The New York Times: How China Keeps Tabs on Foreigners
The New York Times describes an unsecured Chinese police surveillance platform in Zhangjiakou, found openly accessible online by cybersecurity researcher Marc Hofer — who spotted his own photo and passport number in it. The system tracked more than 700 foreign residents of the city, but held nearly 12,000 entries in total, aggregating facial-recognition data, hospital visits and fuel payments, and residents’ religion and nationality.
Radio Prague International: 720 years since the extinction of the House of Přemyslid in the male line
Radio Prague International marks 720 years since the murder of the 17-year-old King Wenceslas III in Olomouc on 4 August 1306 — the last male member of the Přemyslid dynasty, Bohemia’s first royal house. The dynasty had built the Czech state over nearly five centuries; his killer was never identified, but the murder opened the way for the House of Luxembourg and, eventually, Charles IV. An exhibition on the dynasty runs at Prague’s National Museum until mid-October.
Al Jazeera: How Virunga Park protects people and gorillas from Ebola in eastern DRC
Al Jazeera reports that Virunga National Park, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, has stepped up health measures to contain an Ebola outbreak that has already killed more than 1,400 people. The park has set up six checkpoints with handwashing and temperature screening, deployed 40 paramedics and 80 rangers, and feeds all data to Congolese health authorities; its director notes the forest itself acts as a natural barrier, as it did during the 2018-2020 outbreak. Mountain gorillas, whose DNA is more than 90 percent identical to humans’, are especially vulnerable, though none has ever been infected in the park.
The New York Times: Europe’s Far Right, Once Marginal, Now Sets Tone on Spain Migrant Crisis
The New York Times reports that tens of thousands of migrants tried to reach the Spanish enclave of Ceuta this week, echoing the 2015 crisis — but unlike Angela Merkel’s “we can do this” back then, Europe’s far right is no longer marginal and now sets the political tone. Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen floated suspending Spain from Schengen, and Italy’s Meloni and Germany’s Friedrich Merz criticized Spain’s stance; Spain’s Pedro Sánchez defends his open policy, noting most illegal entries into the EU come via Italy, the Balkans or Greece, not Spain. Analysts note Eurostat data actually shows migration falling in several countries — the problem is not the real numbers but the visible lack of control.
European Commission: Safer and more transparent AI
The European Commission announces that new AI Act transparency rules took effect on 2 August: deepfakes and other AI-generated or manipulated content resembling real people, places or events must now carry a machine-readable label, and users must be told clearly when they’re talking to a chatbot rather than a human. Violations can bring fines of up to €15 million or 3 percent of global turnover, enforced by national market surveillance authorities and the new EU AI Office.
CBC News: On Ukraine’s front lines, female soldiers testing Canadian-designed body armour
CBC News reports that of the more than 10,000 women fighting for Ukraine, most have until now worn men’s body armour whose flat plates leave gaps near the neck and lower torso on a female frame — some skip the plate altogether. In June, the UK handed over 2,000 sets with curved, female-fitted plates designed by Canada’s NP Aerospace, which the maker says are 48 percent more protective than flat ones; Ukraine itself began issuing its own women’s vests last month, and advocates hope other NATO allies follow suit.
Deutsche Welle: Germany: As temperatures rise, so does climate skepticism
Deutsche Welle covers a University of Flensburg study in which 59 percent of over 3,000 respondents said they had grown more skeptical of climate change in 2023 than the year before — researchers call it a mass phenomenon. The main driver turned out not to be people’s economic situation but political leaning: right-wing views, distrust of state institutions and dissatisfaction with democracy. Other researchers push back, arguing skepticism tracks political identity rather than fixed personality traits — this summer’s German heatwaves, which killed up to 10,000 people, may be the kind of personal experience that shifts some skeptics.
Le Monde profiles Barcelona’s Russian and Ukrainian-run banyas, where exiles from both countries meet but the war stays unspoken, even in the steam room. Ukrainian bathhouse worker Oleksandr Kuts, who also serves Russian clients and whose son fights in Ukraine’s army, believes shared nudity dissolves the divide between people; Ukrainian Alona Stoliarova, by contrast, says she finds it hard to hear Russian spoken and won’t set foot in a banya, where the strangers she meets could turn out to be enemies. The piece closes on a skeptical note from researcher Carmen Claudín: the word “Slav” lets people avoid taking a side, and the bathhouse boom is really just a trendy business, not genuine unity.
NPR: Capital One says it closed Trump Organization accounts over money-laundering concerns
NPR reports that Capital One is asking a court to dismiss the Trump Organization’s lawsuit over 385 accounts closed in 2021, saying the closures followed a months-long anti-money-laundering review, not retaliation for January 6 as Trump’s side claims. The Trump Organization says the AML rationale was invented after the fact, but the bank points to a contract clause letting it close accounts “at any time, for any reason,” and to a federal bank-secrecy law it says barred disclosure even if it wanted to.
Le Monde: Russia recruits young women from Latin America to assemble drones in Tatarstan
Le Monde reports that Russia’s “Alabuga Start” program has since 2025 increasingly recruited women aged 18-22 from Latin American countries with promises of hospitality and logistics jobs — but in reality they assemble Shahed-derived “Geran-2/3” attack drones in the Tatarstan city of Yelabuga. The promised pay is over $500 a month, but AP reporting and workers’ own accounts describe grueling hours, hazardous chemical exposure and confiscated passports; according to a report published in January 2026, dormitory capacity in Yelabuga had grown from 15 to 104 buildings over a year and a half. Analysts link it to a decades-long Russian influence campaign in Latin America exploiting both far-right and far-left sympathies — researcher Marie Mendras calls it “the weapon of the weak” for a declining power.