash in anticipation of another blockade.

In March of this year I warned in these pages that “the Horn of Africa is ready to explode” -pointing to unresolved territorial disputes, incomplete implementation of the Pretoria deal, military buildups, and the dangerous realignment of forces around Ethiopia, Tigray, and Eritrea. That assessment has, unfortunately, proven accurate. That fragile peace has given way to open conflict, and the risk of a wider regional conflagration is now higher than at any point since 2022.

The 2020–2022 Tigray War left somewhere in the area of 600,000 dead, millions displaced, and large parts of the region in ruins. Ethiopian federal forces, Amhara militias, and Eritrean troops fought the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in a campaign marked by mass atrocities, famine, and ethnic cleansing. The Pretoria Agreement called for a cessation of hostilities, disarmament of Tigrayan forces, restoration of services, and an interim administration. Implementation was partial at best. Disarmament remained incomplete. Territorial disputes in the center, north, and northwest of country went unresolved—including occupation of parts of Tigray by Eritrea. Political power struggles inside the TPLF eventually produced a hardline faction that reasserted control, reinstated the pre-war regional government, and began mobilizing and conscripting fighters.

By early August 2026, lower-level clashes had already resumed near the Sudanese border. Federal drone strikes followed. In mid-September the TPLF announced an alliance with six other armed groups, including elements of the Amhara Fano, with whom it has a fraught history and territorial dispute, aimed at removing Abiy’s government. Days later the airports fell and fighting spread. The former adversaries now appear to be cooperating on the battlefield against a common enemy in Addis Ababa.

This temporary marriage of convenience is one of the most striking features of the current round.

Equally significant is the role of Eritrea. During the last war, despite their history of enmity, Eritrean forces fought alongside the Ethiopian army against the TPLF. Relations between Addis Ababa and Asmara have since deteriorated sharply. Unsurprising, as since 2023 Abiy Ahmed’s Ethiopia has repeatedly emphasized the need of securing Red Sea access—particularly through the Eritrean port of Assab, which has understandably alarmed President Isaias Afwerki’s government. Ethiopian officials have accused Eritrea of financially and materially supporting the TPLF and the broader anti-government alliance. Eritrea denies the charges. Independent verification of direct combat involvement remains limited, yet the strategic logic is clear: a weakened or distracted Ethiopia reduces the immediate threat to Eritrean territory and ports.

Sudan adds another combustible layer. As I examined in detail earlier this month in “Could Washington Pick a Side in Sudan’s Civil War?” the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces has already drawn in a complex web of external actors —the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Israel, and others—whose interests increasingly center on Red Sea security, ports, and the strategic geography of the Horn. Ethiopia has been accused of allowing the RSF to train and stage operations from its territory; the SAF has, in turn, been accused of hosting or assisting Tigrayan fighters. Neither claim has produced confirmed large-scale intervention in the present fighting, but the proxy relationships are already in place. A major escalation in western Tigray could easily merge the two wars, turning northern Ethiopia into another front in the broader contest over the approaches to the Red Sea.

This pattern of interlocking crises is not new. In “Washington and Africa Are Intertwining Their Chaos,” I illustrated how U.S. policy across the continent has repeatedly transformed local conflicts into regional infernos through arms, training, intelligence partnerships, and the selection of favored clients. Somalia remains the clearest long-running example. As I detailed in “The Opportunity Costs of Our War in Somalia,” more than two decades of American airstrikes and special operations have failed to defeat al-Shabaab, have helped create the conditions for its rise in the first place, and continue to consume resources while delivering no measurable benefit to the American people. The same institutional habits that sustain that campaign—inertia, bureaucratic self-interest, and the refusal to acknowledge failure—are precisely what raise the risk that Washington will eventually feel compelled to “do something” as the Horn destabilizes further.

