As it turns out, dictation exercises are not just for schoolchildren. On Oct. 27, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians — from diaspora communities abroad to service members on the front lines — will take part in an annual tradition: listening, writing, and testing their mastery of the Ukrainian language.
Organized
Princes and Thieves, a new book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole, may open a rabbit hole into financial connections between Middle Eastern dictators and President Donald Trump's family. Cole accuses Emirati monarch Mohamed bin Zayed (MBZ) of sending billions of dollars to various mercenaries and political operators, including Jared Kushner, son-in-law to President Donald Trump. Cole's reporting combines well-documented connections with secondhand accounts from anonymous sources.
On Thursday, Vanity Fair published an excerpt from the book, reporting that Dutch military intelligence hacked into Kushner's phone in 2018 and discovered hundreds of millions of dollars in bank transfers connected to MBZ. Also on Thursday, Kushner published a letter from his lawyers to Cole categorically denying the "incredible and false" allegations in the book. "Mr. Kushner never accessed foreign accounts and always followed all rules and regulations and only pursued goals that were in the best interest of the United States as directed by the President of the United States," they wrote.
Cole had originally written on his blog that the book was scheduled for release on October 27, but the publication date was pushed forward over the weekend.
The book purports to tie Kushner to a vast web of Emirati influence operations around the world. In Cole's telling, which matches other journalists' accounts, MBZ wants to reshape the Middle East and eastern Africa into an alliance of U.S.-backed dictatorships, where "tolerance" is enforced through high-tech surveillance and "democracy" is a synonym for terrorism. MBZ's use of mercenaries in pursuit of these goals is well-documented. So is Kushner's personal affinity with the Emirati monarch and his business ties with the Arab monarchies.
Soon after Trump won the 2016 election, MBZ held a widely reported meeting with Kushner. According to the book—and according to much of that earlier reporting—the monarch complained about the Obama administration's failure to back Arab regimes against popular revolutions, its decision to end the Iraq War, and its diplomacy with Iran.
Going much further than past reporting, Cole now claims Kushner was personally involved in MBZ's mercenary operations. MBZ and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman put a collective $2 billion into Emirati and Israeli bank accounts which were managed (but not technically owned) by Kushner, according to Cole's sources. Those same sources claim that parts of this secret "slush fund" went to Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar, American military contractor Erik Prince, and Cuban hitman Felipe Vidal.
Haftar, a former CIA asset, became a general in Libya's 2011 revolution and then attempted to overthrow the new government with Emirati backing in 2014. Despite a 2020 ceasefire, his forces continue to control much of Libya. Prince, founder of the military contractor formerly known as Blackwater, moved to the UAE and helped build a secret army of Colombian mercenaries. He sued Cole for defamation after Cole reported on Prince's role in helping Haftar, but a judge threw out the case. Cole's sources claimed that Vidal, a self-described "hit man," helped the United Arab Emirates (UAE) fake an Iranian attack on oil tankers in May 2019, meant to provoke Trump into war.
Kushner's lawyers have denied any relationship with any of those three men, apart from a single meeting with Prince after the 2016 election. (According to Cole, both Vidal and Prince refused to comment for the book.) The position of the U.S. government is that the May 2019 incident was a genuine Iranian attack, not an Emirati false flag.
After the Vanity Fair article was published last week, Israeli negotiator Gershon Baskin pointed out in The Jerusalem Post that the Central Bank of Israel "does not offer private banking services to individuals," which would make it impossible for Kushner's money to be deposited in the Central Bank of Israel, as Cole claimed. The book addresses that argument, claiming that the money was deposited "in what would appear to be a government account," with Kushner and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu jointly authorizing transactions.
The Abraham Accords, which include an alliance between Israel and the UAE, have often been touted as a way for the U.S. to "spend less time and less resources in the Middle East," in the words of Vice President J.D. Vance. But Cole argues that the UAE actually used its alliance to entangle American interests in a future conflict. The book states that Kushner set up "a rainy-day defense fund" for war with Iran, using Emirati money deposited in a separate Central Bank of Israel account.
Cole also claims to have evidence that Kushner was on the take from the UAE's regional frenemy Qatar. In 2017, the UAE and Saudi Arabia issued an ultimatum for Qatar to rein in its foreign policy and blockaded the small nation. The Intercept later reported that Kushner's father had sought a Qatari bailout for the family real estate business just before the crisis, and the Qatari-linked company Brookfield ended up providing the needed investment in August 2018, leading to a congressional investigation into the deal.
Democrats are still digging for information on Kushner's business ties to Qatar, but three sources told Cole that the Qatari royal family authorized and paid for the Brookfield deal. The Qatari government "asked the White House how to resolve the blockade. And the Kushners kept saying, 'We have this great property that needs investment.' Eventually, the Qataris realized the only way to settle the blockade was to buy the building," a former U.S. intelligence officer said.
Kushner's lawyers write that they have "no evidence that Qatar impacted the investment decision. Any suggestion of his involvement in the transaction or any allegation of quid pro quo with the Qatari government is false and defamatory."
Other parts of the book are better-documented. Cole obtained a draft of Prince's autobiography, text messages from one of Prince's colleagues, and emails from Emirati government adviser George Nader, who was convicted of fraudulently funneling money into Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. If nothing else, the book is a comprehensive account of the UAE's unofficial empire and its American ties. But the most explosive claims about Kushner's involvement in those activities rest on anonymous sources, making it a matter of Cole's word against Kushner's.
