Month: August 2026

The USS George Washington aircraft carrier has arrived in the Middle East, US Central Command announced on Thursday, as a US official told The New York Times that the USS Abraham Lincoln began its journey back to the US on the same day.  

This comes a week after US Senator Richard Blumenthal demanded a formal inquiry into the conditions aboard the Lincoln amid reports of low morale, suicide attempts, supply shortages, water contamination, and several other issues.

CENTCOM refuted claims that soldiers had tried to jump off the Lincoln in a post on X/Twitter. 

In the post, CENTCOM said, “USS Abraham Lincoln has maintained among the highest crew reenlistment rates (84.4%) of all aircraft carriers in the US Navy. The Sailors and Marines of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group remain resilient and resolved after more than 260 days at sea, 10,000 aircraft flights, and 1.5 million pounds of ordnance expended.”

Footage purporting to show the poor conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) aircraft carrier was published in a TikTok post by a US Navy sailor on Sunday. 

The footage, allegedly recorded onboard the ship, shows one of the carrier's bathrooms, with the sailor describing the conditions as "atrocious."

CENTCOM condemned what it called “rampant misreporting” as a disservice to those serving aboard the Lincoln. 

"The Sailors and Marines of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group remain resilient and resolved after more than 260 days at sea, 10,000 aircraft flights, and 1.5 million pounds of ordnance expended," CENTCOM wrote in a post on X.

Miriam Sela-Eitam and Esther Davis contributed to this report.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been allocated 70,000 doses of Merck’s Ervebo Ebola vaccine, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, as the country works to contain its biggest-ever outbreak of the deadly disease. 

Last week, the DRC had requested a release of Ervebo vaccines from the global Ebola virus disease vaccine stockpile, managed by the International Coordinating Group (ICG) on Vaccine Provision, according to WHO.

The Ervebo vaccine is approved to prevent disease caused by the most common Ebola strain, Ebola Zaire, and its effect on Ebola Bundibugyo in humans is still unknown. Out of the 70,000 doses allocated by WHO, 20,000 will be used in a late-stage trial to understand the impact of the vaccine on the Bundibugyo strain.

The outbreak is now the biggest Ebola epidemic in the DRC’s history, with over 5,000 confirmed cases and 2,378 deaths, according to government data, surpassing the previous worst outbreak from 2018 to 2020. 

Earlier this week, WHO’s Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said the Ebola outbreak in eastern Congo remains a global emergency. 

The US has designated Myanmar scholar and US citizen Min Zin as wrongfully detained after his arrest by Chinese authorities in June, a senior State Department official told Reuters, a move that makes securing his release a top US priority.

The designation for Min Zin, who is accused of endangering Chinese national security, comes just weeks before US President Donald Trump is scheduled to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping to the White House.

Rights groups have urged the US to press China for the release of Min Zin, who leads a think tank focused on Myanmar, ahead of Xi's anticipated September 24 visit.

"US citizen Min Zin has been detained by Chinese security services on undefined charges since June 3. For nearly 11 weeks, he has been subjected to repeated interrogations, isolation and detention conditions," the official said on Thursday.

“After careful review of Min Zin’s case, the secretary of state has decided to designate him as wrongfully detained,” the official said, referring to Marco Rubio.

The official called on China to release other Americans held by Beijing. In addition to Min Zin, Youlin Chen, a Chinese-born American seismologist from Boston, is being held by China on what the US considers baseless charges. He has been declared wrongfully detained.

“The safety and security of US citizens globally is President Trump’s top priority, and the president has been clear that China must treat US citizens with respect – and those wrongfully detained or under exit bans must be released,” the official said.

Rights groups say the number of Americans unjustly detained in the country ranges from a dozen to hundreds, including coercive exit bans. China says it handles cases in accordance with law and that there are no instances in the country of wrongful detention.