From a military perspective, Abiy’s government enters this round in a stronger position than in 2020. It possesses a substantial arsenal of drones that proved decisive in the later stages of the previous conflict, and the federal army is larger. Yet it is also stretched by ongoing insurgencies in Amhara and Oromia. The TPLF has reconstituted forces, secured at least temporary local allies, and demonstrated the ability to seize key infrastructure quickly. Neither side appears confident of a rapid, decisive victory. Both appear willing to risk another prolonged and catastrophic war.

Outside powers have so far limited themselves to calls for de-escalation. That is the correct public posture. The danger lies in the temptation, already visible in some quarters, to treat the conflict as another arena in which Washington or its regional partners must choose a side for larger geopolitical reasons—Red Sea security, countering Iranian influence, or balancing against other Gulf actors, specifically the Houthis. American policymakers have a long record of entering complex local conflicts with incomplete information, overestimating their ability to shape outcomes, and then discovering that their preferred clients commit the same atrocities they once condemned. Sudan’s civil war already illustrates the pattern. Ethiopia does not need a second demonstration.

This is going to be new levels of nightmare https://t.co/fSZAj7QK0s

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) October 1, 2026

The human costs of renewed full-scale war would be immense. Tigray has not recovered from the last conflict. Hundreds of thousands remain displaced. Food insecurity is chronic. Another blockade, another wave of drone strikes on civilian infrastructure, and another cycle of revenge killings would deepen a humanitarian catastrophe that the international system is already failing to address. History in the Horn of Africa offers little evidence that military “solutions” produce lasting political settlements. They produce exhaustion, new grievances, and the conditions for the next round of fighting.

Diplomatic pathways still exist. They require genuine inclusion of Eritrea, credible confidence-building measures, and a willingness on all sides to implement the core provisions of Pretoria rather than treat the agreement as a temporary truce to be discarded when convenient—which requires settling the federal relationship with the necessary stakeholders and permanently putting to rest the dispute between Tigray and its Amhara neighbors. Whether that political will materializes remains doubtful. What is not doubtful is that another major war in the Horn will kill large numbers of people who have already suffered enough, further destabilize an already fragile region, and create new opportunities for external powers to meddle at the expense of the local populations.

Washington’s most constructive contribution would be to stay out—genuinely stay out—and to discourage its partners from treating northern Ethiopia as a secondary front in someone else’s strategic competition. The people of Tigray, Amhara, Afar, and Eritrea do not need another proxy war. They need the fighting to stop.

Over several years of the Ukraine war, Russia and various European countries have escalated their diplomatic war – amid parallel ‘spy wars’ and mutual accusations of sabotage efforts – which has resulted in tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats.

A big exception to this trend until now was Hungary under Viktor Orbán. Having served as the Prime Minister of Hungary for a near 20-year total period across two separate periods, Orbán throughout the years of the Ukraine war until his defeat by Péter Magyar was a thorn in the side of the EU for his openness to Moscow and condemnation of NATO’s deepening role in propping up the Zelensky government.

Prime Minister Magyar, leader of the pro-European conservative Tisza Party, has been in office only five months and already he has drastically shifted the country on Moscow relations.

On Thursday Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it has moved to expel a group of Hungarian diplomats in a tit-for-tat action.

Starting Sept.8, Budapest under Magyar expelled ten Russian diplomats who were suspected of spying activities. Moscow in the wake of this lodged a formal and “decisive protest” over the “groundless and openly unfriendly” expulsion.

Such words would have been unthinkable under Orbán. And now, as state media confirms, several Hungarian diplomats have been sent packing:

Hungarian Charge d’Affaires in Russia Gabor Gergich, who was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry, was informed that, as a retaliatory measure, a group of employees of the Hungarian Embassy in Moscow and Hungarian Consulates General in St. Petersburg and Kazan must leave Russian territory, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“The Hungarian diplomat was informed that, as a retaliatory measure, a group of employees of the Hungarian Embassy in Moscow and the Consulates General of Hungary in St. Petersburg and Kazan must leave Russian territory within two weeks,” the ministry said.

As for the new era of Magyar he early on made clear he would not block a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine which Orbán originally vetoed, resulting in a collective sigh of relief among Eurocrats in Brussels.

