USA - We are facing a global energy crisis, a global debt crisis and a global inflation crisis all at the same time. In all my years, I have never seen anything like this. Two of China’s largest shipping companies just decided to stop sending their oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Meanwhile, diesel prices are heading into the stratosphere with no end in sight. Supplies of diesel fuel are going to get so tight during the months ahead. At the same time, bond yields are surging as the global debt crisis escalates. The US national debt is about to hit 40 trillion dollars and the debt to GDP ratio in Japan is nearing 250 percent. We are caught in a global debt spiral that is out of control, and inflation has become a major issue all over the planet. Anyone that thinks that there is an easy answer to all of these problems is just being delusional.

USA - Usually when numbers shoot higher on Wall Street, it is a reason for celebration. That is not how Jonas Goltermann, the chief markets economist at Capital Economics, feels when he looks at one of the most feared charts on the stock market: the Shiller price-to-earnings (PE) ratio. “That’s obviously a bit worrying,” he says after seeing the metric on track to end the month at its highest level since August 2000.

UKRAINE - Ukrainian drones knocked out three of Russia’s largest grain terminals last week. One of them, Novorossiysk, handled up to a third of Russia’s grain exports, or at least it did until missiles and drones put some five million tonnes off the global market, a third of the port’s yearly output. The Kremlin claims that Kyiv is trying to provoke chaos. Extraordinary. From the nation that invaded Ukraine and continues to murder their farmers and sailors, it’s a bit rich to blame others for the consequences.

USA - The short-range ballistic missiles scream through the atmosphere at a mile a second, bearing their explosive payloads towards Kyiv or Gulf states. As a missile streaks towards impact, air defences have just minutes to spot it, track it and destroy it with an interceptor, akin to hitting a bullet with a bullet. It is a technical challenge that means ballistic missile defences are precious high-end military kit with a hefty price tag. The US has for decades led the way in developing these defences and selling them to allies.

USA - Donald Trump threatened to bomb Oman if it “gets in the way” of US negotiations with Iran. The president said he would “bomb the s--- out of” the US ally after Iran said it was working to finalise an agreement with the Gulf country to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. As he spoke on Monday, the 60-day deadline for Washington and Tehran to negotiate a broader peace deal was due to expire, with no signs of a diplomatic breakthrough. There has been no word of an extension from either side, and their positions over the strait and the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme remain far apart. On Monday, Iran said it had agreed on a plan with Oman to manage the transit of ships through the critical waterway that runs between the countries. Reopening the waterway has been a sticking point in peace talks to end the conflict in the Middle East, with strikes and blockades halting traffic and hampering global oil markets.

IRAN - Iran pushed to continue the war with the United States in order to force a ceasefire on its own terms, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said during a conference with Iranian educators on Tuesday. "We were the ones who refused the ceasefire and continued the war until we reached a point where they [the US] agreed to a ceasefire and negotiations on Iran's terms," Araghchi said. "We fought with strength and negotiated with strength, and we won the war, and we won the diplomacy." According to Araghchi, "The Iranian people stood against what was supposedly the largest military in the world, which was supported and assisted by most Western countries and by several other countries in the region and beyond." Regarding US munitions used against Iran, Trump said that what has been used so far against Iran "is peanuts."

EUROPE - The fires in France and Spain have had devastating impacts. More than 220,000 people fled the flames west of Bordeaux. Outside Madrid, fires scorched an area twice the size of the capital and drove nearly 90,000 people from their homes. Those who lost homes and livelihoods deserve sympathy – and far better fire policy. What they do not need is the climate sermon that now follows every plume of smoke. Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez called the fires a “painful expression” of climate change. The UK and Spanish governments rushed out a joint statement declaring that “climate change was now a national security emergency” threatening our way of life. The verdict was in even while houses burned: only ending the use of fossil fuels can put out the flames.

MIDDLE EAST - When it comes to the Middle East, Tony Blair is not known for his wisdom. His invasion of Iraq left the region in chaos, leading to mass jihadist mobilisation and the strengthening of Iran, while as the Quartet’s Middle East representative, he singularly failed to ease the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. What better man, therefore, to meet Hamas in Cairo, alongside Jared Kushner, to press the jihadis to fulfil their commitment to disarm on Sunday? Blair’s problem has always been the same, and it has been shared by the entire Western political establishment since the end of the Cold War. Namely: gullibility. The thread running through decades of Western failure to encourage peace and prosperity in the Middle East is our damnable assumption that deep down, the Islamists are just like us. Lord Renwick famously labelled this the “Wykehamist fallacy”, the tendency to assume that even the most bloodthirsty despot had an inner civilised chap of the sort one might find at Winchester College.

