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The Cheap Radio Hack That Disrupted Poland’s Railway System  (Andy Greenberg, Wired)
Since war first broke out between Ukraine and Russia in 2014, Russian hackers have used some of the most sophisticated hacking techniques ever seen in the wild to destroy Ukrainian networks, disrupt the country’s satellite communications, and even trigger blackouts for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens. But the mysterious saboteurs who have, over the past two days, disrupted Poland’s railway system—a major piece of transit infrastructure for NATO in its support of Ukraine—appear to have used a far less impressive form of technical mischief: Spoof a simple radio command to the trains that triggers their emergency stop function.
On Friday and Saturday, August 25 and 26, more than 20 of Poland’s trains carrying both freight and passengers were brought to a halt across the country through what Polish media and the BBC have described as a “cyberattack.” Polish intelligence services are investigating the sabotage incidents, which appear to have been carried out in support of Russia. The saboteurs reportedly interspersed the commands they used to stop the trains with the Russian national anthem and parts of a speech by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Poland’s railway system has served as a key resource in the facilitating of Western weapons and other aid into Ukraine as NATO attempts to bolster the country’s defense against Russia’s invasion. “We know that for some months there have been attempts to destabilize the Polish state,” Stanislaw Zaryn, a senior security official, told the Polish Press Agency. “For the moment, we are ruling nothing out.”

Poland Investigates Train Mishaps for Possible Russian Connection  (Loveday Morris, Washington Post)
Polish authorities are investigating a series of sabotage attacks that brought dozens of trains to a standstill over the weekend amid heightened concerns about Russian attempts to disrupt the country.
The trains were affected by several incidents between Friday night and Sunday involving the unauthorized use of an emergency stop signal, according to Polish rail authorities.
Saboteurs exploited the vulnerability in the Polish “radio stop” command system, which automatically brings trains to a stop when three tonal signals are broadcast through the railway’s radio network.
Poland has already ramped up security on its railway lines after foiling a plot by Russian intelligence to monitor railway networks and derail a train carrying weapons for Ukraine. Around 80 percent of Western arms deliveries to Kyiv pass through Poland, making it the most crucial transit hub for logistical support.

The Future of Dollar Hegemony  (Upamanyu Lahiri, CFR)
The United States has benefited from the dollar’s dominance of global markets for decades. Washington should be wary of squandering those benefits through political infighting and reckless policymaking.

Demography Is Destiny in Africa  (Ashley Ahn, Foreign Policy)
The world’s population of about 8 billion is expected to reach 10.4 billion by 2100, a growth largely driven by a phenomenon called “population momentum.” Population momentum occurs when a large generation of young people in their reproductive years leads to the number of births exceeding the number of deaths.
Given that momentum, there is very little that policies or family planning can do to curb population growth for the next several decades, said John Bongaarts, a distinguished scholar at the Population Council, a nonprofit that conducts demographic research on underserved populations.
That would be good news for affluent countries that are grappling with record-low fertility rates, aging populations, and shrinking workforces.But instead, half of the global population growth from 2022 to 2050 will occur in sub-Saharan Africa. The region’s population is currently growing three times faster than the rest of the world, and by the end of the century, it will be home to a third of all people in the world, compared to only 14 percent in 2019. This means that the burden of rapid population growth will fall on some of the poorest countries in the world, with nearly half of the region having a gross national income per capita below $1,135, and in places that are among the most vulnerable to climate change. 
Fertility rates are declining in sub-Saharan Africa, but not enough to avoid concerns over food security, adequate infrastructure, and employment for the influx of young people. Sub-Saharan Africa has a fertility rate of 4.45, and Niger, Chad, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo lead the region with rates exceeding 6.0. By comparison, the United States and Western Europe have rates around 1.6. Experts say that part of the explanation can be found in a mindset ingrained from times of turmoil and war in African history: strength in numbers. 

BRICS Expansion Is No Triumph for China  (C. Raja Mohan, Foreign Policy)
There is no doubt that the sudden clamor for BRICS membership from so many significant countries has colored the analysis. But expanding the list of members does not turn BRICS into a potent bloc. If anything, the expansion only undermines what little cohesion the group had before the expansion.
The growing geopolitical confrontation between China and India already casts a shadow over BRICS and any attempt at creating a cohesive agenda. With new members come new conflicts: Egypt and Ethiopia are fiercely at loggerheads over Nile waters, while Iran and Saudi Arabia are regional foes—notwithstanding their Beijing-brokered attempt to make peace. These and other fault lines will make it much harder to turn the combined economic weight of the BRICS states into an influential political force in global affairs.
Those who think of BRICS as a new Non-Aligned Movement are unintentionally right on one aspect: BRICS will be just as ineffective as the original in turning soaring rhetoric on global issues into concrete, practical outcomes. In pushing for BRICS enlargement, China merely bought itself a bigger talk shop. If Beijing wants to build a bigger anti-Western tent, it can’t do it when the BRICS tent already has so many friends of the United States inside it.