Beyond the Ukraine funding veto, it was Orbán’s refusal to submit to open borders and mass immigration that caused constant conflict with the EU.

Things are rapidly changing on multiple diplomatic fronts:

The first visit by an Estonian Foreign Minister to Hungary in seven years. 🇭🇺🇪🇪
Today, we are giving fresh momentum to our bilateral relations. Welcome to Budapest, dear @Tsahkna! pic.twitter.com/LXsidRg9e3

— Anita Orban (@_OrbanAnita) October 1, 2026

He was frequently referred to by the political left as a “dictator” and a “fascist” in part because of his strict border policies (even though he is voluntarily leaving office after losing the election, which is not the behavior of a dictator)

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

The British state is compiling a list of people who criticise its own counter-terror programme. Ordinary X and Reddit users who questioned Prevent training, flagged a one-sided focus on the “far Right,” or simply criticised it have had their posts logged, stored and “investigated” by a Home Office-linked unit most of them have never heard of.

Officials spent more than a year trying to keep that database secret. They only released it after an appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The public was never told their feeds were being trawled.

The Standards and Compliance Unit, or StaCU, was set up in February 2024 as an “opaque” body to handle complaints about Prevent, the safeguarding scheme sold as a way to stop people becoming terrorists. Documents obtained by The Metro and released by Rights & Security International show StaCU did more than wait for formal complaints.

“Social media posts criticising government policy are being listed, monitored and investigated by officials.”

The government are supposed to serve the public rather than monitor those who disagree with them by Orwellian surveillance and snooping. https://t.co/mH62tNEkYV

— James Melville ? (@JamesMelville) September 30, 2026

Between March 2024 and February 2025 it made 77 “observations” of critical online comments, most of them from X, with others from Reddit and even articles in the Guardian and the Telegraph.

Jacob Smith, Freedom of Expression and Belief Team Leader at Rights & Security International, fought for a year to force the Home Office to publish the material.

“It is shocking that the government has been trawling X and Reddit to find out who has been critiquing Prevent – and then storing that information,” he said. “You should be allowed to criticise government policy without being put on a list.”

He added: “People should be able to express their views on social media without that being catalogued in government databases.”

Many of those logged, he said, had posted without thinking “that the government might be looking at their feed and taking that data. It is in an almost private setting.”

His conclusion was blunt: “It’s a stark reminder that, in the government’s eyes, anything you share online is fair game and could go into a file forever.“

A large share of the logged posts accused Prevent training of treating the “far Right” as the main threat while skating over Islamist extremism.

One X user was recorded after calling the training “complete bullshit.” They wrote: “Anyone’s who done the prevent training knows it only talks about the far Right. Islam extremism isn’t even mentioned.”

Another poster said they “sat through Prevent training at work … and the narrative was very much that the far Right is the biggest threat.” They added: “I kid you not!”

StaCU says it tries to independently verify claims about Prevent. It managed that for only 10 percent of the posts. The unit’s parent body, the Commission for Countering Extremism, sometimes replies in public, inviting the user to submit a formal complaint.

In one case, after a post accused Prevent training of “turning a blind eye to Islam,” the Commission wrote: “Hello, we process and investigate complaints about Prevent and are interested in finding out more about the training referenced above. Please feel free to DM us, tweet us back, or make a formal complaint using this link.”

What that reply does not say is that the user’s post has already been stored in an internal government list.

It was not only anonymous accounts. Open Rights Group had a tweet recorded that said: “How data is managed and stored under the Prevent programme lacks transparency.“

Sarah Lasoye, the group’s Programme Manager for Pre-Crime, told The Metro: “Prevent has expanded far beyond its stated aim of identifying people considered ‘vulnerable to radicalisation’, and has increasingly been used to justify extensive surveillance.”

She added, “It is deeply concerning to see the Prevent duty being used to enable the monitoring of people and organisations simply because they are critical of the programme. That raises serious questions about freedom of expression and the right to dissent and protest.”

