Mario Nawfal

🇦🇫🇪🇺 Europe says it can't recognize the Taliban because of how they treat women, but it's happy to sit down with them when there are Afghans to send home. In June, more than 20 European officials quietly met 5 Taliban reps at an airport hotel in Brussels to talk deportations, the first meeting like it on EU soil. Human rights never even came up. Germany is leading the way, with direct deportation flights to Kabul and Taliban officials now working out of Afghan missions in Berlin and Bonn. France is thinking about doing the same. And the Taliban know they've got Europe over a barrel. They want control of more Afghan embassies across Europe, plus cash and economic aid. Their ambassador to Qatar is even warning that otherwise “Afghans will go like a flood to Europe.” So Europe gets to pick its poison, cozy up to the Taliban and bin the human rights speeches, or risk the “flood” Kabul is threatening. Source: NYT / Writer: Julie

🇺🇸 Rapper Bhad Bhabie, the infamous “Cash Me Outside” girl, just had another MASSIVE meltdown after catching a stranger filming her in public. Ten years after Dr. Phil, she's still giving people exactly the kind of chaos that made her famous. Staged or just another day in the life of Bhad Bhabie? Writer: Sol t.co/N2KK541zfM

🇫🇷🇨🇳🇲🇾 Around $90 million is gone from bugged Ledger wallets, and the reseller that sold them had a new owner nobody was allowed to talk about. Some of the wallets, sold through CryptoBilis, Ledger's authorized reseller for Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, had a tiny implant hidden behind the screen. It grabs the recovery phrase during setup and beams it out over a cellular connection. The devices still pass Ledger's own authenticity check because the original security chip is left untouched. Ledger has confirmed the implant in at least one device. CryptoBilis was sold in March, and by August, 100% of its shares belonged to a single individual with an address in China's Heilongjiang province. The original co-founders say they walked away from the business after the sale, and confidentiality terms kept them from announcing it. Nobody has linked the mystery owner officially to the implants yet, and Ledger is staying quiet on the ownership change. That's a big silence for a company whose whole pitch is "don't trust, verify." Ledger hasn't said whether it knew its authorized reseller for 3 countries had been secretly sold to an unknown buyer, and either answer looks bad for a brand that sells trust for a living. Its line so far is that only a "limited" number of devices were hit and its own systems are safe. Posts are also circulating claiming a tampered device turned up in Europe, allegedly bought at MediaMarkt, but Ledger hasn't confirmed any cases outside CryptoBilis. Between this and the Magic Eden exploit that saw thousands of NFTs stolen from wallets just weeks ago, it's been a rough month for holders. Turns out cold storage doesn't help much when the wallet phones home. Sources: Ledger, The Verge, Bloomberg, Gizmodo, Bitcoin News, BitPinas, eGamers / Writer: Julie

Nobody told them this was a bad idea? Or did they just ignore every single person who did? Writer: Daniyal t.co/Kjqb0lrWhu

The Houthis will stop bombing Saudi as soon as Saudi stops bombing Yemen

You've gotta hand it to the Israeli police... They know how to deal with protesters 😂 Writer: Ian t.co/6b98C2twjF

Finally, proof that gyms are trying to kill you Best to stay away if you ask me Writer: Ian t.co/69gzXWuMZd

🇵🇸🇮🇱🇺🇸 Gaza’s homes are rubble, their deeds are buried with them, and now Gazans have to prove they ever lived there at all. Most of Gaza's physical archives are gone, lawyers' offices and the bar association were destroyed, and people sheltering near the bombed land registry ended up burning Ottoman-era records just to cook and keep warm. So lawyers are piecing cases together from electricity bills, old videos and the word of former neighbors, many of whom have been killed in the war. There's a reason they're racing the clock. Israel holds more than half of Gaza, and a U.S. military map seen by the FT marked a "US Planned Community Area" over private Palestinian land, next to a planned UAE housing complex, all inside a "Rafah Clearance Zone." When planners were told they’d have to check who owned the land before building on it, they reportedly reacted with dismay, as if the 2 million people who lived there were a paperwork problem. Source: FT / Writer: Julie t.co/AEZRCLnbZv

Criticizing Israel for the genocide in Gaza does not mean you need to blame them for every single war in the Middle East

🇬🇧 They went to Brighton to promote what used to be thought of as ordinary non-woke British values. What came next shows you how COOKED the UK is. Writer: Mhedi t.co/GAU2YRgY69

🇮🇱 The fake Rabbi softened him up with flattery and then got him to admit he wanted to KILL KIDS in Gaza. The (apparent) IDF soldier said, "I'm with you, but there are leaders bigger than me, and I can't do whatever I want." Officially, that is... Writer: Mhedi t.co/kIMBdhLG7N

🇷🇺🇦🇷 A Russian guy in Buenos Aires offered a homeless man 20,000 Argentine pesos (around $13) if he could do 20 PUSH-UPS. The man accepted the challenge, managed exactly ONE push-up, and then just stayed there COMPLETELY MOTIONLESS. The Russian had absolutely no idea what the hell was happening. He eventually handed over the money anyway and walked off. Did the Russian just get played, or did that ONE push-up nearly finish the poor guy? Writer: Sol t.co/8XbIiXKUVU

