“The European Union has decided that the textile and clothing sectors must become circular. But there is a gap – one that no one has yet measured – between the strategy set out in Brussels and the factory that has to implement it, and it is this gap that will determine whether or not the European textile and clothing industry will survive its own transition,” writes César Araújo, President of ANIVEC, the Portuguese Association of Clothing, Apparel and Fashion Industries, and Chair of the Executive Committee of the Lusitano Project Consortium.
The textile and clothing sectors are by no means minor players in the European industrial landscape. We are talking about a turnover of around 166 billion euros, nearly 1.2 million jobs and almost 200,000 companies – the overwhelming majority of which are micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. We are talking about an industrial sector which, according to the latest figures from EURATEX (the European confederation for the sector, of which ANIVEC is a member), exports €61 billion worth of goods and, in 2024 alone, invested a total of €5.3 billion in tangible assets.
This is an industry that has demonstrated truly exemplary resilience within the European Single Market, operating in a highly competitive and profoundly unequal environment; one that is open to all manner of external sources, whose requirements are applied relentlessly to domestic producers, but which, in practice, operates without any form of effective control or trade safeguards vis-à-vis external producers.
Without first rectifying the unfairness in the European Single Market, new requirements are now being imposed on the European textile and clothing industry, requiring it to absorb, simultaneously and within a short space of time, new eco-design rules, the introduction of the digital product passport and extended producer responsibility, amongst countless other demands.
The decision to move towards a circular economy is not in question. Indeed, this is probably the only way forward for an industry that Europe should wish to retain within its borders. The problem lies in the way this future is being shaped: with rules devised exclusively from the top down, aimed at a sector that continues to compete on a daily basis under conditions that no one else would tolerate. We are, moreover, well aware of the measures, support and initiatives from which the European automotive industry has benefited, precisely because it is now experiencing what the textile and clothing sectors have been facing for decades.
Let’s look at what happened a few weeks ago in Paris, on the fringes of Première Vision. The European textile and fashion federations have once again joined forces to denounce the competitive imbalance caused by fast fashion. The abolition of the customs exemption for low-value parcels and the introduction of a transitional customs duty of 3 euros were a first step. But that is just that: a first step. Now, the federations are calling for a more ambitious European handling fee, closer to 10 euros, capable of reflecting the real cost of customs control, market surveillance and the safety of the millions of products entering the EU every day. We continue to demand of compliant European brands what we do not demand of those who flood our market from outside. What is being called for is not protectionism; it is simply reciprocity.
That is why circularity cannot be treated as a mere exercise in documentary compliance. A factory that already complies with strict European environmental and social standards, operates under recognised certifications and ensures traceable supply chains, should embark on this transition with a real advantage. But this advantage will only translate into competitiveness if the EU is able to distinguish it – and reward it – from production that disregards circularity criteria and, consequently, does not internalise these costs in the final price of the product.
We have long known what needs to be done to ensure that, by 2030, we have sustainable and circular textiles and clothing in the EU. European industry is the right partner to drive the value chain forward, ensuring that products placed on the market are genuinely durable, repairable and recyclable; made largely from recycled fibres; free from hazardous substances; and produced with full respect for social rights.
However, whilst we must ensure fairness within the Single Market, the key question that remains to be answered in order to realise the 2030 vision is not a conceptual one, but a strictly operational one. Who collects? Who sorts? Who recycles? Who pays and on what scale? What is needed for textile recycling to move beyond the pilot project stage and truly become an industry?
It is to answer these questions, backed by data and practical experience, that ANIVEC, CENIT and the Lusitano Project are organising a meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels on 30 September. Under the patronage of MEPs Paulo Cunha (PT/EPP) and Bruno Gonçalves (PT/S&D) and under the theme “Making circular textiles work in Europe: Transparency, Recycling and Industrial Competitiveness” (https://shorturl.at/r8Ml4), the aim is clear: to bring together European institutions, industry and organisations that are already implementing circular solutions on the ground – with practical experience in extended producer responsibility and recycling – to discuss what is actually needed for textile circularity to work on a European scale.
At the end of the day, the question is not whether the European textile and clothing industry wants to be circular. The answer to that question is given in the affirmative, every single day, by our companies. The question on the table is whether Brussels wants to rely on the European textile and clothing industry as its chosen partner to make this circularity a reality within the European Single Market. To this end, it is imperative to ensure the industrial and commercial conditions that make circularity genuinely competitive. If the response continues to be regulation without reciprocity, we run the very real risk of being left with only the world’s most stringent standards whilst exporting whatever production we have left.
The Pentagon has reached an agreement with Lockheed Martin to lay the groundwork for stepped-up production and delivery of new AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missiles (JATM) to the U.S. military and allied air arms in the coming years. The AIM-260 is still in development, but the head of the Air Force Test Center also touted efforts to further accelerate that work just earlier this week. From the start, the U.S. military has presented JATM as especially critical for ensuring China, with its own growing array of longer-range air-to-air missiles, does not gain an edge in future air combat.
The new framework agreement announced today “is critical to ensuring long-term demand signals flow to key suppliers, allowing Lockheed Martin and the munitions supply chain to invest in manufacturing capacity, workforce, and production efficiencies,” according to a Pentagon press release. “It establishes a framework for future Multi-Year Procurement (MYP) of JATM, executing congressional authority to secure the nation’s highest-priority missile systems.”
“This agreement forms the foundational agreement for a multiyear procurement contract, pending Congressional approval, that provides long-term demand to strengthen and expand the defense industrial base for the program,” according to a separate release from Lockheed Martin.
A US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet seen carrying an AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile (JATM). Jonathan Tweedy/ @flightline_visuals
In response to questions from TWZ, the Pentagon declined to comment on the projected number of JATMs covered under this agreement, as well as estimated costs and delivery schedules.
A rendering depicting an F-22 Raptor firing an AIM-260 JATM. USAF
The releases today from the Pentagon and Lockheed Martin confirm that the new framework deal also includes planned foreign military sales of AIM-260s. Australia, one of America’s top allies, is the first confirmed international customer for the JATM, and plans to integrate the missiles on its F/A-18Fs, F-35As, and EA-18G Growler electronic warfare jets. The Royal Australian Air Force’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat CCA-type drones, initial versions of which are already capable of firing AIM-120s, might be another AIM-260 launch platform in the future.
The AIM-260 remains in development, with the Navy and Air Force test communities supporting that work.
“We are accelerating weapons development from high-end air dominance weapons like the JATM to hypersonic strike systems like the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile,” Air Force Brig. Gen. Mark Massaro, head of the Air Force Test Center (AFTC) at Edwards Air Force Base in California, told TWZ and other outlets at a media roundtable yesterday. The roundtable took place at the Air & Space Forces Association’s (AFA) 2026 Air, Space & Cyber Conference.