"I considered the responses from Kushner's attorneys carefully and consulted multiple sources about them. During the five years I have spent working on this book, I have tried to keep an open mind, and I am confident that my reporting is accurate. Kushner's lawyers' responses did not change that conclusion," Cole writes in the book's epilogue.
The post New Book Says Jared Kushner Funneled Money to Middle East Mercenaries. Kushner Denies It. appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Some Belgian spies have questioned EUobserver’s report of a cover-up in favour of an allegedly corrupt Belgian ex-EU commissioner, while international commentary focused on his possible Russia ties.
EUobserver revealed on Friday (23 October) that Hugues Brulin, a director in the Belgian intelligence service (VSSE), had exchanged WhatsApp messages with ex-EU commissioner Didier Reynders, which may have been part of a criminal conspiracy to block VSSE reports into Reynders’ alleged wrongdoing.
But according to “several” VSSE sources who spoke to Belgian daily Le Soir, Brulin, who had been the number three in the VSSE hierarchy, had been in charge of logistics, Human Resources, and IT, but did “not have the power to block enquiries or put his nose into dossiers”.
Brulin did have access to secret dossiers only in case the number one and two directors in the VSSE were absent, and he had to sign off on special operations, called “BIMs” in VSSE jargon, which included measures such as phone wiretaps or home intrusions to place bugs, but this situation occurred just once during his tenure, Le Soir said.
But even if that was all true, Brulin still used to have the power to end the careers of VSSE officers who had looked into Reynders, on grounds of flimsy infractions, as happened in at least three cases, according to EUobserver’s sources.
“This article feels like a liberation. I don’t know if it really is one, but it feels like one … Thanks again in the name of all the normal, honest, taxpaying Belgians,” one ex-VSSE contact told EUobserver, commenting on last Friday’s revelations.
And besides which, there are allegations that Reynders had other VSSE insiders who might have been better placed to act.
This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership
Journalists from 17 European public service broadcasters, coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union’s (EBU) Eurovision News Spotlight network, published an interactive map on 23 October 2026. It documents hybrid incidents linked to Russia across 17 European countries between 1 April and 15 October. Journalists compiled a database of hundreds of reported incidents, categorizing each by type and the source and strength of its alleged links to Russia, then verifying them through open-source research.
The map comes as officials warn the campaign is growing. On 28 September, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in Brussels that Russia was planning more acts of sabotage to divide societies and intimidate them into abandoning their support for Ukraine. The points on the map represent an incomplete list of publicly known cases attributed to Russia or suspected of being linked to it, the report states.
The map covers airspace violations, sabotage attempts, “disposable” agents with no formal intelligence training, migration used as a weapon, and Russian military activity near or across European borders. It excludes cyberattacks, influence operations, and espionage by trained intelligence officers.
The EBU calls the result a very conservative estimate, not an official tally. Russia has consistently denied responsibility for the incidents. Many single points represent several incidents of the same type in one area or in quick succession. In Moldova, for example, Defense Minister Anatolie Nosatîi said on 30 September that the government had recorded 84 drone incursions.
The map shows four incidents in Germany, according to BR.
Internal papers from the new Joint Hybrid Defense Center, seen by Correctiv, record 163 suspected sabotage cases in 2026 up to 19 August. The targets included rail lines, military facilities, substations, and radio masts. The same papers record 1,034 drone overflights of critical infrastructure, military sites, and defense companies, and 25 espionage investigations. The papers cover possible attacks by Russia, China, and Iran, and media did not report a breakdown of the sabotage cases by country.
On 15 April, Swedish civil defense minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin said pro-Russian groups had moved from denial-of-service attacks to attempts at destructive cyberattacks, including one on a Swedish power plant in 2025. On 1 September, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul named Russia as the perpetrator of the Leipzig attack and accused Moscow of “blatant hostility” toward Germany.
On 18 September, French President Emmanuel Macron said Russia’s hybrid attacks would not go unanswered and ordered a plan to protect France’s critical infrastructure. On 1 October, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Germany was preparing for new hybrid attacks, “including serious ones.” NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on 14 October called the attacks a sign of Russian weakness at a press conference in Tallinn and said NATO would react where needed without being “rattled.”
From the 17th to the 20th century, Ukrainian lands were split between empires and states. Their rulers tried to assimilate Ukrainians and block their self-determination by going after what set them apart: their language and culture.
Nobody has an exact count of the bans. Historian Pavlo Hai-Nyzhnyk says there were more than 100 and that the real number is likely higher, because governors issued local bans too.
These measures differed in purpose and reach. Some restricted publishing, schooling, or official use; others suppressed cultural institutions or pushed assimilation. Most served the forced Russification of Ukrainians in the Russian Empire and the USSR. The timeline below is a selection of documented events, not a count of bans.
Russia has not stopped. Since 2014, schooling in Ukrainian has collapsed in the territories it occupies, and in 2025 it removed Ukrainian from the federal school programs it imposes there.
Here are some of the most important restrictions on Ukrainian language and cultural life imposed by the regimes ruling over Ukraine.
1627: Muscovy. Moscow church authorities condemn Kyrylo Trankvilion-Stavrovetskyi’s Didactic Gospel, a collection of sermons printed in Ukraine in 1619, and order copies burned in Moscow.
1697: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. An act requires tribunal and court decisions in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to be written in Polish, displacing Ruthenian in those courts.
1720: Russian Tsardom. Peter I’s decree restricts the Kyiv and Chernihiv presses to approved reprints of church books and requires them to conform to Russian editions, suppressing local textual and linguistic differences.
