Drones delivering weapons to two of England’s highest-security prisons have become a national security risk, the prisons watchdog has warned. The Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor, said that drops of contraband to inmates at the top-security jails HMP Manchester and HMP Long Lartin in Worcestershire were now so frequent that guns could be smuggled in. The two jails house some of the most dangerous men in the country, including terrorists, murderers, and organised crime gang bosses. Mr Taylor claimed that prison authorities had “ceded the airspace” over the jails, leading to an increasing risk of armed violence, escapes, and…

The Ukrainian military has developed a new drone that incinerates enemy troops by spraying them with molten metal. These drones have been fitted with canisters filled with thermite, a chemical mixture of aluminum and iron oxide developed over a century ago to weld railway tracks. When thermite is ignited, it produces a reaction that is almost impossible to extinguish. Despite causing horrific injuries, thermite drones—also called Dragon Drones by Ukrainian troops—are not banned under international law, provided they are used to attack military and not civilian targets. The thermite drones have been used to attack Russian infantry hiding in densely…

South Africa’s case against Israel at the ICC drove the review of South Africa’s inclusion in AGOA by Congress according to Tony Carroll.

Ukrainian troops are using millions of hours of video combat footage to train artificial intelligence-driven drones to independently track and target Russian forces. AI has been deployed by both sides on the battlefield during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to identify targets, scanning images far quicker than a human can. Oleksandr Dmitriev, founder of OCHI, a non-profit Ukrainian digital system which centralises and analyses video feeds from over 15,000 drone crews working on the frontlines, said his system had collected two million hours, or 228 years, of battlefield video from drones since 2022. He said that the data gleaned from the…

There is a strong reservoir of goodwill towards the country in Washington that should be explored though robust engagement with the US Congress says US Ambassador Brigety.

Protests in Mozambique targeting infrastructure, particularly the vital Lebombo border post to South Africa, could escalate, potentially disrupting trade and transport routes for months.

Russia has reportedly sold its stakes in certain Kazakh uranium deposits to Chinese-owned companies, marking a significant shift in the global uranium market. The development involves Kazakhstan’s nuclear resources company, Kazatomprom, and Russia’s Rosatom transferring interests to Chinese entities. Kazatomprom, the world’s largest uranium producer, revealed that Rosatom’s Uranium One Group sold its 49.97 per cent stake in the Zarechnoye joint venture (JV) to SNURDC Astana Mining Company, whose ultimate beneficiary is China’s State Nuclear Uranium Resources Development Company. The Zarechnoye JV operates the Zarechnoye mine, which had uranium reserves of approximately 3,500 tonnes at the start of 2024. Mining…

The MK Party continues to allege irregularities in the May elections. Having exhausted legal avenues in South Africa, they are now threatening to escalate their claims to an international court.

An international war crimes prosecutor has claimed that evidence emerging from mass grave sites in Syria has exposed a state-run “machinery of death” in which he estimated more than 100,000 people were tortured and murdered since 2013. Former US war crimes ambassador at large Stephen Rapp, who had visited two mass grave sites in the towns of Qutayfah and Najha near Damascus, said: “We certainly have more than 100,000 people that were disappeared into and tortured to death in this machine. I don’t have much doubt about those kinds of numbers given what we’ve seen in these mass graves.” “We…

Given the available intelligence on this latest attack, I assess the threat level in South Africa as CRITICAL—meaning an attack is highly likely in the near future.

Moscow is set to launch a series of “devastating” air attacks against Ukraine in response to the assassination of one of its most senior generals, defence sources have revealed. President Vladimir Putin will order his forces to carry out one of Russia’s most intensive bombardments against Kyiv and other cities in response to the killing of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological, and chemical protection troops. Defence sources have told National Security News that hospitals, power stations, military complexes, and even schools could be targeted by Russia in the next 24 hours. The assassination of one of the Kremlin’s most senior…

History has proven repeatedly that the “soldiers paradise” that military regime in Africa promise will fade quickly.