“There is also a troubling lack of transparency about what happens to the information gathered through this social media monitoring: how long it is retained, who it is shared with, and ultimately what the Government is using it for,” Lasoye urged.

Rights & Security International says organisations including Hope Not Hate and Maslaha also appear in or around the observations. The Campaign Against Antisemitism had a post logged that did not even name Prevent. It criticised police for failing to take a Hezbollah vigil seriously. A spokesperson said: “We aren’t sure whether to be flattered or concerned that StaCU has picked up a post of ours.”

The group added, “If it’s because we’ve dared to be critical of law enforcement’s lax attitude toward Islamist extremism in this country, we stand by what we said and would reiterate it for as long as it takes to bring about change. But if our post was flagged because StaCU agrees with us that police forces have failed to train their officers on what Islamist terrorism looks like and which organisations are banned, we hope that the message is being received and change is coming.”

That last point tracks a long-running complaint. Sir William Shawcross, in his 2023 review of Prevent, wrote: “The bar for what RICU includes on Islamism looks to be relatively high, whereas the bar for what is included on the extreme Right-wing is comparably low.”

Home Office figures for the year to September 2025 showed 10,293 Prevent referrals. Twenty percent were recorded as extreme right-wing ideology. Eight percent concerned Islamist extremism.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Prevent does not track people who may have criticised the programme, and nor does it target any particular community.” The department added that keeping the public safe is “our number one priority” and that Prevent has “moved more than 6,000 people away from violent ideologies since 2015.”

The documents say otherwise on the first claim. StaCU collated the posts as “open-source complaints,” stored them internally, and the Home Office refused to release the list until the Information Commissioner forced its hand. Nobody outside the unit can say who else sees the file, how long it is kept, or whether it is shared with police, platforms or other departments.

This is not an isolated compliance desk. It sits inside a growing stack of state machinery built to police speech, “narratives” and online anger.

In June, we laid out how the Home Office’s Research, Information and Communications Unit has been used to manage the mass-migration story – briefing police to cast concerned citizens as “unsympathetic thugs,” shaping family statements after migrant-linked killings, and running a higher bar for Islamism than for the so-called extreme Right.

The same week, ministers moved to give Ofcom faster powers to block “false information” during so-called crisis events – a phrase wide enough to cover any unrest the government would rather you not describe accurately.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan had already demanded a central government social-media “disinformation” unit, complaining of an “outrage economy” while knife crime, robbery and theft climbed on his watch. “If platforms fail to act, the state must have the tools to make them,” he said.

Last week Prime Minister Andy Burnham used his first United Nations speech to announce a National Centre for Information Defence – a new machine to “detect, attribute and disrupt” what ministers call hostile information attacks and to stop a “distorted and untrue narrative about Britain.”

He wrapped it in Russia, bots and “community cohesion.” Nigel Farage called it a Ministry of Truth. “Never ever trust this authoritarian Government,” he said. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting insisted: “We’re not interested in policing domestic political dissent.” Labour’s record is why that promise is already worn thin.

Police have their own version. The National Internet Intelligence Investigations team, stood up after the 2024 Southport riots, has referred more than 100 “suspicious” posts to local forces, including dozens tied to protest-related activity.

Officials describe it as “a dedicated function at a national level for exploiting internet intelligence.” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage called it “the beginning of the state controlling free speech.”

The arrest figures sit underneath all of it. Between 2021 and 2025 at least 62,199 people were arrested in Britain on suspicion of communications offences – section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, the Malicious Communications Act 1988, and the Online Safety Act’s false-communications offence.

That is roughly 34 arrests a day. Big Brother Watch director Silkie Carlo said speech policing is “out of control” and called the result an “Orwellian mess.” Lord Toby Young asked why authorities spend so much time “policing our tweets when they could be policing our streets.”

Prevent is sold as safeguarding. The logged posts are not bomb plots. They are workers calling official training biased, campaigners asking how data is stored, and a Jewish group complaining that police treat a banned terrorist organisation too lightly.