1728: Russian Empire. Under the Decisive Points (Reshytelni punkty), the legal texts used in the Hetmanate’s courts are to be translated into Russian and compiled into a single code.
1730s: Russian Empire. Under Empress Anna, Kyiv’s archbishop is instructed to replace older locally printed church books with Moscow editions.
1769: Russian Empire. The Holy Synod refuses the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra permission to print primers in the local language and tells it not to submit such requests again.
1775: Russian Empire. A Russian army destroys the Zaporozhian Sich, the Cossacks’ last stronghold and one of Ukraine’s own political institutions.
1780s: Russian Empire. Samuil Myslavskyi, metropolitan of Kyiv from 1783, insists on literary Russian as the only language of instruction at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy.
1789: Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commission of National Education orders the Ukrainian parish schools of Right-Bank Ukraine Polonized.
1847: Russian Empire. After suppressing the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, a secret society that called for a federation of free Slavic peoples, the authorities ban and withdraw from sale specified works by Taras Shevchenko, Panteleimon Kulish, and Mykola Kostomarov.
1859: Austrian Empire. Austrian officials back a plan to replace the Cyrillic alphabet used for Ukrainian in Galicia with a Latin one. Ukrainian opposition defeats the plan in what became known as the “alphabet war.”
1862: Russian Empire. The authorities close the Sunday schools, free schools for working adults and young people, including Ukrainian ones. They begin reopening under tighter control in 1864.
1863: Russian Empire. Interior Minister Pyotr Valuev’s circular tells censors not to approve Ukrainian religious, school, and popular-reading books, while still allowing fiction under censorship. It claims that most Little Russians themselves argue that “there was not, is not, and cannot be any special Little Russian language.”
1864: Russian Empire. The 1864 statute requires Russian as the teaching language in the elementary schools it regulates.
1869: Austria-Hungary. Polish becomes the internal language of administration and the courts in Galicia. The 1867 school arrangements had already strengthened Polish dominance, while leaving limited room for Ukrainian-language schooling.
1876: Russian Empire. Alexander II’s secret Ems Ukaz severely restricts Ukrainian publishing and bans Ukrainian publications from abroad, Ukrainian stage performances and public readings, and Ukrainian lyrics printed with music. Exceptions allow historical documents in their original spelling and fiction in Russian spelling under censorship.
1881: Russian Empire. New rules ease parts of the Ems Ukaz: Ukrainian plays may be staged with a governor’s special permission. Theater troupes performing only in Ukrainian stay banned.
1883: Russian Empire. Kyiv Governor-General Aleksandr Drenteln bars Ukrainian theater troupes from performing in the Kyiv, Podillia, Volhynia, Poltava, and Chernihiv governorates.
1895: Russian Empire. The censorship authorities ban the publication of Ukrainian children’s books.
1910: Russian Empire. A circular from Pyotr Stolypin’s interior ministry tells governors to refuse registration to non-Russian national societies, Ukrainian ones included, and to review existing ones for closure. Kyiv’s Prosvita is dissolved the same year.
1914: Russian Empire. The authorities ban public celebrations of Taras Shevchenko’s centenary. After the empire enters World War I, they close most Ukrainian periodicals, including the Kyiv daily Rada.
1914–15, 1916–17: Russian Empire. Russian occupation authorities suppress Ukrainian institutions and publications in Galicia and Bukovyna. The first occupation brings mass arrests and deportations, the destruction of Ukrainian books, and the arrest of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi.
1923: Soviet Ukraine. Dmytro Lebid, second secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, sets out the “theory of the struggle of two cultures,” which holds that the Russian culture of the city is more advanced than the Ukrainian culture of the village. The party rejects it and adopts Ukrainization the same year.
1924: Poland. Three laws of 31 July make Polish the state language of administration and the courts, keep limited rights for minority languages, and set school rules that favor Polish-Ukrainian bilingual schools over separate Ukrainian ones.
1924: Romania. The primary education law requires citizens of Romanian origin who have “lost their mother tongue” to send their children to Romanian schools. Ukrainian historians say it was applied to Ukrainians in Bukovyna.
1925: Poland. The Lviv Underground Ukrainian University, which had taught clandestinely since 1921, stops teaching after police raids and the Polish state’s refusal to recognize it.
1926: USSR. In a letter to Kaganovich and the Ukrainian Politburo, Stalin attacks Oleksandr Shumskyi and Mykola Khvylovyi and rejects Ukrainizing Russian workers “from above,” while still backing controlled Ukrainization of official institutions.
1932–33: USSR. A secret resolution of 14 December 1932 orders the Ukrainian-language paperwork and press of the North Caucasus switched to Russian at once and its schools prepared for teaching in Russian. In Soviet Ukraine, it puts Ukrainization under tighter party control and demands purges of “nationalist” elements. The repression of 1933 dismantles Ukrainization.
1938: USSR. A decree of 13 March makes Russian a compulsory subject in the non-Russian schools of the national republics and regions.
1947: Poland. In Operation Vistula, Polish authorities forcibly resettle about 150,000 Ukrainians to northern and western Poland, under an assimilation policy that sought to keep them below 10% of any locality.
1958–59: USSR. The school reform expands parents’ choice of teaching language and makes the study of Ukrainian optional in Russian-language schools in Soviet Ukraine.
1960s–70s: Romania and Poland. Romania nearly eliminates Ukrainian-language schooling from the mid-1960s. In Poland, Ukrainian schools and Ukrainian classes shrink.