Prior to his arrest, Min Zin lived in Thailand and spent time in the US and Myanmar. He had a valid Chinese visa that he had previously used to travel to China to attend academic conferences, the official said.

The official said Min Zin traveled to Yunnan, China, on June 3 after being invited by the Chinese government to attend an academic conference in Kunming and was detained inside the airport.

"One minute his colleagues and family were engaging with him on the phone – exchanging updates on his arrival time and plans in China – and the next minute communication was lost. For 48 hours, his loved ones did not know where he had gone, if he was alive, or who could have taken him," the official said.

Yunnan authorities eventually informed the US embassy that Min Zin was under criminal investigation for “endangering (China’s) national security," the official said.

Rights advocates argue that China has long conducted "hostage diplomacy," detaining foreigners, including Americans, to gain leverage in bilateral relations.

Advocates for Min Zin, including some former Trump administration officials, have petitioned Trump to raise his case with the Chinese.

"Min Zin’s case has raised grave concerns among other scholars about whether they could be subject to entrapment and detention by China," the official said.

China's foreign ministry in June confirmed the ‌arrest of Min Zin, saying he was suspected of spying and of endangering Chinese national security.

A former student activist who participated in Myanmar's 1988 democracy movement, Min Zin studied political science at the University of California, Berkeley.

He also helped establish the Institute for Strategy and Policy, which was initially based inside Myanmar but moved overseas following the 2021 coup, when the military ousted the democratically elected government of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

China has publicly backed Myanmar's new administration, which took office after a widely criticized vote that excluded the country's main opposition groups, including Suu Kyi's political party.

More than 100 people were killed when an artisanal gold mine collapsed in the Central African Republic on Tuesday, a senior official at a local mining association said. 

A prosecutor confirmed there had been a mine collapse in the village of Zamboye near the border with Cameroon but said the number of deaths and other details were still being established.

The prosecutor said in a statement that rescue efforts were continuing and an investigation would be opened to establish the cause and who was running the site.

Cameroonian authorities said they were ready to receive and provide medical care to any injured people who crossed the border.

Artisanal mining supports livelihoods across Africa, but weak regulation and poor safety standards often lead to deadly accidents.

The CEO of Chinese humanoid robot unicorn Unitree 688836.SS said on Thursday the industry is edging towards a “ChatGPT moment” for robot brains, after the company’s blockbuster Shanghai listing crystallized China’s ambitions to lead the next frontier of AI-powered machines.

Shares in China's best-known humanoid robot maker fell 11% on Thursday, a day after soaring nearly sixfold in their market debut, highlighting intense investor enthusiasm for a fledgling sector that enjoys strong backing from Beijing.

“We are marching towards a ‘ChatGPT moment’ in embodied intelligence,” said Wang Xingxing, the Hangzhou-based startup’s founder and CEO, at a major robot conference in Beijing.

The global AI boom that has reshaped the world economy was sparked in late 2022 by ChatGPT's breakthrough large language model, a watershed moment that drove mass adoption. No comparable inflection point has yet emerged for world models, the physical AI simulation systems designed to help robots understand and navigate real-world environments.

Wang said the industry is nearing a breakthrough where robots can be placed in unfamiliar environments and complete most tasks through simple voice or text instructions.

"We hope that in the future, we can see a robot be introduced into an unfamiliar household and it can achieve approximately 80% of tasks successfully through voice or text commands," he said.

"It is an important tipping point for the robot industry to usher in explosive growth."

At the same time, Wang cautioned that a major leap in robot software could arrive within two to three years in an optimistic scenario, or within five to 10 years at the latest.

"Relative to the mood around World Robot Conference and Unitree’s spectacular IPO, Wang Xingxing was notably sober about current capabilities," said Georg Stieler, head of automation at robotics consultancy Stieler.

Unitree is the world's largest producer of robot dogs and the second-biggest maker of humanoid robots by shipments, according to industry data.

