YEMEN - Yemen’s Houthi rebel group targeted tankers in the Red Sea on Wednesday, threatening to escalate the Iran war to a regional conflict. Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen have also imposed a naval blockade on the Bab ​el-Mandeb strait, the gateway between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden near Saudi Arabia’s western coastline. By stopping Saudi oil exports to Asia, the blockade could reduce global oil supply by 7%, Reuters notes. Meanwhile, US forces are executing a twelfth consecutive night of attacks against Iranian military capabilities.

USA - Donald Trump has agreed to a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that could allow the kingdom to enrich its own uranium. The 30-year agreement, expected to be announced on Wednesday, may pave the way for the kingdom to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian programme, Israeli officials fear. But this deal is not Saudi Arabia’s first relating to nuclear power. After Israel carried out a deadly strike against a group of Hamas officials during a meeting in Qatar in September 2025, Riyadh signed a mutual defence pact with nuclear-armed Pakistan. The country’s defence minister said the nuclear programme “will be made available” to Saudi Arabia if necessary, a move seen as a warning to Israel, the only nation in the Middle East that is suspected to possess nuclear weapons.

IRAN - Iranian Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni made a trip to Pakistan on Tuesday with a “high-level delegation” to meet with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his defense chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir. The Pakistanis are apparently hoping to restart talks between the US and Iran as hostilities continued for the tenth straight day. Pakistan has intensified its efforts to get Iran and the US back to the negotiating table, and may well have been the unnamed “mediator” who reportedly suggested a ten-day ceasefire to Iran on Monday. Field Marshal Munir has been leading Pakistan’s diplomatic efforts, as he enjoys a good public relationship with President Donald Trump. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the Iranians “want to desperately meet because they’re getting decimated.” “They want to desperately meet, and until they’re ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest,” he said.

TURKEY - The Turkey that once welcomed Israeli tourists with warmth and hospitality has been fundamentally transformed. Under Erdoğan’s leadership, successive governments have strengthened the country’s Sunni Islamic identity while steadily eroding Atatürk’s secular legacy. As a NATO member and an important economic partner, Turkey remained a country with which Israel believed it had strong incentives to preserve relations. That reality has changed dramatically. Especially since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas War, Turkey has evolved from a difficult partner into a regional actor seeking to position itself as a leading force in the anti-Israel camp.

SAUDI ARABIA - The Houthis fired missiles at Saudi ​Arabia last week after accusing the kingdom of bombing an airport under their control, breaking a four-year truce between ‌the kingdom and the Houthis. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen threatened on Monday to respond with "force" after Houthi military spokesperson Brigadier-General Yahya Saree declared an immediate naval blockade on the kingdom in a televised speech. The Iran-backed terror group announced "a maritime embargo against the criminal Saudi enemy, based on the equation of 'an eye for an eye' effective immediately upon the issuance of this statement." Yemen has been mired in civil war for more than a decade since the Houthis seized the capital, Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military intervention in 2015 in support of the internationally recognized government.

UK - Industry says government’s failure to address cooling demands means AI growth plans are ‘fatally flawed’. The UK will not have enough water for future datacentres, the water industry has said in stark criticism of the government’s AI growth plans. Datacentres rely on large amounts of water to manage the heat generated by densely packed servers. Water UK, the trade body that represents water companies in Britain and Northern Ireland, said in a publicly available written briefing to MPs that the government’s water forecasts were “fatally flawed” and “explicitly exclude” datacentres. “There appears to be an assumption that the country will always have enough water for its economic needs,” the briefing said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

USA - A billion-dollar milk company has been forced to halt production following a devastating cyberattack. Fairlife, owned by Coca-Cola, announced on July 16 that it had detected 'unauthorized access by a third party' to parts of its computer systems, including those that support production operations. The company said the breach was linked to a ransomware attack, prompting it to take portions of its network offline and temporarily suspend production at all US facilities while it investigates and restores its systems. The disruption has raised concerns about potential supply issues, as Fairlife products are found in approximately one in four US households, making the brand a staple for millions of American consumers.

UKRAINE - The evolution of autonomous warfare will center on teams of FPV drones, unmanned aircraft, and ground robots operating across a single network. Our view is that the battlefield of the 2030s has already been pulled forward by conflicts across Eurasia, from the Russia-Ukraine war to the US-Iran conflict. It was only a matter of time before Ukrainian forces paired heavy UAVs with unmanned ground vehicles to conduct offensive missions deep inside no-man's-land, where the majority of deaths are caused by kamikaze drones. Swamping human soldiers with robotics has been the evolution of warfare. With FPVs now responsible for the majority of battlefield casualties, combining aerial and ground robotic systems will become the new normal. The combination of aerial drones and ground robots working together was inevitable.