1972: USSR. The party’s resolution on the USSR’s 50th anniversary promotes the “new historical community, the Soviet people,” an idea first voiced in 1961. Soviet ethnographers wrote that the spread of Russian among non-Russian peoples played the paramount role in forming this community.
1978: USSR. The USSR Council of Ministers orders wider study of Russian in the union republics. Ukraine’s implementing resolution of 2 November requires Russian from first grade in Ukrainian-language schools from the 1980/81 school year.
1983: USSR. A resolution of 26 May gives specified teachers of Russian in non-Russian schools in villages and small towns a 15% pay raise from 1984.
1984: USSR. The school reform resolution of 12 April adds two to three hours of Russian a week in grades 2 to 11 of non-Russian schools.
1989: USSR. The Communist Party’s party platform of 20 September calls for making Russian, by law, the language of the whole country alongside the republics’ state languages.
1990: USSR. The April 1990 law on the languages of the peoples of the USSR makes Russian the official language of the Soviet Union, while letting the republics set their own state languages.
2014–18: Crimea. Under Russian occupation, schooling in Ukrainian collapses. In 2013/14, 12,694 children studied in Ukrainian in 7 schools and 829 classes; by 2017/18, 318 children did, in one school and 13 classes, the UN human rights office reports, noting the figures conflict in places.
2020: DNR and LNR. The so-called DNR votes to amend its “constitution” on 6 March, dropping Ukrainian as a “state language” and leaving only Russian. The so-called LNR does the same in June.
2022: Occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Russia’s Education Ministry says on 12 August that schools in newly occupied areas will teach in Russian, with Ukrainian allowed only as an optional “native” language. Occupation authorities then cap Ukrainian at three hours a week, Human Rights Watch reports.
2023: Occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Russia removes nearly all Ukrainian literature from local libraries, most likely destroying it, Ukraine’s National Resistance Center reports. The so-called LNR publishes a list of banned books.
2024: International Court of Justice. On 31 January, the court ruled, 13 votes to 2, that Russia violated the UN convention against racial discrimination in how it ran school education in Ukrainian in occupied Crimea.
2025: Russia. Education Ministry Order No. 729, in force since 15 December, removes Ukrainian language and literature from Russia’s federal primary and lower-secondary programs, the UN human rights office reports. Russia imposes these programs on schools in the occupied territories, where about 582,000 children study, the Almenda center says.
Editor’s note, 27 October 2026: We first published this timeline in 2017. Like many lists of bans on Ukrainian that circulate online, it repeated some claims that have no document behind them. In October 2026, we went back to historians’ work and to the decrees themselves.
We removed about fifteen entries. Most we could not confirm; a few were not about language. We corrected others where the documents say something different: some bans had exceptions, some dates were off by a year, and the end of Ukrainization came in 1932–33. We replaced the old count of 60 bans, which we could not trace, with a historian’s estimate. And we added what Russia has done to the Ukrainian language in the territories it has occupied since 2014.
If you have a document for something we left out, write to us.
The investigation, coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union, examined incidents reported between 1st April and 15th October 2026, including sabotage attempts, arson, airspace violations, suspicious drone activity and the exploitation of migration routes along the European Union’s eastern borders.
Published on 23rd October, the resulting interactive map provides a geographical picture of incidents publicly linked to Russia by intelligence agencies, law-enforcement authorities, government officials or reporting. The degree of attribution varies considerably, however, and many incidents remain under investigation.
The findings point to a fundamental problem for European security: hostile activities can be conducted across national boundaries without necessarily triggering the legal, military or political mechanisms designed to respond to conventional aggression.
Among the cases examined is an incident in Munich in September, when two Bulgarian nationals allegedly threw incendiary devices from a moving vehicle onto a construction site near several defence companies.
Police arrested the suspects after a witness reported the incident. Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann and regional criminal investigators subsequently indicated that political motives were being considered. Investigators reportedly suspected possible involvement by Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, although the allegations have not been established in court.
The case illustrates growing concern about so-called disposable agents: individuals recruited to undertake relatively limited operations without formal intelligence training or a longstanding relationship with an intelligence service.
Such arrangements can complicate investigations. Even where perpetrators are identified, establishing a legally demonstrable connection between their actions and a foreign intelligence organisation may prove considerably more difficult.
Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office has registered a mid-three-digit number of suspected sabotage and reconnaissance cases since the beginning of 2026, according to information provided to investigators involved in the European mapping project.
Only a small proportion have been publicly attributed to Russia. Four German incidents were included in the map, demonstrating the distinction between a broad national caseload and cases meeting the investigation’s publication criteria.
The geographical distribution reveals substantial activity along NATO’s eastern flank, particularly around the Baltic states, Belarus and the Black Sea.
Incidents include repeated airspace violations, suspected reconnaissance operations and attempts to facilitate unauthorised border crossings. Lithuanian authorities have accused Belarus of deliberately exploiting migration as an instrument of political pressure.
Commercial shipping has also become increasingly exposed. Drone attacks involving vessels near Romania and Bulgaria have raised concerns about the extension of the war’s consequences into maritime areas adjoining EU and NATO territory.
These developments reinforce earlier warnings about Russia’s expanding sabotage campaign, particularly the difficulty of distinguishing isolated security incidents from coordinated operations intended to test national responses.
Teija Tiilikainen, director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats, identified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an important factor behind the increasing pressure. According to her assessment, Moscow’s objectives include weakening Western unity and undermining continued support for Ukraine.