It rose to fame with impressively choreographed performances of robots dancing and performing kung-fu, showcased on Chinese television, and is increasingly deploying its machines in real-world industrial settings. Its IPO prospectus shows most customers are universities and research institutions.

Wang He, founder of Chinese robotic startup Galbot, expects the sector's "ChatGPT moment" to arrive by 2028, defining it as the point when robots can perform about 70% to 80% of everyday tasks without specialized training.

"With continued accumulation of data and further technological breakthroughs, we expect to reach the 'ChatGPT moment' for embodied intelligence by 2028," he said.

Unitree's Wang said the company's biggest current investment in terms of capital and manpower is in world models and that it is "lagging behind" in the real-world application of physical AI models.

He also said humanoids are not yet capable enough for mass deployment, pointing to limitations in the AI models that power robots' decision-making and interactions as the industry's biggest bottleneck.

Even so, Wang expects the sector to enter a decade of rapid autonomous evolution of humanoid robots, as the AI boom accelerates and AI language models learn to improve themselves.

China delivered over 40,000 humanoids in the first half of this year alone, and accounts for 97% of global shipments of humanoid robots, a Chinese humanoid industry body said in a report Thursday.

Beijing is betting that robots can eventually replace human labor in repetitive, low-value and dangerous settings as it faces a shrinking workforce due to demographic decline.

While humanoids are gradually being introduced to factory floors and logistics warehouses, they remain less efficient than human workers in most applications.

Humanoid robots have also become a new front in US-China technology rivalry.

Last month the US Federal Communications Commission banned future imports of foreign-made humanoid and quadruped robots citing national security concerns, in a major blow to Chinese producers.

Several companies at the World Robot Conference in Beijing told Reuters they were looking to expand overseas.

South Korea estimates North Korea possesses between 80 and 120 nuclear warheads, its defence minister said on Thursday, citing a range significantly higher than US President Donald Trump’s recent assertion that Pyongyang has 57 nuclear weapons.

Defence Minister Ahn Gyu-back told lawmakers that North Korea was generally believed to have around 80 to 120 warheads, although he cautioned it was difficult to determine an exact figure.

"We usually see it as around 80 to 120, but it is considerably limited to state an exact number," Ahn told a parliamentary committee.

Later, Ahn clarified that the figure was derived from estimates by private research organisations, adding that South Korea’s military could not officially confirm the numbers.

Asked about Trump's comment a day earlier that Kim possessed 57 "very powerful nuclear weapons", Ahn said, "the numbers appear somewhat different."

Trump made the remark at the White House on Wednesday while discussing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his plans to meet him later this year.

South Korea has traditionally avoided publicly disclosing detailed estimates of North Korea's nuclear stockpile and does not officially recognize Pyongyang as a nuclear weapons state under its long-standing policy supporting denuclearisation.

Ahn reiterated that position when asked whether the government acknowledged North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

"We cannot officially acknowledge that," he said.

He also declined to comment on whether Trump's reference to 57 warheads amounted to US recognition of North Korea's nuclear status, saying it would not be appropriate for South Korea's defence minister to comment on the US president's remarks.

Ahn said South Korea would continue to rely on the US nuclear umbrella, in line with Seoul's longstanding non-nuclear policy.

"We cannot develop nuclear weapons. Nor should we accept the deployment of US tactical nuclear weapons," Ahn said.

The comments came as Trump seeks to revive engagement with Kim after ordering a scale-back of joint US-South Korean military drills, which he described as "hostile" to North Korea.

North Korea responded coolly to the move. Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of the North Korean leader, said the reduced exercises remained provocative and aggressive despite their shortened duration.

She dismissed any suggestion that Pyongyang would view the move as a meaningful goodwill gesture and said she was unaware of any recent contacts between Trump and Kim, although she described the personal relationship between the leaders as "excellent."

Trump said at the White House on Wednesday that he expected to meet Kim later this year, potentially reviving diplomacy that stalled after a series of unprecedented summits in 2018 and 2019 collapsed over disagreements on sanctions relief and North Korea's nuclear weapons programme.