UK - It gives me no pleasure to write this, but we need to be realistic about the economic danger we face. UK inflation was 2.6 percent in June and the July figure will be published on Wednesday. The consensus is that inflation will likely increase, with the consumer price index (CPI) expected to be up 2.8 percent or 2.9 percent during the year to last month.

ISRAEL - Jerusalem seems to be the only country judged solely by the behaviour of its worst elements. Don’t take my word for it; consider a remark by Abdul Azim Wadi, the mayor of Qusra, a Palestinian village between Ramallah and Nablus, where Jewish “terrorists”, as American ambassador Mike Huckabee has called them, have been laying siege to an Arab family for days. Speaking to the Telegraph last week as troops struggled to tame the fanatics, Mayor Wadi said: “There are good soldiers sometimes, and there are bad ones.” There you have it. To you or me, this might seem obvious; to those in the West who have appropriated Palestine as a personal totem, however, there can be no such thing as a “good” Israeli soldier on the grounds of ideology.

UK - It is a strange perversion of compassion to tell a young man with anxiety that he is beyond work. Work – structure, purpose, the company of others – is precisely what recovery from anxiety requires. Yet, in Labour’s first year in office, almost 250 people received benefits for anxiety or mood disorders every single day. Some 6.9 million people are now entitled to receive disability benefits – 2.5 million more than 20 years ago. More than 20,000 join the Personal Independence Payment caseload each month, and two-thirds of those who began claiming in 2017 were still claiming five years later.

UK - For Gen Z, the future has looked bleak for a while. Many struggle to secure a house, a job or a life partner. Is it any wonder that they’re turning to magic? Julie Aspinall has been selling magical products and services for the best part of a decade, but has seen business boom in recent years. The self-described witch helps clients find love, land a job, or get rich – all for £150 a spell. “I saw a massive surge in spirituality after Covid,” she says. “Younger people got involved. They stopped what they were doing and reflected, getting off the hamster wheel of life." Aspinall believes the curiosity young people are showing for the supernatural is down to something deeper than a social media fad. “When I grew up, everyone had a religion. Over the years, religion has faded and more people are looking for meaning in life,” she says. “In the future, spirituality will get even bigger,” she says. “Everyone’s looking for something deeper.”

USA - Outrage has exploded as public school students in Texas were loaded onto yellow school buses and driven straight to an Islamic center so they could experience Islam 'up close'. The organizers could barely contain their excitement. In their own promotional video, they celebrated how the kids showed up and potentially left transformed. Over 30 high school students from Humble ISD's Kingwood High School and Atascocita High School were taken on a school-day field trip to the Centro Islamico, operated by IslamInSpanish in the Houston area. The visit included a tour, lunch from halal food trucks, observation of midday prayer, and a presentation. Students were even provided scarves. A CAIR Houston representative spoke to them about their "rights as Muslim students and allies." Governor Greg Abbott has made clear that Sharia law, Sharia cities, and no-go zones have no place in Texas.

EUROPE - With record setting heatwaves scorching Europe, water levels in the continent’s major rivers are reaching all-time lows. While receding water levels are a huge boon for European archeologists as ancient ruins surface for the first time in centuries, the situation is causing massive headaches for nuclear engineers, who have had to scramble to power down nuclear energy facilities across the continent. As German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reported, facilities like the two gigawatt Paks nuclear plant in Hungary have come close to powering down completely, as a critical lack of water flowing from the Danube threatened the facility’s ability to cool its reactors. That’s a major crisis, because in any given year, the Paks plant generates nearly half of the country’s total electricity supply. Meanwhile in France, a combination of extreme drought and a recurring jellyfish invasion have reduced the nation’s nuclear energy production by 20 percent, though a more diversified energy grid means the situation isn’t quite as hairy as those in Hungary or Romania. With yet another heat wave already on the horizon, Europe’s nuclear energy woes may really just be the tip of the iceberg.

MIDDLE EAST - Anti-Israel statements of the emergent alliance between Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan are not just rhetoric. Rather, they form an integral element in its strategy. The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement, signed on August 7 by Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan, represents the first formalization of the slow emergence of a conservative Sunni Islamic bloc intended to provide a strategic counterweight against both Israel and Iran. In recent months, many Middle East analysts have taken note of this nascent development. The implications of the emergence of this bloc are already more than symbolic. It has its foundations in existing and growing bilateral ties between these countries in the fields of trade and economic relations and military cooperation, and is not only a matter of declarations. Jerusalem, and Islamic claims there, are likely to form the symbolic element that knits the emergent group together.