IRAN - US President Donald Trump has threatened to attack a site linked to Iran's nuclear program known as Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified facility buried deep underground near one of Tehran's main nuclear sites. "We're going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready," Trump said in a July 13 interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show. The threat reflects escalating tensions as Tehran and Washington trade fire in the Gulf, setting back efforts to end the conflict. The site is linked to Iran's nuclear program, which has long caused tension between the West and Iran, which denies seeking an atomic bomb. Construction of the facility at Pickaxe Mountain began in 2020, according to ISIS, following what Iranian authorities reported at the time as an explosion caused by an act of sabotage at the Natanz facility. Experts assess the deeply buried complex is beyond the reach of the most powerful bunker buster bombs in the US arsenal.

USA - The US does not have enough missiles to return to an all-out war with Iran, an American official has warned. Donald Trump is reportedly looking at planning for a “wider war” against Tehran with the American military sending more warplanes to the Middle East. However, a US official familiar with administration discussions said the operation would be limited by dwindling stockpiles of air defence and long-range munitions. “We do not have enough to safely sustain operations, and I don’t think the White House is aware of that,” the official told The Washington Post. The warning comes as the US launched a ninth consecutive night of attacks on the country, edging closer to all-out conflict in the region.

IRAN - Iran’s regime is rapidly increasing its attacks on the Kingdom of Jordan. On Sunday, the Iranians targeted the southern Jordanian city of Aqaba. Iran also killed US soldiers in Jordan. These attacks appear to be more deadly and more extreme than Iran’s attacks in the past. It is not that this is the first time that Iran has attacked Jordan, but that Iran appears to be trying to terrorize the kingdom as well as the US forces that are there. This is how the Iranian regime operates; it is how Iran seeks to terrorize the Middle East. Iran is sending a message: every time it is attacked, it will not only strike back at one or two places, but the United States and friendly partner countries in the region will have to prepare for attacks across these thousands of miles of front line. It is likely this reasoning that informs the Iranian leadership’s thinking regarding the strikes on the Kingdom of Jordan.

USA - President Trump’s administration has warned Andy Burnham that Britain must move beyond “rhetoric” and make “sustained investment” in defence rather than focusing on “other spending priorities”. Writing in The Times, Warren Stephens, the US ambassador to the UK, said the government must not be “held up” by “backloading” additional investment in defence for a later date. The US has been pressing Britain and other NATO allies to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP. However, the government has committed itself only to a £15 billion increase, which will mean it hits 2.7 per cent of GDP by 2030.

IRAN - The selection of targets by the US signals a transition from a conventional military campaign to a broader strategic effort aimed at disrupting Iran’s ability to function. The objective is no longer limited to degrading Iran’s military capabilities; it now appears increasingly focused on eroding the regime’s capacity to govern, sustain logistics, and finance its war effort. The selection of targets – including bridges, ports, electrical infrastructure, and transportation networks – signals a transition from a conventional military campaign to a broader strategic effort aimed at disrupting the state’s ability to function. From an intelligence perspective, the evolving target set indicates that Washington has redefined the regime’s center of gravity. Missile bases and IRGC command facilities remain important, but they are no longer the sole priority. Oil export infrastructure, transportation corridors, southern ports, and the national energy network have become critical components of the campaign.

GERMANY - Berlin police told Dr Zitelmann he had been accused of violating a post-Second World War law that bans the display of Nazi symbols, slogans and imagery – and could now face three years in prison if found guilty. The 69-year-old found out the offending social media post was a meme about Adolf Hitler. But it was one in which he criticised the Nazi dictator and compared his invasion of Czechoslovakia to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. “It was crystal clear the post was negative... I was saying that Putin is so bad he is like Hitler,” he explains from his study in Berlin, surrounded by hundreds of books about the rise of fascism, including his own doctoral thesis. “The comparison only works if you think Hitler was evil.” He lets out an ironic chuckle at the absurdity of it all: after decades of excoriating the Nazis in his books, a mere click of a mouse led to accusations of him being one. The furore bears some similarities to the free speech debate in Britain, where citizens have had a knock on the door from police over opinions posted online. Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Right-wing populist party topping the polls, has seized on the free speech row as a sign, in its eyes, that the country faces its biggest crackdown on free speech since the rise of the Nazis.

FRANCE - France is facing a shortage of onions and other vegetables after heatwaves decimated crops across the country. Shoppers have been warned to expect a drop in the amount of fresh produce in the coming weeks, after a “catastrophic year”. Some of the hardest-hit crops include onions, shallots, carrots, leeks, fennel, radishes, garlic, blueberries and strawberries, according to Vegetables of France, a trade group that represents producers across the country. Heatwave temperatures combined with hot, dry winds suck moisture out of crops faster than roots can draw it from the soil, causing them to die. Cyril Pogu, the co-chairman of Vegetables of France, said: “When a field goes up in smoke in three hours, it’s the work of an entire growing season that vanishes, and the farm’s long-term viability is immediately called into question.” “Short-term ‘shortages’ are expected in stores, as imports are not able to make up for the shortfalls,” the group said. “A new business paradigm is taking shape: that of scarcity.”