IRAN - Donald Trump has ordered a fresh wave of ballistic missile strikes against Iran after US embassies across the Middle East issued new security warnings to Americans in the region. Around a dozen strikes targeted Iranian radar systems and military assets along a 300-mile stretch of the coast of the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. Iranian state media reported strikes on the country's oil-rich Qeshm Island. Explosions were also reported in the southern port cities of Bandar Abbas and Chabahar. Iran retaliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claiming that it had launched a ballistic missile strike on Camp Titin, a US Marine base in Jordan. There was no immediate confirmation from the Pentagon. There are no talks going on now. Trump has said none are planned as he refuses to extend the ceasefire.

USA - At the end of last week, the Trump administration's halt to tungsten scrap exports took effect, as the US and its allies confront a deepening supply crisis and race to find new supplies. To understand the global tungsten crisis, readers must first remember the metal's critical importance to the modern economy. Tungsten is essential to defense systems, industrial tooling, semiconductors, automobiles, energy infrastructure, electronics, artificial intelligence, and the power-grid buildout. Put simply, it is one of the building blocks of the industrial economy, yet its supply chain remains fractured and heavily exposed to China.

GERMANY - Germany's far-right AfD has promised an "economic boom" if it wins Sunday's regional elections and ends up ruling the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, but economists warn their policies would spell disaster. The Alternative for Germany wants to make the ex-communist region a test case for its key ideas -- including deporting irregular migrants and reversing a rapid buildup of renewable energy. Economists warn that deterring foreign workers through xenophobic rhetoric would only accelerate a skilled labour shortage in the state whose population is already greying and shrinking. Ahead of Sunday's vote, the AfD has polled at over 40 percent, harnessing widespread discontent and anger at Berlin - enough to easily win, and to possibly allow it to rule alone.

GERMANY - It turns out we have learnt surprisingly little from the mistakes of the first half of the 20th century. The great politicians of the federal republic are gone. That generation, born during or just before the war, has now disappeared from politics. At the start of September, the political landscape in Germany is facing the greatest upheaval since 1946. Society is divided, and both sides have decided to escalate the confrontation rather than reach out to one another. What lies ahead? State elections in Berlin and the relatively sparsely populated Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania could lead to the collapse of the country’s already unstable party landscape. A good 10 years after its founding, the Right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is by far the strongest party at federal level, lying well ahead of the CDU/Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). And now everything is heading for a major crash. And when Germany wobbles, Europe wobbles.

USA - When the owner of a three-bedroom townhouse in Orlando’s 300-acre Margaritaville resort, a master-planned estate near the Walt Disney World Resort, sold the property earlier this year, he was in for a nasty shock. He had purchased the newly built home for $710,000 (£525,000) in 2022 as a short-term buy-to-let investment, seeking to cash in on booming demand from both holidaymakers and families relocating to Florida in the wake of the pandemic. Since then, the market has undergone a sea change. When the investor sold up this year, he received just $340,000 – less than half what he paid four years ago. “That was six months ago,” he says. “Now, I’m negotiating on a property with the same kind of floor plan, and we’re talking a price of around $300,000.”

NEPAL - The full horror of the catastrophe that unfolded in Nepal and Tibet last week is still becoming clear. On August 26, a glacial collapse triggered a series of flash floods and landslides along the Nepal-Tibet border. Shocking footage of the disaster reverberated around the world, showing people fleeing for their lives as millions of tons of earth, rock and water obliterated entire villages. So far, at least 1,003 people have been confirmed dead on the Nepali side, with 3,916 confirmed missing. In Chinese-controlled Tibet, another 16 have been confirmed dead and 546 missing. The death toll is expected to rise in the coming days and weeks. But while rescuers continue to pick through the devastation, with fading hope of good news, an ideological battle has begun over what, exactly, caused the disaster: the extent to which climate change was directly responsible for the collapse or merely an exacerbating factor, and even the possible influence of Himalayan infrastructure projects hundreds of miles away.

CHINA - Beijing, which has sought to build influence in the strategically important region, warns of ‘consequences’ after Taipei was invited to a forum in Palau. China has threatened the tiny islands of the South Pacific with unspecified “consequences” after the government of Taiwan was invited to take part in a gathering of Pacific leaders, highlighting the struggle for diplomatic dominance in a remote but increasingly strategic area of the world. “Taiwan is not a dialogue partner for the forum, so we have serious concern,” said Qian Bo, Beijing’s representative at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), which is being held in the nation of Palau. “We have made our concerns clear to the government of Palau and to the secretariat. This is objected by all. It should not have happened… we think it’s very inappropriate.” China insists that it is the rightful ruler of Taiwan, a democratic island that has governed itself since 1949, and insists that the two must be “reunified”, by force if necessary. Palau is one of only 12 countries that recognise Taiwan diplomatically, and China uses financial support and pressure to keep it isolated.

KYRGYZSTAN - A squirming Vladimir Putin has been told by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to halt his war in Ukraine for the sake of humanity during a meeting in Kyrgyzstan. The two world leaders met on the sidelines of the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, which seeks to be a counterbalance to the West. The regional SCO bloc – which brings together Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, four central Asian countries and Belarus – is celebrating its 25-year anniversary. 'We need to move from an endless war to the end of the war,' Modi told the Russian president, who was awkwardly looking down and away from the leader's gaze, during the broadcast on Monday. A stern-faced Putin then slapped down his earpiece – used to hear the translation – and said through gritted teeth: 'Thank you very much, Mr Prime Minister. We are moving in that direction.' On the ground in Ukraine, there is little sign Putin is edging towards peace. The Russian leader appears to be stepping up the war, launching repeated strikes across the country, including attacks on food warehouses which are now being blamed for shortages.

EUROPE - The price of wheat has soared to a three-year high as fears grow that Russia will escalate its attacks against Ukraine, threatening exports from the breadbasket of Europe. Wheat futures rose to as much as $7.35 a bushel on Thursday, the highest level since July 2023, adding to concerns of further food inflation. Russia has mounted attacks on crucial facilities across Ukraine in recent months. In July alone, it launched 35 attacks against ships in port, 22 against ships at sea, and 67 against port infrastructure. The sustained attacks and damage to ports are affecting shipments from Ukraine. Wheat shipments from Russia are also forecast to fall by more than 50 percent in August, compared with the same month a year earlier. Russia, the world’s biggest wheat exporter, shipped 1.5 million tonnes of wheat in July, down from a five-year average of 3.1 million.

UKRAINE - Ukraine is “gradually, slowly losing” the war. Those are not the words of a Kremlin propagandist but Ukraine’s own Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s recently dismissed defence minister, speaking to Reuters last week. In the days after he made that grim prediction, Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine to near-apocalyptic levels. In a fiendishly effective move, the Kremlin switched from mass drone and missile strikes to continuous, 60-hour-long waves of bombardments which saw nineteen air-raids on Kyiv in a single day, exhausting defenders and dwindling stocks of air-defence missiles alike. Meanwhile, Ukrainian claims that they are turning the tide of the war in their favour with deep strikes on refineries and logistics warehouses deep inside Russia are being hollowed out by Russia’s massively larger campaigns of retaliation and revenge.