“We’re actively testing JATM, and it’s progressing along its program path. In test, we are working through the development stages there,” Massaro added. “So, we’re testing it in [sic] the ground with models, like I mentioned. We’re testing it in the air on aircraft. So, from a performance standpoint, I’ll hold on to that from an operational security perspective. But we’re happy seeing where it’s going, and we expect that to be a key piece of capability for our warfighters to have.”
“Just from a testing perspective, we’re always looking at making sure that we’ve got the throughput,” he added when asked if he could talk about challenges or other issues AFTC has run up against in work on the AIM-260. “So, from a test perspective only, infrastructure and throughput to make sure that we can get things out … and make the testing happen. But I’m not, from a capabilities perspective, worried about the system.”
Another look at the AIM-260 loaded on the Navy Super Hornet. Jonathan Tweedy/ @flightline_visuals
It is unclear when the first operational AIM-260s may begin entering the U.S. inventory. When the program was first disclosed to the public in 2019, the stated goal was to start fielding the missiles in 2022. There were also reports in late 2025 that funding issues had caused a three-month delay, based on a fact sheet distributed to some members of the U.S. House Committee on Armed Services. The committee later said that the information was incorrect.
Work to date on JATM has been conducted under a heavy veil of secrecy, with the existence of the program only being announced in 2019. The first public glimpse of the missile only emerged in May of this year. Beyond the aforementioned size requirement and that the new missile will offer significantly greater engagement range over the AIM-120, details remain limited. Readers can learn more about what we do know so far here.
The AIM-260 is not the only longer-ranged air-to-air missile known to be in development in the United States, either. In 2024, the Navy revealed it had begun fielding an air-launched version of the surface-launched Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), called the AIM-174B Gunslinger, at least on a limited level. Just in August of this year, the service disclosed the existence of another very long-range air-to-air missile, the AIM-424 Malice, which has already reached the flight testing phase of development.
A US Navy F/A-18F Super Hornet test jet with four AIM-174B missiles under its wings. point_mugu_skiesA US Navy Super Hornet test jet carrying a load of AIM-424 Malice missiles. USN
An Air Force spokesperson told Air & Space Forces Magazine last month that the service was “closely following” the Navy’s work on the AIM-424. In June, the Air Force itself shared details about another potential future air-to-air missile, dubbed the Air Force Long Range Weapon (AFLRW), including a target requirement for a maximum range of at least 1,000 nautical miles.
Based on past experiences with public disclosures about the AIM-260, AIM-174B, and AIM-424 programs, additional work on advanced longer-range air-to-air missiles is certainly ongoing in the classified realm.
Today’s announcement about the new framework agreement, together with Brig. Gen. Massaro’s brief update yesterday, makes clear there is a continued commitment to JATM amid a still-growing field of new, longer-range air-to-air missiles.
Greece’s Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis has been reiterating since Monday morning that he will seek to enhance patients’ protection by installing an QR Code at the entrance of private doctors’ practices. Though his smart phone the apparently tech savy “patient will be able to confirm whether the practice is legal or not,” Georgiadis said. Surprise! […]
Le Parti communiste français condamne avec la plus grande fermeté l’arrestation et le placement sous mandat de dépôt de Justin Koné Katinan, quatrième vice-président du Parti des peuples africains — Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI) et ancien ministre. Cette arrestation fait suite à une conférence de presse du 3 septembre 2026, où Justin Koné Katinan dénonçait la responsabilité […]
The starting date for the mandatory payment of rent exclusively through a bank account has been postponed until July 1, 2027, following a decision signed by the governor of the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE), Giorgos Pitsilis. According to an AADE announcement on Thursday, the extension was considered necessary in order to complete a […]
A decision by the Ministry of Infrastructure & Transport has raised the fixed taxi fares from the airports in Athens and Thessaloniki Taxi: New fares €50 for a trip from the ATH International Airport to downtown Athens. The fares change concerns, among others, the predetermined fares for routes from the airports of Athens and Thessaloniki, […]
Greek Parliament voted for lifting the parliamentary immunity of ruling New Democracy MP and former EU Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos on Thursday. The voting followed a relevant request by Belgian authorities investigating the so-called Qatargate and have issued an arrest warrant last June. Prior to the voting, 73-year-old Avramopoulos submitted a memorandum where he requested “the Plenary […]
Enterprise security departments have typically been presented with one of two options: either the use of unified threat management systems (UTMs) to achieve a unified perimeter or an IDS solution that can offer greater insight into network activity. However, when considering solutions for enterprise environments running on Microsoft Windows-based products, it appears that both sides are focusing on the wrong issue. The argument from UTM vendors, who market their product as the "one-stop shop" for IT personnel with limited time resources, is that a UTM device provides all necessary functions (firewall, VPN, antivirus, etc.) within a single unit. On the other hand, the vendors of specialized IDS devices argue that the inclusion of these additional functionalities reduces the effectiveness of the IDS function. As such, organizations providing protection for Windows networks continue to be at increased risk due to this way of thinking.
Cybersecurity engineer Samuel Bemi investigated this gap through a controlled comparative evaluation of Snort, an open-source intrusion detection system, and pfSense, an open-source unified security platform, within a virtualised Windows 11 enterprise environment. His evaluation goes beyond the conventional question of whether a security control detects an attack, examining whether that detection remains operationally valuable once false positives, latency, throughput, and resource utilisation are taken into account.
Detection alone doesn't tell the whole story
The experiment simulated three of the most common attack patterns organisations face: ICMP flood attacks, port and service scanning, and denial-of-service traffic. Both Snort and pfSense were configured to defend a Windows 11 host inside an isolated network built specifically for testing.
The results were clarifying, not comforting. Snort detected 100 percent of ICMP flood attempts and 100 percent of denial-of-service traffic, and identified the large majority of port scanning attempts. Within the controlled test environment, Snort achieved strong detection performance against the traffic patterns tested. But the more important finding was that detection performance came with operational trade-offs. Alongside that success sat a false positive rate high enough to be operationally significant, alongside a measurable increase in network latency and a meaningful drop in throughput once both systems were active.
Bemi's evaluation shifts the question from “which security control detects more attacks?” to a more consequential one: “does the security architecture remain effective when detection accuracy, false positives, and operational overhead are considered together?” Rather than assessing IDS and UTM controls independently, Bemi's approach examines how detection accuracy, false positives, resource consumption, and network performance interact when the controls are deployed within the same enterprise environment. This perspective provides security teams with a more practical basis for designing defence-in-depth architectures, where protection is assessed not only by what threats a control detects, but also by how effectively it operates within the wider network.
"A 100 percent detection rate cannot be evaluated in isolation," Bemi says. "If achieving that result introduces significant false positives, latency or throughput degradation, the security control has to be assessed as an operational system rather than simply as a detection mechanism."
