Category World News

Following a Ukrainian strike on Russia’s Druzhba pipeline, Hungary and Slovakia have raised concerns about potential fuel shortages, warning that deliveries could be delayed for several days.

Officials from both nations issued a warning on Friday that the Unecha oil pumping station’s attack, a crucial hub in western Russia, could cause delays in supply for at least five days. Central Europe is primarily served by Russian oil’s crucial route through Belarus and Ukraine, which was constructed during the Soviet Union.

In a joint letter to the European Commission, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto and Slovakia’s Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar pleaded with Brussels to intervene and ensure secure energy flows. Without this pipeline, the supply of our nations would simply not be possible, according to them, both physically and geographically.

Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, released a letter he had written to US President Donald Trump that included the strike.

Orban claimed in it that Ukraine had attacked Druzhba just before Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and that it was an “unfortunate” escalation.

Trump’s handwritten statement, “Viktor, I do not like hearing this, I am very angry about it,” appeared in a copy of the Facebook letter. There are no comments from the White House.

Energy security

Late on Thursday, Ukraine’s military confirmed that it had struck the Unecha facility, describing it as a crucial component of Russia’s export system.

Despite the location being independently verified, Robert Brovdi, the head of Ukraine’s unmanned systems forces, posted a video on Telegram of a massive blaze at an oil depot.

Following a second straight week of a halt on Monday and Tuesday, the strike severely affected oil deliveries to Hungary and Slovakia. Officials from Russia acknowledged that the Unecha fire had been extinguished, but that it could continue to flow for several days.

After the 2022 invasion, the European Union pledged to completely eliminate Moscow’s oil and gas by 2027. Hungary and Slovakia have resisted these actions, maintaining close ties with Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, and preventing some sanctions that Kyiv claims are necessary to pressure Moscow.

Both Germany and Kazakhstan, which also use the Druzhba pipeline, reported that their supplies remained unaffected. Berlin confirmed that Kazakhstan’s oil flows had not been hampered while Bernin claimed that fuel deliveries to the capital’s PCK Schwedt refinery were safe.

The United States government will take a 10 percent stake in Intel under an agreement with the struggling chipmaker, President Donald Trump has said, marking the latest extraordinary intervention in corporate affairs.

The US agreed to purchase a 9.9 percent stake in Intel for $8.9bn at a price of $20.47 a share, which is a discount of about $4 per share from Intel’s closing share price of $24.80 on Friday.

The government will buy the 433.3 million shares with funding from the $5.7bn in unpaid CHIPS Act grants and $3.2bn awarded to Intel for the Secure Enclave program.

Intel shares dropped 1.2 percent in extended trading on Friday.

Trump is set to meet CEO Lip-Bu Tan later on Friday, a White House official said.

The development follows a meeting between CEO Lip-Bu Tan and Trump earlier this month that was sparked by Trump’s demand for the Intel chief’s resignation over his ties to Chinese firms.

“He walked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10bn for the United States,” Trump said on Friday.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on X that the deal had been completed. “The United States of America now owns 10% of Intel,” he wrote, saying Tan had struck a deal “that’s fair to Intel and fair to the American People.”

While Trump did not provide details on the $10bn, the equity stake is about equal to the amount Intel is set to receive in CHIPS Act grants from the government to help fund the building of chip plants in the US.

Change in direction

The move marks a clear change of direction and also follows a $2bn capital injection from SoftBank Group in what was a major vote of confidence for the troubled US chipmaker in the middle of a turnaround.

Federal backing could give Intel more breathing room to revive its loss-making foundry business, analysts said, but it still suffers from a weak product roadmap and challenges in attracting customers to its new factories.

Trump, who met Tan on August 11, has taken an unprecedented approach to national security. But critics worry Trump’s actions create new categories of corporate risk.

The US president has pushed for multibillion-dollar government tie-ups in semiconductors and rare earths, such as a pay-for-play deal with Nvidia and an arrangement with rare-earth producer MP Materials to secure critical minerals.