The central difficulty is not simply the absence of criminal legislation. Arson, espionage, sabotage and unlawful interference with critical infrastructure are already punishable under national laws.
Rather, the challenge involves establishing foreign direction, coordinating investigations across jurisdictions and identifying when a series of apparently separate offences constitutes a wider hostile campaign.
Germany’s domestic intelligence chief, Sinan Selen, has described the environment as a grey area between war and peace. German foreign intelligence chief Martin Jäger has similarly identified Russia as the country’s most dangerous adversary.
European governments are beginning to address these difficulties collectively. At their 15th–16th October summit, EU leaders condemned intensifying hybrid attacks and called for stronger resilience, greater use of existing countermeasures and accelerated work on drone security.
On 8th October, the Council also extended sanctions targeting Russian destabilisation activities until October 2027. The restrictions cover 80 individuals and 20 entities.
Meanwhile, a European Commission research initiative, published on 23rd October, proposes combining anticipation, active defence and retaliatory measures into a more coherent deterrence strategy.
The investigation’s significance extends beyond the number of incidents recorded. By bringing together information previously dispersed among national authorities and separate investigations, it makes possible a wider assessment of the methods, geographical concentration and recurring characteristics of suspected hostile operations.
Nevertheless, the map does not establish Russian responsibility for every incident it records, nor does it constitute a complete European database. Russia has repeatedly denied conducting the hybrid attacks attributed to it.
For European governments, the unresolved question is how to move from recognising a pattern of hostile activity to demonstrating responsibility and responding effectively.
As EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has warned, the consequences already extend beyond infrastructure disruption to risks affecting civilian lives.
The emerging security challenge therefore concerns not only the detection of individual perpetrators, but also Europe’s ability to connect incidents across borders, establish responsibility and prevent successive operations from becoming an accepted feature of the continent’s security environment.
Gaza food crisis deepens as Israel blocks flour supplies, leaving only seven bakeries operating and 1.4 million Palestinians facing acute hunger.
Related: New U.S. and Israeli Military Actions Against Iran Would Be Underway
The Gaza food crisis has reached a critical point after Israel blocked commercial flour shipments, leaving Gaza’s last seven operating bakeries at risk of closing within 48 hours.
Abdul Nasser al-Ajrami, head of the Gaza Bakeries Association, warned on Thursday, October 22, that flour reserves in the enclave had been exhausted.
He said the remaining bakeries would stop producing bread within two days unless new supplies were allowed to enter.
“Israel kept the crossings closed throughout last week and continues to strangle the supply of commercial flour even after partially reopening them,” al-Ajrami said.
He added that the small amount of flour previously stored had already run out, forcing several bakeries to shut down.
Only seven of the 20 bakeries that had been operating in Gaza remained active when the warning was issued.
The closure of bakeries would deprive families of one of the few remaining sources of affordable food in the devastated territory.
Bread is a basic staple for Palestinian households, particularly as prices for other foods have risen sharply amid shortages and reduced humanitarian assistance.
The Gaza food crisis has worsened as commercial supplies have been blocked and international aid has been reduced.
Al-Ajrami said the flour currently sold in local markets comes from the United Nations World Food Programme, known as the WFP.
Commercial bakeries that depend on supplies brought through the crossings have been left without raw materials.
The shortage has intensified since the WFP announced a severe funding deficit and reduced food assistance for more than half a million people in Gaza.
The reduction has left more families competing for limited flour while prices continue to rise.
World Food Programme | United Nations News
The Gaza food crisis has been compounded by a major reduction in humanitarian assistance from the World Food Programme.
On October 19, the WFP announced that funding shortages had forced it to cut food assistance in Gaza by about one-third.
The agency said the number of people receiving food and cash assistance would fall from 1.6 million in September to 1.1 million in October.
That means approximately 500,000 people will lose access to critical food support as winter approaches.
The WFP has also halved food rations. Families receiving assistance will now receive one food parcel instead of two, along with a smaller bag of wheat flour.
The agency has reduced daily hot meals from 250,000 to 150,000 and cut cash assistance for 75,000 families.
The WFP said the cuts were not caused by a reduction in humanitarian needs or by a lack of access to deliver aid.
“We don’t have the funding to sustain the levels of assistance that are required,” said Shaun Hughes, the WFP’s representative and country director in Palestine.
The agency said it urgently needs $450 million to maintain critical operations in Gaza and the West Bank from October 2026 to March 2027.
The WFP received less than half of the funding allocated to its operations in Palestine in 2026 compared with previous years.
The funding shortfall has come at a time when approximately 1.4 million people, or 67 percent of Gaza’s population, face acute food insecurity at crisis levels or worse.
The WFP estimates that around 200,000 people are experiencing emergency conditions and require immediate food assistance to prevent deaths from hunger.
The agency said it can still support bakeries that cover one-third of Gaza’s bread needs, provide nutrition assistance to 300,000 women and children and deliver school snacks to 200,000 students.
However, the reduction in aid has placed additional pressure on families already struggling to obtain basic food supplies.
United Nations Relief and Works Agency | World Health Organization
The Gaza food crisis is closely linked to Israel’s restrictions on the entry of food, fuel, medicine and humanitarian aid.
Human rights organizations say Israeli authorities have repeatedly closed Gaza’s crossings since early October, obstructing the entry of essential supplies.
The closures have deepened shortages of flour, cooking gas, fuel and medical materials across the enclave.
The Rafah crossing has remained closed to sick and injured Palestinians waiting to be evacuated for treatment abroad.