What UTM alone Mmisses
Bemi’s argument is that IDS will never replace or outperform UTM. Instead, he says both tools solve two different layers of the same issue. Layer one is Perimeter Enforcement (Firewalling, VPN termination, Traffic Shaping, Blocking Known-Bad traffic) as long as you have the correct settings with your UTM devices such as pfSense. The Layer Two that IDS addresses is what happens after you allow something past the first layer. This Layer two provides a level of detail that can't be replicated by UTM alone. In particular, this was very evident during Bemi's testing and evaluation based on Detection Capability and Operational Impact.
" A UTM determines whether traffic should be admitted into the Network," Bemi states. " An IDS answers a completely different Question; namely, now that it is inside the Network, does it appear to be anomalous?" Bemi stated enterprises who use only UTM are typically making only one determination regarding allowing traffic past the Firewall/VPN termination device. Then they are simply relying on anything that passes through to be safe."
Resource cost is a design input, not an afterthought
One of the study's most important findings is that defence-in-depth is not operationally free. Running both controls increased CPU and memory utilisation and introduced additional network latency, demonstrating that security architecture cannot be evaluated solely through detection effectiveness.
He argues the practical barrier to hybrid defence is often less about whether the controls can work together and more about whether organisations have planned for the capacity, tuning and monitoring they require. "Nobody disputes that defence-in-depth is the right architecture on a whiteboard," he says. "The resistance comes at implementation, when a smaller IT team realises that running both properly means capacity planning, rule tuning to bring false positives down, and ongoing log review. That is a resourcing conversation, not a technology conversation. But skipping it does not remove the risk; it just moves the risk from the network into the business."
The practical path forward
For organisations still treating this as a binary purchasing decision, the practical implication of Bemi's evaluation is not that every organisation should deploy both controls indiscriminately. Instead, security architects should treat UTM and IDS as complementary controls, evaluate their combined performance under realistic traffic conditions, and size infrastructure and monitoring capacity around the resulting operational overhead.
Conclusion
The challenge for Windows enterprise security is not choosing between UTM and IDS, but designing an architecture in which both controls address different layers of the same threat landscape. Bemi’s evaluation demonstrates that detection rates alone do not determine security effectiveness; false positives, latency, throughput, resource consumption, and the effort required to operate the controls also matter. The industry therefore needs to move beyond product-versus-product comparisons and assess how security controls perform together under realistic enterprise conditions. In practice, UTM can provide the first layer of perimeter enforcement, while IDS adds deeper visibility into suspicious activity that may pass through that boundary. Organisations considering a hybrid approach should test the combined architecture against representative workloads and establish clear thresholds for performance, false positives, and resource utilisation before deployment. They should also plan for ongoing rule tuning, monitoring, capacity management, and analyst involvement rather than treating these as secondary operational concerns. Ultimately, effective defence-in-depth depends not simply on deploying more security tools, but on ensuring that complementary controls work together in a way that is measurable, sustainable, and aligned with the organisation’s operational needs.
How two fields that never talk to each other arrived at the same answer.
The same protocol, two fields
ACLS (Advanced Cardiovascular Life Support) and ATLS (Advanced Trauma Life Support) are the gold standard frameworks for managing physiological crise: systems built to keep trained professionals functional when every instinct says to react without thinking. Special Educational Needs support sits, professionally speaking, at the opposite end of healthcare, in the sustained work of accompanying children through dysregulation and meltdown, through the disorientation of a nervous system that won't reliably self-regulate. Different setting, different literature, different culture of practice.
But according to Dr. Adaugo Ijeoma Nwauwa, a physician who has instructed ACLS and ATLS and also worked directly supporting children with diverse learning and behavioural needs, the two fields are running the same protocol without knowing it.
Cognitive regulation, not just medicine
The claim is more precise than it first sounds. ACLS and ATLS are not, at bottom, medical protocols. They are cognitive regulation systems for the clinician, not only the patient. Under extreme stress, cognition degrades in predictable ways: attention narrows, sequencing collapses, and emotional reactivity overrides trained procedure. Resuscitation medicine doesn't assume a clinician's competence will survive that pressure intact; it's built around the assumption it won't.
The response is to remove the need for real-time judgement wherever possible: convert decisions into automatic sequences, spread cognitive load across a team, and give each person one narrow role so no single mind holds the entire crisis.
“This isn’t an accident of medical history,” Nwauwa says. “It’s applied psychology, and it works.”
Dysregulation is dysregulation
The same architecture, she argues, is needed and largely absent in SEN support because it's the same underlying problem. A child in sensory overload meltdown is not being difficult; the prefrontal cortex, the seat of language, reasoning, and sequence, has gone functionally offline, leaving the limbic system to run threat detection and fight-flight-freeze on its own. A trauma patient in haemorrhagic shock is a different system in a different kind of overwhelm, but the logic doesn't change: the environment has to supply, from the outside, what the person's own system currently cannot generate.
In both cases, the worst thing a responder can do is the thing that feels most natural under stress: escalate. Raise the voice. Add complexity to the demand. Let their own anxiety enter the room as a signal the other person's nervous system will pick up before any words do.
What works instead is almost boringly consistent: reduce arousal, impose sequence, communicate through calm rather than instruction, and wait for the window in which re-engagement becomes possible.
Calm Is a trained skill, not a trait
This is where the argument does its most useful work, not in the parallel itself, which is intuitive once stated, but in what she does with the word "calm". Calm, in her account, is not a personality trait or an emotional state the responder happens to be in. It's a trained physiological and behavioural posture, produced deliberately, that signals safety to everyone in the room regardless of what the responder actually feels.
Emergency medicine trains this explicitly and treats it as a technical skill worth simulating and rehearsing. SEN support demands the identical output, a support worker staying regulated through a full meltdown, with a fraction of the training infrastructure and almost none of the professional recognition that it is a skill at all rather than a personality quirk.
“A support worker who stays regulated while a child is in full meltdown isn't 'being patient'," she says. “They’re performing a skilled intervention.”
The distinction matters practically: naming it as a technical skill is what makes it teachable through simulation, scenario repetition, and deliberate practice under controlled stress, the same methods that already work in resuscitation training.
The shared failure mode
The two fields also share a failure mode, the same one emergency medicine spent decades designing its protocols around: skipping assessment in favour of immediate action. Faced with visible distress, the instinct is to do something. ACLS treats that instinct as dangerous enough to override by rule: assessment before intervention, every time, no exceptions for how urgent the moment feels, because acting on a wrong read during a cardiac arrest kills the patient.
The stakes in a classroom are different, but the mechanism is identical. A worker who responds to visible distress without first identifying its source — sensory overload, pain, an unmet need, a communication breakdown — will frequently intervene in ways that escalate the very thing they're trying to calm.