Tan, who took the top job at Intel in March, has been tasked to turn around the US chipmaking icon, which recorded an annual loss of $18.8bn in 2024 — its first such loss since 1986. The company’s last fiscal year of positive adjusted free cash flow was 2021.

Ten days of “brutal” attacks by Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have left at least 89 people dead in the western region of Darfur, the United Nations High commissioner for human rights says.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the rival RSF. The fighting has killed tens of thousands.

North Darfur’s besieged capital, el-Fasher, has been under siege by the RSF since May last year.

The recent RSF attacks occurred between August 11 and August 20 in el-Fasher and the nearby Abu Shouk displacement camp, Jeremy Laurence, a spokesperson for commissioner Volker Turk, said in a Geneva press briefing on Friday.

“Brutal attacks by the RSF … resulted in the killing of at least 89 civilians over a 10-day period up to August 20”, the UN human rights office said.

“We fear the actual number of civilians killed is likely higher”, Laurence added. He said such attacks were unacceptable and had to cease immediately.

The dead include at least 57 people who were killed in attacks on August 11 and another 32 killed between August 16-20, Laurence said.

“We are particularly horrified that among the most recent spate of civilian killings, 16 appear to have been cases of summary executions”, he added.

Among the dead were civilians from the African Zaghawa tribe and one from the African Berti tribe.

“This pattern of attacks on civilians and wilful killings, which are serious violations of international humanitarian law, deepens our concerns about ethnically motivated violence”, Laurence said.

War marked by gross atrocities

El-Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur province, is the military’s last stronghold in the sprawling region of Darfur. The RSF has bombed the city for more than a year, and last month, it imposed a total blockade on its hundreds of thousands of people.

The RSF has also repeatedly attacked Abu Shouk and another displacement camp, Zamzam, which was once Sudan’s largest, with more than 500, 000 people. The two camps are located outside el-Fasher and were largely emptied after a major RSF attack in April. They have been hit by famine.

The current war has killed more than 40, 000 people, forced more than 14 million to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine swept parts of the country.

It has also been marked by gross atrocities, including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the United Nations and rights groups. The International Criminal Court has said it was also investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Cholera outbreak amidst war

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said that regions like el-Fasher have also been experiencing “a severe humanitarian and public health crisis”, driven by the active conflict and mass displacement.

WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told journalists that all 18 states in Sudan were reporting cholera, with 48, 768 cases and 1, 094 deaths reported this year up to August 11.

He said civilians have been facing severe food shortages, rising malnutrition deaths, and severely limited access to healthcare.

According to Carney, the US stated to reporters on Friday that it would not impose tariffs on Canadian goods that would be in line with the US-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement. Some industries, such as cars and steel, will still be subject to tariffs.

I’m announcing today that the Canadian government will now impose its own tariffs on US goods that are specifically subject to USMCA, in accordance with Canada’s commitment to USMCA,” said Carney, noting that the change will go into effect on September 1.

He continued, “Canada and the US have now resumed free trade for the majority of our goods.”

The Canadian leader, who took office in April amid widespread resentment toward the administration of US President Donald Trump’s severe tariffs, acknowledged that despite the circumstances, he had managed to get the best deal possible.

On Friday, the Trump administration praised the choice.

“We applaud Canada’s long-overdue move. A White House official stated that we look forward to continuing our discussions with Canada regarding the Administration’s trade and security concerns.

In response to reporters’ inquiries about whether Carney had effectively folded in the face of US economic pressure, several citing his frequent use of the phrase “elbows up” on the campaign trail.

The phrase was used to express Carney’s commitment to defend the Trump administration as a hockey reference that suggested an aggressively protective posture.

As the Trump administration unravels decades of economic integration with other nations, the Canadian leader claimed that his country is not the only one trying to reorient itself.