If that is enough to enter a Home Office database, the category of “acceptable” speech is already whatever officials decide it is on a whim.

Britain does not need another unit to hunt “untrue narratives.” It needs a government that can survive being questioned without opening a file on the questioner.

There are two familiar trends related to the Ukraine war which have persisted. The White House is still reportedly trying to get creative regarding some kind of deal that would east tensions between Moscow and the West – including potential sanctions relief for the release of political prisoners – but at the same time the rhetoric between Russia and Europe has gotten increasingly dangerous.

The Kremlin this week highlighted another big issue which serves as an ongoing source of broader tensions. It announced Monday that arms control talks between Washington and Moscow should have begun “yesterday”.

As it stands, there are no existent nuclear arms control treaties remaining between the globe’s two biggest nuclear-armed superpowers. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned in fresh comments that the nuclear issue remains “completely unaddressed” at this stage.

The New START nuclear arms reduction agreement officially went defunct on February 5, 2026 – as it was not renewed, amid the backdrop of war in Ukraine and ratcheted US sanctions on Russia.

Revisit our: Uncharted Territory: US & Russia Now Have No Limits On Nuclear Weapons

“This is such a complex matter that it requires very lengthy, meticulous, and expert-level negotiations. Therefore, in any case, it will be a process that takes a long time,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was signed in 2010 by Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, and limits the number of deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 per side, and caps deployed delivery systems – including of missiles, bombers, and submarines – at 700.

The treaty was further designed to regulate targeting of each rival’s political and military centers in a potential nuclear conflict. 

The August 15, 2025 Alaska summit between Presidents Trump and Putin had as one of its many aims setting the “next stages” of discussions could include reaching “agreements in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons.”

“Russia will be ready to use the entire arsenal … including nuclear weapons, in order to defend its territory should NATO countries undertake any attempt aimed at ​isolating the Kaliningrad Region from the rest of the country,” says a document allegedly sent by Russia to NATO… pic.twitter.com/U2meg41cju

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) September 30, 2026

However, such an agreement has remained elusive and not even the New START Treaty survived, also given the Trump administration has long voiced that it wants to see China included in future landmark arms control deals.

Via Remix News,

In a system that rejects mass immigration, the population can fall, opening up room for cheaper housing, lower rents, and even an increase in the birthrate.

Across the West, native Europeans are dying out but rental prices continue to go up every year. While the left would like to point the finger at capitalists and greedy landlords, the primary factor driving the housing affordability crisis is mass immigration.

Berlin is a prime example of this trend, as German journalist and author Jens Winter pointed out on X using clear population and housing data.

“Rental prices on the market have more than doubled in Berlin since 2011 – plenty of money for corporations. But where is the increased demand coming from? While the native population of the capital has declined by 260,000 since 2011, the number of foreigners and people with a migration background has risen by 650,000 over the same period. That means: Without migration, there would be less demand for housing in Berlin today than in 2011,” he wrote.

In a follow-up post, he wrote that the German “conservative” party is just as guilty as the left.

“The CDU-aligned real estate lobby is raking in big money with migration in Berlin. The Germans have a choice: dying out in the CDU’s multikulti capitalism or in the Left’s multikulti socialism. Understandable response: If we’re going to disappear anyway, why bust our asses for it?” he wrote.

Die CDU-nahe Immobilien-Lobby scheffelt mit Migration in Berlin mächtig Geld. Die Deutschen haben die Wahl: Aussterben im Multikulti-Kapitalismus der CDU oder im Multikulti-Sozialismus der Linken. Verständliche Antwort: Wenn schon verschwinden, warum dafür dann hart arbeiten? https://t.co/GPrTp62SXO

— Jens Winter (@mr_jenswinter) September 26, 2026

While the doubling of rents is real, there is a basic supply and demand reality that the left would like to deny. It is indeed true that predatory property owners, major institutional players, and money printing have played contributing roles to the housing crisis, but no matter how many greedy property owners are involved, if the population of a city falls, rental and housing prices are almost inevitably going to fall.