“The assessment step isn’t a delay,” she says. “It is the intervention.”
The missing cross-pollination
What she finds most frustrating is not that the parallel exists but that almost nobody has acted on it. The literature on acute crisis intervention and the literature on neurodiverse behavioural support don't cite each other, don't share conferences, and largely don't share a vocabulary, despite, in her assessment, running on the same underlying mechanism.
The traffic could move in both directions: emergency medicine has the deeper evidence base and decades of simulation science to offer SEN training, while SEN support has made real advances in co-regulation and trauma-informed practice with obvious, unexplored applications in the emergency room, where patients in crisis are often just as dysregulated, just as unreachable by instruction, as a child mid-meltdown.
Training programmes that treat physiological crisis response and behavioural dysregulation as categorically separate disciplines, she argues, are training people for a version of the nervous system that doesn’t exist. It doesn't draw that line. Neither, she'd argue, should the curriculum.
Investigamos o que importa para os brasileiros além do que passa na campanha eleitoral. Leia mais reportagens como essa clicando aqui.
Noite na Marginal Pinheiros, uma das principais artérias de São Paulo: dois jovens negros são abordados por três policiais militares numa viatura. Motivo? Eles caminhavam de forma suspeita, segundo a equipe. A abordagem é seguida por revista, interrogatório e xingamentos por parte dos PMs. “Tu é todo ladrãozão, né”, comentou um dos policiais.
Nada ilegal ou suspeito foi identificado na dupla. Mesmo assim, a ação foi exaltada em um vídeo publicado no YouTube pelo Diretor Elias Junior, candidato a deputado estadual pelo MDB. “O tamanho do viaduto ficou pequeno quando viram a ROTA”, diz o título da publicação. Um formato sensacionalista que se repete entre outros youtubers que disputam as eleições de 2026 e integram a lista dos que mais monetizaram explorando operações policiais. Alguns dos vídeos contêm deboche, humilhação e truculência, expondo, além dos próprios policiais, moradores e suspeitos, sobretudo em regiões periféricas de grandes cidades.
Apuração exclusiva da Agência Pública, em parceria com a plataforma Zeeng, mostra que um candidato com muitos seguidores pode ganhar até R$ 8 mil por mês no YouTube com vídeos sobre operações e abordagens das polícias. O levantamento considerou os 15 candidatos influencers com maior monetização sobre ocorrências policiais em 2026: eles podem ter ganhado até R$ 64,6 mil na soma dos vídeos (entre shorts e vídeos longos) postados no YouTube de 1º de janeiro a 25 de agosto deste ano.
Os valores podem ser ainda maiores, pois o levantamento considera o pagamento estimado por views do YouTube, o que não leva em conta outras redes sociais e possíveis patrocínios negociados diretamente pelos candidatos, a exemplo de divulgação de cursos e produtos.
Ao todo, sete partidos de direita e centro-direita compõem o levantamento: Podemos, MDB, PP, PL, Avante, União Brasil e Republicanos. Os nomes analisados possuem vínculo direto com a Polícia Militar, Polícia Civil, Polícia Rodoviária Federal e Guarda Civil Metropolitana de São Paulo. A exceção é Elias Junior, que é diretor cinematográfico, mas acompanha operações e explora a estética policial.
Por que isso importa?
As Polícias costumam ter normas de como seus agentes devem usar as redes sociais – muitas delas vedam o uso de palavras depreciativas ou de fardas e dispositivos.
Cerca de 6% de todos os candidatos destas eleições são ligados a forças de segurança.
Partidos de direita e extrema direita têm defendido medidas inconstitucionais de endurecimento da punição a crimes.
Dos 15 youtubers listados pela reportagem, 14 utilizam ocorrências policiais para divulgar a própria imagem, a maioria em condutas que não são condizentes com as normas das Polícias Civil e Militar de São Paulo sobre uso das redes sociais. Além disso, parlamentares licenciados dos cargos não têm prerrogativa para se apresentarem como autoridades policiais – e nem usarem distintivo ou equipamentos da corporação, conforme confirmado pela Secretaria de Segurança Pública de São Paulo.
O líder na estimativa de arrecadação é o deputado federal e candidato à reeleição, delegado Palumbo (PODE-SP), que pode ter faturado cerca de R$ 64,6 mil desde o início do ano, acumulando mais de 26 milhões de visualizações no período analisado. Mesmo licenciado do cargo de Policial Civil, Palumbo aparece nos vídeos participando de operações, sobretudo relacionadas ao tráfico de drogas.
Na maioria das ocorrências, ele caminha ao lado dos agentes, auxilia e até mesmo protagoniza interrogatórios. Os títulos utilizados nos conteúdos são majoritariamente chamativos e com palavras fortes. “São duas opções, c4deia ou caixão – dessa vez ele foi parar na c4deia”, descreve uma publicação de 20 de julho de 2026, que começa com policiais imobilizando de forma agressiva um homem na rua. “Não estamos te esculachando não, você está sendo tratado como tem que ser tratado”, diz um dos agentes. Depois de ter sido procurado pela reportagem, Palumbo retirou o vídeo do ar, mas não respondeu aos questionamentos.
Mesmo licenciado do cargo de Policial Civil, o deputado federal Delegado Palumbo (de marrom) participa de operações e posta no YouTube –este vídeo foi retirado após contato da reportagem
Delegado licenciado usa distintivo e participa de operações
O canal com maior número de inscritos pertence ao deputado federal delegado Da Cunha (União-SP), com 3,53 milhões de inscritos, embora tenha ficado em 10º lugar no ranking de visualizações. Ele publicou 237 vídeos num período de quase oito meses, podendo ter monetizado cerca de R$ 3,4 mil desde janeiro.
Da Cunha está licenciado do cargo de delegado da Polícia Civil, mas participa de operações policiais e se apresenta nas ocorrências como “deputado e delegado”. Em um dos vídeos, postado em 8 de julho deste ano, ele interrogou um homem linchado por populares após uma tentativa frustrada de assalto a uma loja de produtos importados, em Osasco (SP).
O deputado aparece no vídeo atendendo a ocorrência junto à Guarda Municipal de Osasco. Usando distintivo de delegado, o deputado também foi até o hospital onde o suspeito ficou internado após o espancamento. Com o homem com a cabeça enfaixada e deitado numa maca, o parlamentar é filmado dando sermão e ainda faz propaganda de um projeto de lei de autoria dele e dos deputados Kim Kataguiri (Missão-SP) e Marcos Pollon (PL-MS): “Sabia que aumentou a pena do 157 [crime de roubo]? Sabia que a lei é minha? Agora é dez anos a pena mínima. Vai ficar uma cotinha na cadeia, meu tio. Agradecer à polícia que salvou sua vida né, se não ‘tava’ com o CPF cancelado já”.