International health organizations have also raised concerns about continued attacks on medical facilities and the detention of healthcare workers.
Gaza’s Ministry of Social Development warned that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians face an imminent humanitarian catastrophe if restrictions on flour and bakery supplies continue.
The ministry called for immediate action to stop what it described as Israel’s systematic policy of starvation and the use of food as a weapon against civilians.
Israel has said the disruption in commercial deliveries stems from a fiscal dispute between traders and the administration led by Hamas.
Palestinian traders have rejected that explanation and say the restrictions remain in place.
The Israeli military has said commercial goods would resume entering Gaza after a five-day pause.
However, Palestinian traders reported that major cuts to food supplies remained in force and that the blockade had become increasingly severe.
The WFP said the halt in commercial truck entries through the Kerem Abu Salem crossing was further restricting supplies entering Gaza.
The organization warned that restrictions on goods entering the territory were holding back recovery and reducing the purchasing power of families.
The Gaza food crisis has been aggravated by the destruction of infrastructure, displacement and the collapse of local agriculture and food production.
Most of Gaza’s population has been displaced, with many families living in tents or overcrowded shelters without reliable access to clean water, sanitation or cooking fuel.
The World Health Organization has warned that malnutrition, disease and the collapse of healthcare services are creating a deadly combination for civilians.
The Gaza food crisis has implications beyond the immediate humanitarian emergency because it reflects the broader political and military conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Control over crossings, food supplies and humanitarian aid has become a central element of the conflict.
International law requires parties to a conflict to allow humanitarian assistance to reach civilians and to protect access to food, water and medical care.
Human rights organizations argue that the deliberate restriction of essential goods may constitute collective punishment and a violation of international humanitarian law.
The crisis has drawn attention from the United Nations, international courts and humanitarian agencies, which have repeatedly called for unrestricted access to Gaza.
The situation also has regional implications. Egypt, Jordan and other neighboring countries have faced pressure to facilitate aid deliveries and medical evacuations.
The closure of the Rafah crossing has left injured and seriously ill Palestinians unable to leave Gaza for treatment.
The Gaza food crisis could further destabilize the region by increasing displacement, deepening poverty and fueling anger across the Arab and Muslim world.
The United Nations has warned that famine risk remains high as winter approaches and humanitarian funding declines.
The WFP has said that recent modest improvements in food security remain fragile and could be reversed if access and funding are not restored.
The immediate priority is to allow flour, fuel and medical supplies to enter Gaza and to restore the operations of bakeries and humanitarian kitchens.
Without urgent action, the Gaza food crisis could push the territory into a new phase of mass hunger and deepen one of the world’s most severe humanitarian emergencies.
© Todd Heisler/The New York Times
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
I've been making my way through Ina Garten's recipes to become a better home cook, so naturally, I've tried many of her desserts to satisfy my sweet tooth.
From a blueberry-ricotta breakfast cake that won over my mom on Mother's Day to the iconic mocha icebox cake that Garten says makes "grown men weep," she truly has a dessert for everyone.
But Garten really excels at chocolate, and I've made two of her favorite chocolate cakes. The question is, which one is best?
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
Garten's chocolate cake with mocha frosting first appeared in her 2014 cookbook, "Make It Ahead."
The "Barefoot Contessa" star has called this recipe a "dessert everyone will remember." I had to see if it lived up to the hype.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
To make Garten's chocolate cake, which serves 12, you'll need:
To make the frosting for the cake, you'll need:
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
I then placed the sugar and room-temperature butter into the bowl of my electric mixer — fitted with the paddle attachment — and beat them for about 4 minutes on medium speed.
After adding the eggs one at a time, I added the flour and chocolate mixtures alternately in thirds, starting and ending with the flour mixture.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
Before I made my batter, I had buttered my pan, lined the bottom with parchment paper, then buttered and floured it again.
"There's no point in making a cake if you can't get it out of the pan," Garten said in the "Barefoot Contessa" episode where she demonstrated this recipe.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
Garten says the cake should bake for 25 to 35 minutes. You'll know it's ready when the cake tester or knife comes out clean from the center.
Once my cake was out of the oven, I let it cool for 45 minutes while I made the frosting.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
I chopped my chocolate and added it to a bowl with my butter and espresso powder. Then I heated my heavy cream and mixed everything together before adding the Kahlúa and vanilla. I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and left it in the fridge for 30 minutes, per Garten's instructions.
After the frosting has chilled, Garten says you should mix it on high speed for about 15 to 20 seconds, until it forms soft peaks. She also warns that it will curdle if you overbeat it.
This step was, unfortunately, a bit of a struggle for me. The consistency didn't look thick enough when I took it out of the fridge, so I had to let the frosting chill for another 10 minutes. And after mixing the frosting with my electric mixer, it still didn't appear as whipped as it had looked in the "Barefoot Contessa" episode.
I was still able to spread the mocha frosting on the cake easily, but it didn't look as good as I had hoped.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
Garten's cake is springy and light, and I loved the enhanced chocolate flavor thanks to the espresso powder. I think it's really easy for a chocolate cake to become too dense or heavy, but Garten's recipe has a lovely texture.
I just wish I had enjoyed the mocha frosting as much as the cake. The consistency tasted off, and the flavor didn't grab me. But, paired together, the cake and mocha icing still pack a punch that I know any big chocolate fan would love.
Get the full recipe for Ina Garten's chocolate cake with mocha frosting here.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
The recipe for Beatty's Chocolate Cake actually comes from Garten's friend Michael Grimm, who has frequently appeared on "Barefoot Contessa."