Mass immigration means that population numbers never fall. Any breathing space for German families to repopulate, have more children, and fill in the gaps left by older generations passing away is immediately filled by hundreds of thousands of foreigners.

The data shows that the population of native Germans fell by 260,000 people. In a system that rejects mass immigration and foreign real estate investors, this could have been a boon for birthrates and increasing home ownership. For one, Germans who already lived in Berlin, and those looking to move to Berlin, would have been more easily able to afford rents and housing due to less competition on the housing market. Secondly, more native Germans would have had a chance to start families – and those who already had families could have afforded an extra child or two – by securing affordable housing.

However, Germany does not reject mass immigration.

Instead, 650,000 foreigners arrived in the same period of time and housing and rental prices soared. The left, however, refuses to do simple math.

There is of course another solution, but it is far more complicated than simply allowing population levels to fall in a country that has never had so many people living in it. Instead of ending mass immigration, left-wing parties, along with the CDU, demand more housing is built.

However, there are myriad reasons why the required housing is not being built, including high construction and material costs, red tape, zoning, and a lack of skilled workers. The same parties have been making the same demands for years now, but construction cannot keep pace with demand in Berlin or other major cities across Germany.

The Left Party may promise to build more, but the reality is that it will not happen. Nothing the left offers will lead to the necessary building. Before Olaf Scholz of the far-left Social Democrats (SPD) won the chancellorship, he promised that his “goal” was to create 400,000 new apartments per year, which would include 100,000 units of social housing, saying, “That’s not witchcraft, we just have to want to do it.”

It never happened under Scholz and it won’t happen under a left-wing government in Berlin either.

Should more housing even be built?

As Western cities race to replace their native European populations, the question becomes whether life really becomes better in a crowded multicultural city when it means more traffic, longer waiting times at hospitals, crowded classrooms, and imported crime – just to name a few ills.

The newcomers also did not fix the skilled worker shortage that could potentially build all the homes and apartments politicians and lobbyists claim Europe needs. While a certain number of new houses and apartments always need to be built, the question then becomes should Western civilization really be involved in endless building to accommodate millions of foreigners.

On top of all of these questions, the buildings developers managed to build are now in fact uglier than ever, more expensive than ever, and are built more slowly than ever.

In fact, data shows that the time from start to completion for a project is longer than it has been in decades. Again, where are all these young migrants from Africa and the Middle East to fuel a new construction boom with their master artisan and building skills?

The reality is they largely do not exist. Many skilled builders who are immigrants are from neighboring European countries, such as Poland, and they increasingly see fewer reasons to work in Germany.

The pro-migration left is making housing worse

Winter’s X post is especially relevant given that the Left Party recently won a first place finish in Berlin elections, securing over 25 percent of the vote. Commentators and analysts have contributed the rise of the party in Germany’s capital due a variety of factors, but two major components are the party’s ability to secure the vote of German citizens with a migration background and young voters.

The second factor is Berlin’s housing crisis, which helped drive support from groups like non-voters, the young, and foreigners.

German taxpayer-funded Deutsche Welle, wrote: “That makes sense to 17-year-old Liska, who voted for the socialists: ‘The Left Party did appeal to me, especially because of the social issues – getting prices down, making rents more affordable.’ Rents in Berlin are indeed rising at a massive pace – by some 7% in the last two years alone – and first-time tenants are likely to be the hardest hit. Polls also showed that by far the biggest proportion of Berlin voters – 37% – thought that the Left Party was the most likely to create affordable housing.“

The Left Party and various other left-wing parties have convinced young people that there are easy fixes to the housing crisis. The problem is not relegated to Berlin, as all of Germany has seen tight vacancies as more and more migrants arrive, as Remix News previously reported.

In the end, the left and its voters are choosing a path where more and more building only leads to overcrowding and environmental degradation.

Mass immigration and higher housing costs hurt birthrates

Numerous studies have shown that immigration has helped drive soaring rental and housing prices across the Western world – not just in Germany. In turn, studies have also shown that soaring housing prices have depressed birthrates, including in countries like the Netherlands, according to the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI).