Da Cunha, que é deputado federal e candidato à reeleição, é filmado no hospital dando bronca em um suspeito de roubo que foi vítima de espancamento
Por lei, é considerada contravenção um policial civil usar publicamente distintivo de função que não exerce. Além disso, uma portaria editada em 2020 regulou, em São Paulo, o uso de redes por policiais civis. A norma proíbe, entre outros pontos, a publicação de fotos e vídeos com vítimas, suspeitos ou investigados; veda comportamento que busque “reconhecimento social” ou “promoção pessoal” e exige “decoro e discrição na linguagem”.
A Polícia Militar de São Paulo tem norma parecida desde 2021, que proíbe publicar ou compartilhar qualquer conteúdo que se relacione, direta ou indiretamente, com a PM, bem como divulgar operações ou investigações.
Ainda que o servidor esteja licenciado, um órgão de segurança pública pode adotar medidas administrativas pelo descumprimento de normas institucionais, explicou o professor de direito eleitoral da Faculdade de Direito de Sorocaba, Pedro Marques Neto. “Tem regras que evitam o uso de fardas, por exemplo, mas muitas vezes elas não são aplicadas”.
No Brasil, quase 30% dos órgãos de polícia não têm norma específica para o uso de redes sociais por parte dos agentes, conforme levantamento do Instituto Sou da Paz. Para a entidade, é preciso garantir a liberdade de expressão, “mas também vedar o uso da autoridade policial para autopromoção e engajamento político”.
O problema é que as normativas em geral não estabelecem o setor responsável e as formas de fiscalização dos agentes no ambiente virtual, frisou a diretora-executiva do instituto, Carolina Ricardo. “Falta em algumas normativas ter um fluxo claro de quem é o dono disso dentro das instituições, da função de fiscalizar. E isso torna muito mais difusa a implementação [das normas]”, comentou.
Procurada, a Secretaria de Segurança Pública (SSP) de São Paulo informou que o parlamentar licenciado por conta do mandato não tem a prerrogativa para usar distintivo e nem se apresentar como autoridade policial. “Não há, portanto, autorização para ações como as descritas pela reportagem”, disse, em nota, quando questionada sobre parlamentares licenciados e também sobre o caso do Elias Junior, que não é policial.
Sobre o uso de redes sociais, a Secretaria reforçou que portarias das Polícias Civil e Militar proíbem a criação de perfil vinculado ao trabalho policial, bem como a publicação de fotos e vídeos com vítimas, e que não compactua com desvios de conduta. “Casos identificados são apurados pelas corregedorias das corporações, mediante procedimento próprio, podendo resultar em medidas administrativas, disciplinares, civis e criminais”, diz a nota. A SSP, no entanto, não confirmou se os casos enviados pela reportagem serão apurados.
A Pública procurou também todos os 15 candidatos do levantamento. A Capitã Rebeca, em 12º lugar no ranking, respondeu que não monetiza com os vídeos. Porém, não comentou sobre os objetivos do canal e nem como se posiciona sobre as críticas de espetacularização da violência.
O Coronel Telhada, 14º no ranking, disse que nenhuma das suas redes sociais ganha dinheiro com monetização. “O YouTube com frequência manda mensagem para monetizarmos, mas nunca concordamos e nem aceitamos, nunca fizemos inscrição no programa de monetização de nenhuma rede social e nem faremos”, afirmou em nota.
O deputado federal Sargento Fahur e candidato à reeleição, disse que a gestão do seu canal é feita por uma empresa. “Os valores obtidos com monetização não são suficientes sequer para custear integralmente a operação”, afirmou, pois há custos com funcionários, edição de vídeos, aluguel de espaço e compra de equipamentos. “Não se trata de autopromoção, mas de divulgar aquilo que penso”, conclui nota enviada pelo policial militar reformado que está na 6ª posição no ranking (leia na íntegra).
Este espaço será atualizado em caso de manifestação dos demais.
Distintivo confiscado – e devolvido
Em julho de 2021, Da Cunha chegou a ter o distintivo e a arma confiscados após a abertura de uma sindicância contra ele por ter simulado operações policiais. Os objetos foram devolvidos em 2023, numa decisão do delegado-geral da Polícia Civil de SP, Artur José Dian. À época, a Secretaria de Segurança Pública de São Paulo (SSP-SP) informou que a competência sobre o processo era exclusiva da Polícia Civil e que não iria se manifestar sobre o tema.
O vídeo “Lincharam o ladrão em Osasco”, no canal de Da Cunha, foi publicado há dois meses e tem 51 mil visualizações
Os processos administrativos foram abertos após o deputado virar réu na Justiça por abuso de autoridade e constrangimento ilegal. Em julho de 2020, ele teria constrangido uma vítima de sequestro e o próprio sequestrador a simularem um resgate para que a cena pudesse ser gravada e repercutida nas redes sociais. Ele também é alvo da Justiça, após denúncia do Ministério Público, por violência doméstica contra a ex-companheira, em outubro de 2023. Ela acusou o parlamentar de ameaça de morte, lesão corporal, dano material e de bater sua cabeça contra a parede, além de tentar sufocá-la em um apartamento em Santos.
Em 3 de setembro deste ano, o processo por abuso de autoridade teve mais uma reviravolta: o anúncio da demissão de Da Cunha do cargo de delegado por parte do Governador de São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos), atendendo a uma recomendação feita pela Polícia Civil em 2022. No mesmo dia em que a demissão foi anunciada, no entanto, a Justiça de São Paulo concedeu uma liminar, a pedido do deputado, impedindo que a decisão fosse formalizada.
Monetizando a estética policial
Com 1,3 milhão de inscritos, o canal do Diretor Elias Junior teria arrecadado, em média, mais de R$ 40,8 mil na monetização dos vídeos só este ano. Na página inicial do perfil no YouTube, ele aparece com um colete à prova de balas marrom e uma roupa camuflada, nas características da farda do Exército brasileiro. Em alguns dos vídeos, ele usa boina e uniforme semelhantes aos usados pela PM de São Paulo.
Em vídeo postado neste ano, Elias Junior participa de operação policial usando o que aparenta ser uma boina da ROTA – mas ele não tem ligação formal com a instituição
Elias Junior vai às ocorrências dentro das viaturas, usa o discurso punitivista e expõe as abordagens policiais, ainda que nenhum crime tenha sido identificado. Entre outros formatos, os títulos sensacionalistas criticam o sistema legal brasileiro. Um deles foi intitulado “Mulher bandida teve o benefício da mãe cárcere”. No vídeo, publicado em 16 de junho de 2026, ele conversa com uma mulher que cumpria pena por tráfico de drogas em casa por conta de um benefício legal concedido a mães de crianças com menos de 12 anos.