"He actually served this cake to me once at dinner, and I just begged him for the recipe," Garten said on an episode featuring the cake. "I didn't have to beg very hard."
Beatty was Grimm's grandmother, and she baked this cake for her husband and the customers on his milk route, according to Grimm's friend Monte Mathews, who shared the cake's origin story on his blog Chewing The Fat.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
To make Beatty's Chocolate Cake, you'll need:
To make the frosting, you'll need:
Pro tip: You can also use Garten's recipe for cupcakes. This recipe will make 24 cupcakes, just make sure to reduce the baking time to 25-30 minutes.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
I sifted my dry ingredients into the bowl of my electric stand mixer and mixed everything together until combined. I mixed my wet ingredients in a separate bowl, making sure to shake the buttermilk before throwing it in.
While the mixer was on low speed, I carefully poured my wet ingredients into the bowl with my dry ingredients. Then I added Garten's "secret" ingredient — the freshly brewed cup of hot coffee — while the mixer was still on low, letting it stir just to combine.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
Before adding the batter, I buttered my pans, lined the bottoms with parchment paper, then buttered and floured both pans again.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
Garten says the cakes should bake for 35 to 40 minutes. You'll know they're ready when your cake tester or knife comes out clean.
Once my pans were out of the oven, I let them cool for 30 minutes while I made the buttercream frosting. After 30 minutes had passed, I took my cakes out of their pans and let them sit on a cooling rack and a baking sheet.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
After chopping and melting my chocolate, I added my butter to the electric mixer and beat it on medium-high speed for about 3 minutes, until it turned fluffy.
I then added the egg yolk, vanilla, and sugar to mix everything together before throwing in the chocolate and instant coffee granules, which I had dissolved in hot water first.
Anneta Konstantinides/Business Insider
I was blown away by how moist Beatty's Chocolate Cake tasted. The flavor was deliciously rich, but the texture wasn't heavy or dense. As I wrote in my original review, it's without a doubt one of the fluffiest cakes I've ever had — even from a restaurant or bakery. And I loved the buttercream frosting, which had the perfect amount of sweetness and paired beautifully with the chocolate cake.
Beatty's Chocolate Cake requires a bit of work and effort, but that makes it all the more special. It's a cake no one will forget.
Get the full recipe for Ina Garten's Beatty's Chocolate Cake here.
Austria has ordered four Russian diplomats to leave the country over suspected espionage, declaring them persona non grata following findings by Austrian security authorities, Austrian media outlet Heute reported on 23 October.
The expulsions come as European countries step up efforts to counter suspected Russian intelligence operations amid Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Three of the diplomats worked at the Russian Embassy in Vienna, while the fourth served in Russia’s delegation to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), which is headquartered in Vienna.
Austria’s Foreign Ministry said the four had engaged in “activities incompatible with their diplomatic status,” a term usually used for spying, Reuters reported. It did not disclose details of the alleged activities or the intelligence findings behind the decision.
The three embassy diplomats were declared persona non grata under Article 9 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. The fourth, who worked on military security and arms control at Russia’s OSCE delegation, was also ordered to leave Austria.
The latest expulsions bring the number of Russian diplomats Austria has expelled since 2020 to 18, according to Reuters. In May 2026, Austria expelled three Russian Embassy employees suspected of using antennas on diplomatic buildings to intercept satellite internet data transmitted by international organizations based in Vienna.
Vienna’s concentration of international organizations, including the OSCE and United Nations agencies, has made it a key location for intelligence activity. A 2024 report by The Wall Street Journal, described Vienna as a major Russian spy hub for operations targeting Western countries, including surveillance of arms supplies to Ukraine.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Dmitry Lyubinsky said Moscow’s response to the expulsions was unavoidable, according to Russian state news agency TASS, AP reported.
Mango, il noto marchio internazionale di moda nato a Barcellona, dà il via a un piano di espansione sul territorio italiano che porterà all’apertura di circa 100 posti di lavoro da inserire in 22 nuovi negozi anche nelle Regioni del Mezzogiorno, tra cui Sicilia e Sardegna, entro il 2027.
Il piano di sviluppo è motivato soprattutto da un incremento del 30% del fatturato su suolo nazionale, rafforzato anche dalla partnership con il gruppo Coin.
Le ricerche di personale per la rete di punti vendita riguardano diverse figure operative e gestionali, con contratti di vario tipo, che non escludono opportunità di tirocinio per giovani ai primi passi nel settore retail:
Le selezioni attualmente attive sono distribuite su gran parte della Penisola per le sedi già operative e per le nuove aperture in programma:
| Città | Profili ricercati | Tipologia contrattuale |
| Milano | Assistant Store Manager, Stage Visual Merchandiser, Assistant Manager | Tempo indeterminato e Stage |
| Roma | Floor Manager, Visual Merchandiser, Stage Visual Merchandiser | Tempo indeterminato e Stage |
| Brescia (Lonato), per nuova apertura | Assistant Store Manager, Visual Merchandiser | Tempo indeterminato |
| Torino | Stage Sales Assistant | Tirocinio |
| Bologna | Visual Merchandiser, Stage Visual Merchandiser | Tempo indeterminato e Stage |
| Firenze (e Campi Bisenzio) | Visual Merchandiser, Stockroom Assistant | Tempo indeterminato e Tempo determinato |
| Venezia | Stage Sales Assistant, Stockroom Assistant | Tirocinio e Tempo determinato |
| Verona | Stage Sales Assistant | Tirocinio |
| Vicenza (per nuova apertura) | Store Manager | Tempo indeterminato |
| Bolzano | Visual Merchandiser, Sales Assistant | Tempo indeterminato e Tempo determinato |
| Piacenza | Visual Merchandiser | Tempo indeterminato |
| Riccione | Stage Sales Assistant | Tirocinio |
| Catania | Visual Merchandiser, Assistant Store Manager | Tempo indeterminato |
| Palermo | Visual Merchandiser, Stage Sales Assistant | Tempo determinato e Stage |
| Cagliari | Stage Sales Assistant | Tirocinio |
| Lecce | Stage Sales Assistant | Tirocinio |
Per consultare l’elenco completo delle offerte di lavoro e inviare la propria candidatura bisogna accedere alla piattaforma per le carriere del gruppo consultando la sezione Lavora con noi. Attraverso il portale si possono filtrare le offerte per sede, tipologia oraria e contrattuale, selezionare l’annuncio d’interesse e compilare il modulo digitale, allegando il proprio Curriculum Vitae aggiornato.