Prince Harry and his wife Meghan plan to move back to Britain this month, six years after they stepped down from their royal duties and relocated to the United States, media outlets reported on Wednesday.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are moving with Prince Archie, 7, and Princess Lilibet, 5, from California to Britain for an extended period and the children will begin school there in September, People magazine and British newspaper The Telegraph reported.

There was no comment from Harry's spokesperson or from Buckingham Palace. However, a source close to the couple confirmed the reports' accuracy.

According to The Telegraph, the couple will not live in a royal residence. Their status will be unchanged, and they will remain non-working royals as agreed with the late Queen Elizabeth when they left in March 2020.

Harry married Meghan Markle in a dazzling ceremony at Windsor Castle in 2018, and it was hoped his union with the former actress, whose mother is Black, would reinvigorate the historic institution.

But it was not long before cracks in their relationship with the rest of the royal family began to emerge. Two years later in March 2020, they announced they would step down from official duties and move to the US. 

They moved to the wealthy seaside enclave of Montecito near Santa Barbara, California, with media reports putting the 2020 purchase price of their 16-bedroom home at $14.7 million.

In the following years, Harry, now 41, and Meghan, 45, repeatedly criticized the royal family and the monarchy in TV interviews, a Netflix documentary series and most notably in Harry’s memoir Spare.

Harry had some particularly barbed comments for his father, King Charles, and his elder brother, heir-to-the-throne Prince William, leading to a total breakdown in their relationship.

Harry was also angry the British government changed his security arrangements and said the lack of ​automatic police protection meant he was unable to bring his children to Britain.

But relations with the king appeared to be thawing in September, and father and son met briefly for the first time in 20 months.

Last month, Harry, Meghan and their children visited Britain, and Charles saw his grandchildren for the first time since 2022.

However, the king, while welcoming the chance to see more of the Sussexes, himself only became aware of the couple's plans to return to Britain on Sunday.

While Harry and the king's relationship might have improved, he is still barely on speaking terms with his brother.

A US Navy destroyer assigned to the 7th Fleet spent four days in July stranded in the South China Sea without functioning bathrooms, galley services, or air conditioning, CNN reported on Monday.

Due to an engineering failure on the guided-missile destroyer, the USS Benfold was forced to stop, Navy Cmdr. Matthew Comer, spokesperson for the 7th Fleet, told the network. An Arleigh Burke-class warship carrying hundreds of seamen, the destroyer normally accompanies the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, which left Vietnam this month for the Middle East.

The engineering failure impacted the ship's galley services, bathrooms, air conditioning, and potable water, though the crew suffered no injuries, Comer told CNN.

During the incident, meals were provided to the vessel by another ship, the report cited the Navy as saying.

Former Navy captain Charles Schuster gave his viewpoint on the incident, himself having been in the same situation for four hours in an incident near Puerto Rico.

“It would have been quite stressful," Schuster told CNN.

"Operations officers were worried about crew morale and operational concerns, the engineers were focused on how to solve it and the navigator was worried about the direction they were drifting and what weather was coming."

"The crew was worried about weather, food and what was next. The [commanding officer] and [executive officer] were worried about all of that and when help would arrive,” he said.

“I can assure you four hours in the waters southeast of Puerto Rico is not nearly as stressful as four days in the South China Sea,” he added.

The Nimitz-class George Washington, one of the US Navy’s newest aircraft carriers, is set to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is headed to port in San Diego after months in the Middle East. The move will mean that no US carrier will be present in the western Pacific area, a decision which some military analysts consider a security threat.

The Lincoln has spent over two hundred days at sea, and reports of worsening conditions aboard the vessel have made the rounds lately, including unhygienic bathrooms and a lack of food.

In a Saturday letter to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, several US lawmakers enumerated their concerns about the Lincoln crew’s wellbeing.