Em outra publicação, em 23 de junho de 2026, o candidato acompanha o patrulhamento realizado por dois tenentes da Polícia Militar que decidem abordar dois homens que estariam andando com um “jeito malandro”, na Zona Leste de São Paulo. Os homens eram dependentes químicos e foram interrogados pelos militares sobre o consumo de drogas e crimes que teriam cometido; posteriormente, foram liberados. Mas o vídeo foi postado.
O diretor Elias Junior não respondeu aos questionamentos da Pública. A Polícia Militar não comentou o caso.
O tribunal midiático e o ‘policial herói’
Jurisprudências do Tribunal Superior do Trabalho (TST) reconhecem o vínculo de integrantes da segurança pública com a iniciativa privada, desde que compatíveis com os horários e não conflitantes com a função exercida. O famoso “bico” de segurança particular, por exemplo, é proibido.
Em relação à figura do “policial youtuber”, há regras institucionais que deveriam limitar a atuação dos servidores na internet. Em São Paulo, por exemplo, é vedado o uso de qualquer elemento que se remeta à corporação em perfis pessoais, com exceção de solenidades, formaturas e eventos excepcionais. O que acontece na prática, no entanto, é a teatralização da atividade do agente de segurança, com discursos violentos que tendem a construir a imagem de “policial herói”, assim como na maioria dos programas policiais — explicou o pesquisador Dannilo Duarte, autor do livro Jornalismo Policial na Televisão Brasileira: Gênero e Modo de Endereçamento.
O autor destaca que a internet amplificou a exploração audiovisual das operações, principalmente em ações envolvendo populações mais vulneráveis. “Há um posicionamento de quem é a vítima e de quem vai ser o bandido. Recorrentemente esse bandido vai ser preto ou pardo, vai estar em regiões periféricas. Se constrói uma ideia de que está sempre vinculado ao tráfico e que são pessoas com o estereótipo do malandro, do espertalhão, que não cumpre as leis”.
Além disso, esse tipo de abordagem, conforme o autor, alimenta a ideia de “justiceiro” que, em meio a estímulos à violência e descredibilização do sistema judiciário, faz “justiça com as próprias mãos”, a exemplo do assassinato de Claudio Rafael Landeiro, em 12 de agosto, em Copacabana, Zona Sul do Rio de Janeiro. A vítima tinha 37 anos e foi espancada até a morte por cinco homens após ser acusada injustamente de roubar uma bicicleta.
“É um comportamento de certa forma estimulado, o ‘bandido bom é bandido morto’. Mas você não verá isso acontecer num condomínio de classe média, mesmo que o infrator tenha cometido uma infração grave. Jovens brancos de classe média, média alta, não são espancados na praia ou nos becos. A integridade física não é respeitada. Há um lixamento virtual e físico”, pontuou Duarte.
O policial rodoviário federal, Breno Faria, também candidato, não explora a estética policial, mas tem canal em que ataca leis de combate à violência contra a mulher
Dos 15 perfis analisados, há uma exceção para a estética policial. Trata-se do policial rodoviário federal, Breno Faria, candidato a deputado federal pelo PL no Rio de Janeiro. Dono do canal Café com teu Pai, perfil também popularizado no Instagram, ele aproveita o espaço na internet para a defesa de ideias misóginas e ataques a leis de combate à violência contra a mulher. Em um dos vídeos, afirma: “as leis feministas não protegeram a mulher em nada” e defende o “aconselhamento familiar” como mais eficiente do que a atual legislação.
Numa outra publicação, Breno Faria faz comentários pejorativos sobre as roupas da deputada Erika Hilton (PSOL-SP). “Mulher trans negra ou patricinha de Beverly Hills?”, publicou em 15 de junho. Estima-se que Faria tenha monetizado em torno de R$ 3,8 mil só no YouTube desde janeiro, somando mais de 1,9 milhão de visualizações em 401 vídeos.
METODOLOGIA
A Agência Pública começou o levantamento considerando os 100 youtubers e perfis no YouTube que têm maior número de inscritos na plataforma. Em seguida, cruzamos com os que são candidatos neste ano, usando a base de dados do Tribunal Superior Eleitoral.
Para estimar os valores monetizados pelos candidatos, foi considerada a soma de visualizações dos vídeos publicados em cada um dos 15 canais do YouTube entre 1.º de janeiro e 25 de agosto deste ano, separadas entre shorts e vídeos longos. Com isso, foi aplicado um modelo de receita bruta de anúncios que combina um parâmetro oficial do YouTube – a partir da divisão de 55% da receita publicitária com o criador e as estimativas de CPM (custo por mil impressões) e de RPM (receita por mil visualizações).
Eduardo Prange, pesquisador e CEO da Zeeng, afirma que os valores calculados são uma estimativa “moderada”, já que foi feito também um cenário otimista e conservador para as possíveis arrecadações. Prange destaca que a única forma de ter dados precisos de monetização seria com acesso ao YouTube Analytics de cada canal – que só o titular possui.
Os valores publicados não consideram outras redes sociais e também possíveis patrocínios negociados diretamente com o titular do canal, como divulgação de cursos ou de produtos.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide a long-term loan of up to 102 billion tenge (US$224.2 million) to Alatau Zharyk Company (AZhC) to modernize its electricity distribution infrastructure and expand digitalization,writes Dana Omirgazy.
The financing will help AZhC, a regional electricity distribution company supplying around 4 million people and around 50,000 commercial consumers in Almaty and the region, procure automated metering and telemechanic equipment and upgrade its low- and medium-voltage electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure, the bank’s press service reported on Sept. 7. The project is part of Kazakhstan’s National Project for the Modernization of Energy and Utility Sectors (MEKS), a government-led program to modernize heat, electricity, water supply and sewerage networks and facilities.
The EBRD-supported investment will further digitize AZhC by installing smart meters at substations and piloting smart grid technologies. It will also strengthen the company’s cybersecurity and support related efforts at Samruk-Energy, AZhC’s parent company. The modernization is expected to generate annual electricity savings of approximately 22 gigawatt-hours (GWh) and reduce annual CO2 emissions by around 12,000 tons. It is also expected to support renewable energy growth in the Almaty Region.
As part of the five-year enhanced partnership framework between Kazakhstan and the EBRD, the project will also support Alatau city’s development by reconstructing the Zhetygen electricity substation and an associated 110-kilovolt (kV) transmission line. The EBRD has invested almost $13.6 billion in Kazakhstan through 358 projects, making the country the largest and longest-running recipient of EBRD investment in Central Asia.
Over recent decades, herrings in the Gulf of Bothnia have grown more slowly. Several factors could be behind these changes, but a clearer understanding of the actual causes is needed. Closing this knowledge gap is the aim of ImproFish.
