⚡️🇺🇸🇿🇦 — Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a new visa restriction policy under Section 212(a)(3)(C) of the Immigration and Nationality Act targeting foreign nationals responsible for or complicit in the enactment or implementation of laws or policies that enable uncompensated land seizures, race-based discrimination, and/or the incitement of imminent violence against members of minority ethnic or racial groups in South Africa.

➡️ He said the United States remains gravely concerned about racially motivated crime and government-sponsored discrimination against Afrikaners and other minority populations, including race-based discriminatory legislation, threats of land expropriation without compensation, and incitement of racial violence through dehumanizing chants and slogans, as stated in President Trump’s Executive Order 14204.

➡️ Rubio said the South African government has not adequately addressed these previously laid out concerns. He stated that the United States will not allow such behavior to go unchecked, adding that these actions directly undermine peace, economic stability, and the rule of law and are incompatible with the pillars of America’s foreign policy. He once again strongly urged the South African government to quickly address these actions.

⚡️🇺🇸🇷🇺🇮🇷 — The House passed H.Res. 1530 by 214-211 a procedural rule clearing the way for the House to take up the Senate-passed Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 (Senate amendments to H.R. 5334). The vote did not enact sanctions.

Two Democrats, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (WA) and Jared Golden (ME), voted with Republicans; without them the rule would have failed, marking the second time this month they broke with their party on a rules vote. The Senate approved the Graham bill 86-11 in August.

➡️ The House text under consideration would impose mandatory sanctions on Russian officials, oligarchs, banks, state energy projects, and the shadow fleet; raise tariffs on goods from Russia by up to 500%; raise tariffs by up to 100% on goods from the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas and from leading facilitators of sanctions evasion; extend the Iran Sanctions Act through 2031; and allow the president to waive sanctions or tariffs after certifying to Congress that the waiver is in the U.S. national interest. Gluesenkamp Perez said the vote moved the House closer to cutting off Russian oil revenue, while Golden’s office said he did not want a Senate-passed Ukraine sanctions bill to die on a procedural vote.

➡️ The same rule also makes in order two fraud bills and two resolutions disapproving EPA vessel-emissions rules for California, secondary to the sanctions package. A final House vote on the Senate text is expected September 16; if the House concurs without changes, the bill goes to the president. The House then recesses after Thursday and returns November 9.

⚡️🇺🇸🇩🇪 — The U.S. military hosted senior military representatives from eight nations at a conference in Germany last week, where participants discussed ways to strengthen security cooperation in the Middle East, a U.S. government official said Tuesday. Further details, including the scope and location of the meeting, were initially unclear — Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

➡️ Axios had earlier reported, citing Israeli sources, that senior military commanders from the United States, Israel and several Arab countries met in Germany to discuss the Iran war and ongoing regional tensions. CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper, who reportedly invited the participants, is said to have insisted that the U.S. military would not withdraw its troops from the Middle East despite Iranian attacks on U.S. bases. Alongside Cooper, the chiefs of staff of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt took part.

⚡️⚛️🇰🇵 — The IAEA said in an August 28 report that North Korea has built a new uranium enrichment facility at its main Yongbyon nuclear complex, identifying a new two-storey building as the site’s second such facility by comparing state media photographs of a June visit by Kim Jong Un with satellite images taken during construction, with gas centrifuge cascades installed on both floors and capacity for up to 28 cascades.

The agency, which has had no inspectors in North Korea since 2009 and relied on satellite imagery and open-source material including North Korean state media photographs, also said there were indications that operations began in January at a uranium enrichment facility in Kangson, near Pyongyang, within an annex constructed in 2024, and that the developments violated UN Security Council resolutions.

➡️ IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said in a statement to the Board of Governors in Vienna:

“The ongoing operation of enrichment facilities at Kangson and Yongbyon and the reported further expansion of the DPRK’s production of weapons-grade nuclear material is a cause for serious concern.”