Maybe it wasn't the best time for that joke 😬 Writer: Ian t.co/4S3kZDa5nM

🇺🇸🇷🇺🇸🇦 Oil prices slipped after Trump announced a Russia-Ukraine "energy ceasefire," and traders started betting on more Russian fuel flowing into the market. U.S. crude dropped to around $90 a barrel and Brent to around $104, even with the Houthis still pounding Saudi Arabia and tankers getting hit in the Gulf over the weekend. The catch is that the last time Trump announced an energy ceasefire, Zelensky said no deal had actually been finalized, so it's far from clear this one will hold. Wall Street is brushing it all off for now, with stock futures up. But oil is still about 50% pricier than it was in January, and that's showing up at the pump and in inflation, with fresh U.S. numbers due this week. However, for now, even a shaky ceasefire is buying markets a breather. Sources: Bloomberg, FXStreet / Writer: Julie

What a fking retard Putting other people's lives at risk because he thinks the highway is his personal racetrack Writer: Ian t.co/iJRO8OXOFk

🇵🇰 Police reportedly opened fire on supporters of Imran Khan's party in northwest Pakistan, as anger grows over the government seizing control of their home province. Islamabad took over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province Khan's party runs, kicked out its government and arrested its chief minister. Protesters took to the streets in Bara, a town near the Afghan border, and that's when the shooting reportedly started. The government says it stepped in because the province failed to stop militant violence, but in Bara, the guns were pointed at protesters. Sources: Arab News / Writer: Julie t.co/UMCDkK7yiT t.co/WcuO4qO1V8

Woah!! That guy so nearly got his head crushed 😬 Writer: Ian t.co/Ja0irGIxlh

🇩🇪🇰🇬 "Do you like to have sex?" That's what a masked man on horseback asked a solo female German traveller who was brave or foolish enough to camp alone in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. He even asked her where she would be staying that night and whether she would be ALONE in her tent! This is the side of solo traveling all those dreamy TikTok shorts don't show you Writers: Mhedi, Ian t.co/u5VORcBqU9

When you've done just enough to get your pension 😂 Writer: Ian t.co/VuupoNMcNU

🇮🇶🇮🇷🇪🇺 Iraq’s Kurdistan region has become a booming drug highway into Europe, and the smugglers are getting seriously creative. Meth and amphetamine flow in from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and out toward Europe. Smugglers are stashing the stuff in fuel tanks, appliances and even soaking it into the lining of jackets. With the whole region in turmoil, more and more desperate people are signing up. Sources: @SkyNews, @DominicWaghorn / Writer: Julie t.co/oy8pQO0hvK

You shouldn't need AI clairvoyance to warn you off that guy The moustache is enough of a giveaway Writer: Ian t.co/uD6NBny1W4

🇬🇧 Andy Burnham on his vision for Britain's "closer integration" with the EU: "Brexit has done more harm than good to UK growth. I'm going to argue for closer integration because that will enable us to improve the growth prospects of the country. One of the big lies of the campaign back in 2016 is that we would "take back control" of all of that, and it would all be much easier. The reality is you need collaboration to control immigration, and that's got weaker." Pretty silly to imply re-joining the EU would bring mass illegal immigration under control when the EU itself has the weakest policies imaginable on that. 😂 Writer: Mhedi t.co/0XZastDBoz

🇸🇦🇺🇸 Saudi Arabia could be forced to start selling off its U.S. Treasuries, and if the Houthi war drags on, the bond market may feel it. The Saudi trade balance runs almost entirely on oil. Oil exports brought in around $212 billion last year, enough to cover roughly 84% of everything the kingdom imports. Now the Houthis keep hitting Saudi energy sites, while Iran and the Houthis squeeze the kingdom's export routes. Riyadh can borrow or cut spending for a while, but a long squeeze leaves it with 2 bad options: It could drop the riyal's peg to the dollar and let imports become unaffordable, a political humiliation the government has vowed for years to avoid. Or it can burn through its $465 billion in reserves to defend the peg and keep living standards intact, and that pile is already down from about $495 billion in June. Around $142 billion of those reserves sit in U.S. Treasuries. In a worst case where oil revenue dries up completely, the goods trade gap alone would hit roughly $78 billion every 6 months, putting Saudi selling within reach of Japan’s recent Treasury dump to defend the yen, which reportedly came in under $90 billion. It gets worse if foreign lenders lose their nerve. Saudi external debt has climbed to around $516 billion, more than the kingdom's entire reserve stash, and if refinancing gets harder, those reserves would drain even faster. The Houthis can't reach Wall Street with missiles, but they might not need to. Sources: GASTAT, WSJ, Bloomberg, Al Arabiya, Arab News, Saudi Gazette, Trading Economics, U.S. Treasury / Writer: Julie

The car that nobody asked for, the Citroën 2CV, is being brought back to life Yes, that terrible looking slow car that became hugely popular in the 1970s fuel crisis is getting a rebrand This one still looks pretty bad, but at least it will only cost around €15,000 Writer: Ian t.co/FeJjVEp5C8

🇧🇷 Brazilian football hits different. Look at this poor cameraman trying to do his job while the fans are going so absolutely INSANE that they're shaking his entire camera 🤣 Writer: Sol t.co/IxrrMqnVOT t.co/B2fRdsOKep

Clavicular’s Camp Looksmax looks about as lame as everyone expected Writer: Ian t.co/TTCCOhVMaK

What's the point of having kids if you can't give them a little PTSD 😂 Writer: Ian t.co/if54zOlxcd

🇬🇧 Despite Nigel Farage not having held any position of significant direct power in British politics, Andy Burnham just suggested Britain's problems are mainly HIS FAULT! Britain truly is led by people who have zero SHAME. Writer: Mhedi t.co/80Ll3mUtUY

The way he tries to casually get back into his pickup after taking a beating 😂 Writer: Ian t.co/F7k0oHSw30

Who needs playgrounds when you've got road signs Writer: Ian t.co/SEfXA8oI8N