Again, the same story is taking place in the Netherlands, with the natural population increase for the Dutch at near zero or negative. Nevertheless, the population rose from about 16.8 million in 2013 to 18.1 million in 2025, with net migration accounting for virtually all of the recent increase.

It must also be remembered that just like in Germany, most of these migrants want to head to the major cities, such as Amsterdam.

Official housing-need forecasts in the Netherlands also attribute a large share of future extra demand, often 45 percent or more of the extra dwellings required, to population growth that is itself 95 percent migration-driven.

Great for landlords, bad for the citizens.

Of course, the Alternative for Germany has tried to tie the housing crisis to mass immigration, and they have successfully made this case to some extent.

WATCH: 🇩🇪🇪🇺 Mass immigration is fueling the West’s housing crisis.

Here’s how it’s happening in Germany.

In a powerful speech in the German Bundestag, @AfD politician Carolin Bachmann slams the ruling government for allowing 2 million migrants into the country while families… pic.twitter.com/DMEqiV316S

— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) February 15, 2024

The problem is that as more and more of the population becomes foreign, this argument holds less and less sway. Immigration may raise housing prices but if immigration brought a person to a country in the first place, and if more immigration might also enable more and more of their family members and fellow countrymen to arrive, then these voters have every incentive to keep immigration levels high regardless of housing costs.

Many of these migrants are not paying for rent anyway. There are millions of foreigners on social welfare, which means not only are they taking housing places of native Germans, but they are being paid to do it. They then often have far higher birthrates than native Germans, even with limited space, which entitles them to larger spaces.

The cycle is self-reinforcing and relentless. That means unless dramatic action is taken against mass immigration, housing and rental prices may never truly come down.

Beyond nuclear, the “powering up America” theme, AI, and the more recent “own the bottlenecks” theme, we have also outlined incoming tailwinds for drone and counter-UAS companies as the Department of War adapts to the wars in Ukraine and the Gulf area. That requires massive drone stockpiling and the development of conflict-free supply chains.

To do this, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is creating a four-star combatant command for autonomous warfare, seeking to accelerate the DoW’s purchases across all categories of drones, robotics, and AI to prepare the military for warfare that has forever changed – that inflection point arrived in March. 

The Autonomous Warfare Command, dubbed “AutoWarCom,” is set to become operational in the fall of next year, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

The WSJ quoted Hegseth as saying in a speech earlier at US Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, that this effort will be “the fastest peacetime shift in modern military history.”

The key is the massive rearmament supercycle set to kick off, if it hasn’t already. It will provide massive tailwinds for drone companies as the military begins stockpiling all categories of drones and counter-UAS technology while fortifying military installations around the world. 

To do this, the US supply chain must be built out to produce millions of one-way attack drones with components made domestically or in conflict-free areas. In other words, drone engines, blades, sensors, and other components must be sourced outside China.

Owen West, a former Marine, assistant defense secretary, and Goldman Sachs trader, will initially lead the effort alongside Navy SEAL test pilot Max Strasiser, according to the outlet.

“Once we apply sustained budget to changed doctrine, we will outperform the world,” said West, who has been leading the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit. “And by snapping in AI, we will be ahead of the world, because we are the leaders in AI.”

To understand the tailwinds coming to the drone industry, the report notes that the DoW has sought to triple spending on autonomous warfare, proposing $74 billion for drone and counterdrone technology in its largest-ever budget request.

Our drone theme began in late January, when we warned (read report) that every data center needs a kinetic interceptor (read here). The worst-case scenario materialized a month later when Iran attacked several data centers in the Gulf with one-way attack drones. Our pick in the space is Ondas.

Our reporting from last weekend shows that the DoW nearly doubled the value of a contract for Ondas’ ULTRA platform, which appears to be a lower-cost Group 5 drone that could complement the MQ-9 Reaper and eventually assume some of its ISR missions (read report).

Follow the money. 

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