È sempre consentito inoltrare la propria candidatura spontanea nel database, in modo che i recruiter possano selezionare i profili adatti alle necessità dei punti vendita.
Le selezioni di Mango non sono le uniche cui poter accedere senza esperienza. Si segnalano i reclutamenti curati da Poste Italiane per portalettere e addetti agli sportelli, le offerte di lavoro promosse da Fincantieri per figure operative e impiegatizie.
Russian hostile activity costs the UK at least £2 billion (US$2.7 billion) annually, according to a recent report by Scottish MP Graeme Downie, who has called on the government to measure what these actions cost Britain. But this figure is just the baseline. In reality, a profound shift in Moscow’s approach to sabotage means the […]
The post Russian espionage evolves from elite spies to gig operatives appeared first on Asia Times.
Courtesy of Laura Leavitt
The conversation started because of a windfall: it was the first month that we didn't have the preschool tuition payment because my son was starting kindergarten. "I'd love for this money not to just disappear into the monthly budget," I said to my husband.
He nodded, and immediately had a suggestion. "What if we used it to start up a brokerage account? It'd be good to have some investments that are accessible without penalty before retirement."
I knew, deep down, that this was a reasonable response to my point: we both already were on board with the idea of paying ourselves first, where we commit to an amount ahead of time for savings and retirement investments and then live on whatever we earn above that. This strategy served us well, and I wasn't opposed… exactly.
"I was actually hoping to use some of it to add to our emergency fund," I told him slowly. "And maybe getting some additional solar panels I've been looking at."
We have recently lived through instability that made me really appreciate the kinds of standard comforts that are currently easily accessible. Our family experienced the impact of a major hurricane only two years ago (Hurricane Helene), and when water, electricity, and telecommunications were interrupted for days and then weeks, I realized that a relatively modest amount of money and supplies would have made weathering a period of instability easier.
This is the place where my husband and I diverge: I tend to see things somewhat pessimistically, believing there's a good chance supply chains will be interrupted more than a few times during our lifetimes due to a variety of factors.
My husband has a generally optimistic, risk-tolerant approach to life. He knows we've made a solid plan for retirement, so he sees that a brokerage account offers promising returns (not guaranteed, but based on historical data) on funds that we've worked hard to earn. I'm sometimes fearful of the possibility of losing everything in a stock market crash.
I don't think either of us is truly at odds with the other person: my husband witnessed Helene and set to work setting up a battery backup system for our solar panels, an impressive feat and investment that falls more in line with my own risk-averse nature.
And I've never squashed his goals of investing for both short and long-term stability, even if, deep down, I want all our savings in high-yield savings accounts with FDIC protection.
In order to make these conversations civil and positive, we tend to follow three steps.
First, we each get to make the case for why this investment, and why right now.
I think some of the way that we both get over our anxieties about spending or saving well is that we want to be heard, so he hears me out when I want to construct an expensive greenhouse on our property to grow more food, and I hear him out when he identifies that our current ages merit a somewhat risk-tolerant strategy so that we can reap the benefits when the market jumps higher.
Frequently, this process of hearing each other out helps us find an in-between pretty organically, and finding an in-between is the second step. Sometimes, we realize that, for instance, we are too busy to take full advantage of a greenhouse right now and should table it for a year or two. However, maybe this is a good year to invest in a higher-speed home charger for our electric car. Because many of his goals are "invest as much as possible," it's usually possible to buy some portion of the physical items I want while still contributing to our investments.
When I'm advocating for a deeper emergency fund, housed in a high-yield savings account rather than a market-invested brokerage account, I typically ask that we contribute in a percentage-based way. If I ask, for instance, for a windfall to be split 30/70, he gets to invest 70% of the money toward higher yields, and I get 30% in a very secure account. It's not exactly what either of us would like, but it ultimately gives us some benefits of both risk-averse and risk-tolerant strategies.
Finally, any time we find a split that really feels aligned for us, we see if we can make it a rule for the future, the third step. No one loves having to reinvent the wheel every time new money conversations come up. When that 70/30 split worked well for us once, I've returned to it for later money decisions, and while it sometimes needs to be adapted, it lets us balance each of our needs without a long discussion. My husband, famously of few words, likes when we can keep the conversations a little shorter and get back to playing a board game or watching a silly TV show to relax.
When we hear each other out, find a useful middle ground, and operationalize the result for future use, we find ways to invest in both a more secure and a more growth-focused future, favoring methods that work well for both our risk tolerance levels.
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