Every year, scientists carry out research surveys in the Gulf of Bothnia to monitor the status of one of the most valuable fish species in the northern Baltic Sea: herring. Together with sprat, it forms the backbone of the region’s fishing industry, supports coastal communities and provides food for seals, seabirds and predatory fish higher up the food chain.
But despite this close monitoring, several knowledge gaps remain. Over recent decades, herrings in the Gulf of Bothnia have grown more slowly, reached maturity earlier and shown variations in weight and abundance. The research survey struggles with accurately understanding this fluctuation.
Several factors could be behind these changes, from modifications in the food web to the fishery itself. But without a clearer understanding of the actual causes of these changes, it becomes harder to manage the fishery in a way that the stock becomes and then remains healthy over the long term, and fisheries managers are left trying to steer a stock that keeps changing shape beneath them.
Closing this knowledge gap is the aim of ImproFish. Coordinated by theNatural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) together with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), and co-funded by the EU through the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF), the project runs from May 2024 to October 2026. Its goal is to provide a stronger scientific basis for assessing the herring stock in the Gulf of Bothnia, so that fisheries advice can finally catch up with what is actually happening in the sea.
As Laura Uusitalo, the project coordinator from Luke, explained:
“Healthy herring stocks are important for both marine ecosystems and coastal livelihoods. We believe that the new knowledge and methods developed in this project can improve the reliability of stock assessments and support better-informed quota setting for years to come.”
Three scientific advances for a healthier stock
Despite yearly combined acoustic and trawl survey, as well as extensive catch sampling, the assessment of the Gulf of Bothnia herring stock has remained uncertain for a long time. Stock Synthesis 3, a newer stock assessment model used since 2021, has improved stability, but significant gaps remain, especially regarding the abundance of young fish.
ImproFish addresses this through three recommendations:
improving the fishery-independent abundance indices by extending the acoustic survey closer to the coast and taking into account oceanographic conditions such as temperature and wind-driven water mixing
deepening the understanding of what drives the growth and size of fish, in order to sharpen the reference points used in fisheries management
identifying potential sub-populations, since early genetic findings point to a more complex population structure than previously assumed, with locally adapted groups
Together, these improvements would make the stock assessment more biologically realistic and better aligned with ecosystem-based management, while still remaining achievable with a moderate research investment.
EU funding bringing two countries’ science together
Through ImproFish, EU funding is allowing Finland and Sweden to combine their analyses on the acoustic survey, herring catch sampling and genetic analyses across the Gulf of Bothnia, instead of each country conducting research on the shared stock on its own.
For fishing that spans the water of both countries, this joint effort finally makes it possible to study the stock with a more comprehensive data coverage, and bring the assessment and advice closer to ecosystem-based management.
This also contributes to the priority of the European Ocean Pact of protecting and restoring ocean health, while supporting a fishing sector that stays sustainable and economically viable for the communities who depend on it.
A fishery worth understanding better
Reaching this point requires as much work on the water as in the laboratory: acoustic surveys, genetic analyses, catch data from commercial fleets and growth data collected on research vessels like R/V Aranda directly feed into the improvements that ImproFish develops.
Most of these benefits will take shape over the medium and long term, but their reach may extend even further: since herring share many traits with other fish, the methods developed here could help scientists elsewhere in Europe facing similar uncertainties, well beyond the Gulf of Bothnia itself.
A new study shows that in‑cash child benefits play a vital role in reducing child poverty in the EU. On average, these benefits lower the risk of poverty among children by 10.6 percentage points.
The impact of in‑cash child benefits varies across EU countries. Austria sees the strongest effect, with child poverty reduced by 16.6 percentage points. Spain shows the smallest reduction, at 4.6 percentage points. These differences suggest there is room for EU countries to learn from each other and achieve higher social standards.
Key findings
Child benefits can do more to reduce poverty: large differences between EU countries show room to make cash benefits more effective and help reach the 2030 poverty reduction target.
Better targeting and wider access could make a difference: in around one third of EU countries, disadvantaged families receive less financial support than better-off families.
Benefits in kind also support families: by making essential goods and services more affordable, they can reduce the financial pressure on families.
More children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) could support parents in work: increasing participation could raise maternal employment by up to 5 percentage points, making it easier to combine work and care.
Investing in children pays off in the long term: analysis shows benefits for education, employment and health. Overall, for every €1 invested in quality benefits in kind for children, the estimated return is €5.26.
Progress towards the 2030 child poverty target
The EU has committed to reducing the number of children in poverty by at least 5 million by 2030. Progress towards this target has stalled, so efforts need to be stepped up and policies improved.
The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen (pictured), says AI has the “potential to benefit humanity”.
Her comments came on Wednesday in her landmark “state of the union” address to MEPs.
A speech touched on numerous areas and they included AI which has rocketed up the political agenda in recent times.
In her address to Euro members at their monthly plenary in Strasbourg, she referred to AI as a “tipping point of our times.”
The commission president declared, “AI is fast becoming a foundational layer for our economy and security. Europe's stance is clear. We want to make the most of AI to improve our society, our quality of life and our productivity.
“I am an optimist that AI has the potential to benefit humanity – if we get it right. But, as with any powerful new technology, AI comes with a balance of possibilities and risks. Without addressing these risks, we will never be able to unlock AI's possibilities.”
The former German defence minister noted, “As the frontier models become more capable, these risks have come more sharply into focus.
“Models being developed will allow hacking on a level we never thought possible. And they will soon be in the hands of adversaries who see the world very differently from us.”
She told deputies, “At the same time, the dangers of self-improving models are becoming ever more apparent.
“Incidents of AI agents escaping their environment or inserting malicious code are a mere glimpse. After the HuggingFace incident, developers are ringing the alarm. And CEOs of the most advanced companies tell us that it is time to slow down on the self-recursive models. To pace the frontier.”
Von der Leyen added, “If the people developing the technology are clear, then we should be too. The AI Act is of course a crucial piece to putting guardrails in place.
"And it puts Europe in the position to shape global efforts on how to tackle this.”
In her comments on AI she said, “So, we will step up together with our like-minded partners like Canada, the United Kingdom and others. We want to team up on model evaluation, verification, early warning, AI security and much more.
“And I will invite the main frontier labs for a discussion on how we can support ongoing industry efforts to pace the frontier,” she said.
The circular economy is no longer an aspiration—it is becoming a necessity. As industries seek to reduce their environmental footprint while preserving valuable resources, extending the life of products through refurbishment has emerged as one of the most effective strategies available, writes Julien Morganti, General Manager of P.E.P. ecopassport®.
Across the electrical, electronic and HVAC sectors, demand for refurbished equipment is growing rapidly. Customers are increasingly looking for solutions that combine environmental responsibility with economic value, while manufacturers and service providers are investing in refurbishment capabilities to meet these expectations. Yet one major challenge has remained: how can we assess the environmental performance of refurbished products in a way that is both robust and transparent?