"As the Secretary of Defense, you [Hegseth] are accountable to the men and women who serve our nation," the letter read.

Fuel stations in Moscow have reimposed limits on gasoline purchases due to fuel shortages linked to Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries and strong seasonal demand, according to Reuters witnesses and fuel suppliers.

Shortages began to gather pace in May and had spread to most Russian regions by July, but fuel stations in Moscow were able to ease an earlier wave of restrictions in June.

Ukraine has targeted Russian oil refineries in an effort to undermine Moscow’s war effort and reduce energy revenues.

To boost domestic supplies, Russian authorities have banned exports of gasoline and diesel, eased fuel quality requirements and began importing petroleum products.

Reuters witnesses also saw long queues at some filling stations in Moscow and the surrounding region.

A customer hotline operator at Gazprom Neft SIBN.MM said gasoline and diesel sales at the company's automated filling stations in Moscow were limited to 40 liters per customer.

At Gazprom Neft's other filling stations, diesel sales remain unrestricted, while gasoline purchases are capped at 60 liters per vehicle.

Rosneft ROSN.MM, Russia’s largest oil producer, said gasoline sales at all its filling stations across Russia were limited to 30 liters per vehicle, while diesel sales faced no restrictions.

The company also warned customers of longer waiting times because of heightened demand.

Lukoil LKOH.MM said it had introduced fuel sales restrictions in Moscow and the surrounding region because of elevated demand, unscheduled refinery maintenance and the need to ensure stable operations at its filling stations.

It did not disclose the specific limits.

Tatneft's TATN.MM customer hotline said gasoline sales at its filling stations were limited to 50 liters per vehicle.

US President Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday that he plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during his upcoming visit to Asia, telling reporters at the White House that maintaining a good relationship with Kim was important given North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

Trump then addressed his relationship with the North Korean leader, emphasizing that "the fact that I get along with him is a good thing, because he has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons."

Trump also addressed the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, claiming that the United States has “complete control” of the waterway.

Earlier on Monday, Trump said he had received a response from Kim following his attempts to reengage. The Wall Street Journal reported that he has pushed aides to arrange an in-person meeting with Kim as soon as this autumn.

North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment on Trump’s latest remarks, but they came just after Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said she was unaware of any recent communications between the two countries’ leaders.

Kim Yo Jong also said that while the relationship between the leaders of the United States and North Korea was "truly great," Washington was still carrying out the drills with Seoul and threatening the national security of Pyongyang.

Trump held an unprecedented series of summits with Kim in 2018 and 2019, but the diplomatic efforts broke down over US demands that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons. Trump has since referred to North Korea repeatedly as a "nuclear power," although his administration has continued to call for the country's denuclearization and does not formally recognize it as a nuclear-weapon state.

Trump has sought to revive the diplomatic efforts in his second term.

"I know Kim Jong Un very well, and he's going to be fine as long as we have a smart president," he told reporters on Wednesday during a tour of a helipad he is constructing on the White House's historic South Lawn.

"The fact that I get along with him – that's a good thing, not a bad thing. He has 57 very powerful nuclear weapons," Trump said. "They should have never allowed it. If I were president, I wouldn't have allowed it. But he's got them."

Trump's citing of a specific number of nuclear weapons held by North Korea was highly unusual.

The US government does not publicly publish an official estimate of North Korea's nuclear arsenal, although a 2025 report by the Congressional Research Service cited non-governmental experts as estimating that North Korea has produced enough fissile material for up to 90 warheads but may have assembled approximately 50.

In June, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimated that North Korea has "possibly assembled around 60 warheads, possesses enough fissile material to produce at least 30 more."

During Trump's first term, Kim called Trump a “mentally deranged US dotard” and threatened that he had use of a "nuclear button" on his desk.

But the two leaders turned that tension into face-to-face meetings, including a brief exchange at the demilitarized zone between the Koreas in which Trump became the first sitting US president to step into North Korean territory.