Author: NCIJ NETWNCIJ NETWORK

UK-headquartered energy giant BP has finished a multi-day planned turnaround earlier than planned at its platform in the Caspian Sea, with production now growing to pre-maintenance levels. Central Azeri platform in Caspian Sea; Photo: Stuart Conway/BP BP, as the operator of the Azeri-Chirag-Deepwater Gunashli (ACG) field development project, has revealed that the planned maintenance program (turnaround – TAR) on the Central Azeri platform was fully completed ahead of schedule.  While explaining that the turnaround started on August 19, 2026, and was planned to take 11 days, the company highlighted: “All of the program scope has been delivered safely. Production is currently…

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief. The highlights this week: Left-wing lawmakers from across the hemisphere hold a strategy session in Uruguay, Mexico reacts to the U.S.-Canada trade war, and the race for the next United Nations secretary-general moves forward. For years, right-wing politicians from across Latin America have gathered at the U.S. Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and spinoff events in the region. This visibility helped elevate the far right across the Western Hemisphere. Once-fringe CPAC speakers have become national leaders, including Argentina’s Javier Milei and Chile’s José Antonio Kast. While right-wing leaders currently dominate democratic politics…

Claim: A time-lapse video authentically shows Sen. Mitch McConnell sitting in the U.S. Senate chamber, barely moving, for 20 hours straight. Rating: What’s True Video provided by C-SPAN shows McConnell attended the 19-hour, 45-minute session and remained seated continuously for stretches as long as six hours. Periodically over the first few hours of the session, he can be seen standing up, moving around and walking in and out of the chamber, albeit leaning on desks for support. During the session, he was visibly slow and weak. At the end, an aide helped him out of the chamber. What’s False It’s…

A court in the Netherlands has sentenced a Dutch-Rwandan man to life for his involvement in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.The 66-year-old, named only as Eugene N, was accused, among other things, of throwing a hand grenade into a crowd of Tutsis who were seeking shelter in a stadium. He was convicted of war crimes and the crime of genocide, having acted with “genocidal intent”, the judge said. Rwanda had sought his extradition in 2014 but the authorities in the Netherlands then launched their own investigation into N, who had become a Dutch citizen.In 100 days in April 1994, an…

Shawn Fain, the United Automobile Workers president, embarked on a re-election bid this year with much to brag about.He had secured substantial contracts with top automakers, organized Volkswagen workers in Tennessee, and expanded the union’s ranks and political clout. After years of waning influence, the U.A.W. seemed poised for a renaissance.But with the election two months away, Mr. Fain is facing resistance. Former allies have turned on him. A federal monitor overseeing the union — an arrangement resulting from a 2021 court settlement to resolve a corruption scandal — has accused Mr. Fain of abusing his authority and retaliating against…

British soldiers could soon be given powered paragliders to enable them to fly up to 200 miles behind enemy lines.The backpack-sized gliders mean Royal Marine and Parachute Regiment troops could fly into hostile areas during the night without the need to drop from aircraft.Manufacturer Blakcro, which is based in Wiltshire, say the machines can be assembled in eight minutes and launched on foot.The Ministry of Defence is spending £6m on the system, with trials set to begin “in the coming months”.Defence Minister Luke Pollard said the government was building a “more resilient, homegrown defence supply chain and ensuring our armed…

Deals on TentsCourtesy of REIThe REI Half Dome 2 is the best budget two-person backpacking tent. I’ve toted it on many backpacking trips and found it plenty sturdy, quick to set up, and capable of fitting two people along with their gear. It even comes with a footprint (which I never bother with, but it’s nice to have it if you have to deal with pointy rocks).The Big Agnes Copper Spur series is our top pick among freestanding ultralight tents. This is the bikepacking model, which features shorter pole segments that are easier to haul on a bike, but I…

Swati KhandelwalAug 28, 2026Vulnerability / Cloud Security ServiceNow has released patches for four security flaws impacting the ServiceNow AI Platform, three of them rated 10.0 on the CVSS scoring system and exploitable, in certain circumstances, by an unauthenticated attacker. The company said it deployed a security update to hosted instances and provided the update to its partners and self-hosted customers, which leaves organizations that run their own instances to apply the fixes themselves. The advisory was published on August 27, 2026, and the four vulnerabilities are listed below – CVE-2026-18885 (CVSS score: 10.0) – A code injection vulnerability in the…

Crypto wallet maker Ledger is urging its Ethereum app users to update again after two signing flaws remained in its previous security release.The hardware-wallet maker published Ethereum app version 1.22.3 on Aug. 25, closing vulnerabilities that could hide operations from a device review or authorize a token approval in place of an expected payment.The update follows controversy over a separate Ethereum signing flaw reproduced by rival wallet maker OneKey. That issue, tracked as LSB-023, affected older versions and allowed a compromised host to interleave commands so that transaction parameters could change after being displayed but before signing.Ledger said OneKey demonstrated…

Researchers analyzing modern and fossil corals from the Galápagos Islands concluded that global warming has intensified El Niño cycles over the last 40 years, making them more extreme than natural variations seen during the previous millenium. Their study, published Thursday in Science, revealed sharper swings in sea surface temperatures in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean beginning in the late 19th century, as the burning of fossil fuels accelerated and began disrupting the global climate. The findings suggest that rising greenhouse gas concentrations are amplifying one of the world’s most important drivers of extreme weather. The scientists said they ruled out…