For new products, environmental declarations have become an established tool for measuring and communicating environmental performance. Refurbished products, however, have lacked a common methodology capable of reflecting their specific characteristics while ensuring consistency and credibility across the market.
This is precisely the challenge that P.E.P. ecopassport® has sought to address through the publication of a new methodological guide dedicated to refurbished equipment—the first initiative of its kind in France and, to our knowledge, across Europe for electrical, electronic and HVAC equipment.
Developing this methodology required answering a fundamental question: how should the environmental impacts and benefits associated with refurbishment be allocated? Inspection, repair, component replacement and testing all generate environmental impacts, yet refurbishment also avoids the production of an entirely new product and extends the useful life of existing equipment.
Finding the right balance was only possible through close collaboration between manufacturers, industry associations and technical experts. The resulting methodology recognises the environmental contribution of both the refurbished product and the original product designed with refurbishment in mind. Rather than focusing solely on carbon emissions, it evaluates the full range of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) indicators, including material and resource consumption, providing a far more comprehensive picture of environmental performance.
This broader perspective matters because the transition to a circular economy cannot be measured by greenhouse gas emissions alone. Conserving raw materials, reducing resource depletion and maximising product longevity are equally critical objectives if we are to build truly sustainable industrial systems.
Importantly, this guide is not intended to be the final word. It provides a shared foundation that the industry can build upon as experience grows. As more refurbished products are assessed, the methodology will continue to evolve and, ultimately, become integrated into the
programme's Product Category Rules (PCRs) and Product Specific Rules (PSRs), where applicable.
Standardised environmental assessment is about more than technical consistency. It creates confidence. Manufacturers gain a recognised framework for communicating the environmental value of refurbished products. Specifiers and purchasers receive comparable, reliable information to support procurement decisions. Ultimately, the entire market benefits from greater transparency.
The transition towards circularity requires more than innovation in products—it also requires innovation in the way environmental performance is measured. By establishing a common methodology for refurbished equipment, we hope to remove one of the barriers that has limited wider adoption and provide the market with the confidence needed to accelerate the circular economy.
Because if refurbishment is to become a mainstream component of sustainable industry, it must be supported by environmental assessment methods that are as rigorous, credible and forward-looking as the products themselves.
About the P.E.P Association
Founded in 2009, the P.E.P Association is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to help reduce the environmental impact of electrical, electronic, and digital products by facilitating the dissemination of reliable, transparent, and verified information across the entire value chain.
In compliance with ISO 14025, its mission is to define governance rules, develop, verify, and publish Product Environmental Profiles (PEP) or Environmental Product Declarations (EPD), while adhering to principles of transparency and ethics. It also aims to bring together industry stakeholders to promote these practices.
Recognized as a leading operator in the sector at the international level, the P.E.P Association contributes to national and European standardization and works toward harmonizing programs across countries.
On 18 August, Israel launched eight airstrikes against the Abu al-Duhur air base in northwestern Syria, located approximately 70 kilometres from the Turkish border. Israel also reportedly informed the United States that Turkey might be preparing to deploy radar systems and air defense equipment at the base, a move that could significantly alter the regional balance of power. Turkey is expected to respond to the Israeli strikes, raising the prospect of direct military confrontation between the two countries inside Syria,
As it stands, Turkey's growing tensions with Israel over issues including Gaza, Iran, and Lebanon are increasingly difficult to ignore. Turkey also possesses substantial military capabilities, which were originally intended in large part to strengthen NATO's ability to counter Russia but are now increasingly being used to pursue Ankara's own strategic interests, including those that are not aligned with the geopolitical preferences of the U.S. and Israel. Turkey is therefore demonstrating a degree of strategic autonomy that increasingly extends beyond the traditional constraints of the NATO framework. This development is a clear example of the broader process of regional polarization.
Regional polarization, in fact, creates the conditions for the emergence of regional hegemony. It reflects a tendency for countries within a particular region to gravitate toward a dominant power. That power, in turn, simultaneously expands its influence and seeks to establish a new regional order. Regional hegemony does not emerge out of nowhere. Instead, it develops gradually through a process of regional polarization.
Turkey is a prominent example of this process. Israel can also be viewed through the same lens, as can Saudi Arabia, which has been working steadily to strengthen its position and influence in the region. Beyond the Middle East, India and Japan are also moving in this direction. Iran, meanwhile, remains an important regional power despite currently being consumed by war.
Against this broader trend of regional polarization, China presents a particularly unique case. China's current strategic direction appears to differ substantially from the logic of regional polarization. Instead, Beijing continues to place considerable emphasis on building relationships among major powers at the global level. In this context, the idea of a G2 remains an attractive strategic concept for China, while U.S. President Donald Trump also appears to be seeking to leverage this possibility in developing a special relationship with China.
In Asia, India is already an unmistakable example of a country pursuing greater regional strategic autonomy. Japan is another crucial case. The election of Sanae Takaichi can be interpreted as an indication that Japan's own process of regional polarization is beginning to take shape. However, because of its security treaty with the U.S. and continuing domestic political opposition, Japan remains reluctant to openly acknowledge such a trajectory.
Nevertheless, Japan is likely to move progressively toward greater regional strategic autonomy. This would mean that Tokyo increasingly seeks to exercise influence in Asia regardless of whether Washington fully supports such a development. As a result, contradictions between Japan and the U.S. could become more pronounced across economic, financial, and political spheres. Japan's ability to say "no" to the U.S. may gradually become a practical reality.
Once Japan gains greater freedom to articulate and pursue an independent strategic position, it may also seek to improve relations with China. In this sense, Japan's increasing regional autonomy could ultimately prove beneficial to Japan-China bilateral relations over the longer term.
Perhaps the most important feature of regional polarization is that conflict among countries is inevitable. Such conflicts are not necessarily an anomaly. Rather, they are a natural expression of the polarization process. No country is willing to readily acknowledge another as the principal power or dominant pole within a region. Regional leadership therefore has to be established through competition, strategic maneuvering, and, at times, confrontation.
This dynamic applies to Japan, China, India, Turkey, and other emerging regional powers. As a result, international disputes are likely to become increasingly intense. The underlying reason is the growing competition for regional influence amid the erosion of the existing global order.
First, countries increasingly perceive an opportunity to become the dominant pole within their respective regions. Second, no major regional power is willing to accept another country's unquestioned leadership or submit to its influence. Confrontation, friction, and strategic rivalry therefore become increasingly difficult to avoid.
Ultimately, the countries that possess sufficient resources, strategic capabilities, and the ability to respond effectively to changing circumstances will have the greatest chance of emerging as regional hegemons. The struggle for regional dominance is therefore not merely a contest of military strength. This is also a test of economic resources, political resilience, strategic judgment, and the ability to shape a new regional order.
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