UK - Millions of Britons are sweating their way into the fifth heatwave of the year. But the hot weather is not just an inconvenience for the public – the cost to the economy is high and rising. Britain is likely to suffer a multibillion-pound blow from heatwaves and droughts, economists estimate. Productivity slumps and retail sales tumble amid the torpor. A lack of rain is also hammering production across the country’s farms. Martin Beck, the chief economist at WPI Strategy, says: “A reasonable estimate is that the succession of heatwaves and exceptionally dry weather has already cost the UK economy around £3 billion this summer... High street footfall has fallen sharply in line with rising temperatures, according to the British Retail Consortium. It is simply too hot to shop. Although food sales are still rising, purchases of other products have dropped compared with last year. A rise in online sales has also failed to make up for fewer customers in physical shops."

UK - Drought and heatwaves are forcing Britain to pay hundreds of millions of pounds more for power. Britain has paid record sums to buy electricity from Europe this summer as low river levels force nuclear power stations to power down across the Continent. Experts predict the UK will have to pay high prices again this week as the fifth heatwave of the year hits. The Met Office has issued an amber warning for extreme heat, with temperatures expected to peak at around 37C in some southern regions. New government figures show the UK paid £439 million to import power from Europe in May – the highest monthly total ever recorded outside of the Ukraine energy crisis and a 54 percent increase on the £285 million cost of imports in April.

UK - The North of England is concerned about when the next wildfire will break out. They are smoking out our cities and threatening the lives of those who fight them. Many of them are friends. Gamekeepers are often the first to spot them and then fight desperate battles to stop them getting out of control. What makes me angry, very angry, is that lives need not be at risk. For our wildfire crisis is man-made. It is the result of dreadful policy mistakes repeated year after year. For two decades we have added far too much vegetation to our landscape and are now suffering the inevitable consequences. During damp winter months these burns safely prune the dead material which is then replaced by younger plants. It is the dead heather which is combustible. The winter burns used to create firebreaks. Now we have huge expanses of continuous, ageing vegetation.

UK - The Telegraph’s revelation that the Special Boat Service has been using naval surveillance drones that were transmitting data back to China is the latest sign of our vulnerability to Chinese cyber threats. It’s sadly not surprising. For a number of years, many of us have been warning about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) obsession with gleaning data on individuals and defence operations. Although security sources have known all about this, government has preferred to put it to one side. Threats from China, even when they have become clear, have been placed in the “too difficult” column and buried. Yet only a few years ago, a China expert revealed that a government car used by the prime minister had to be taken away because it was thought to be transmitting data to China. The Internet of Things makes us more vulnerable to such threats. It allows tiny devices, which can be embedded in almost anything, to transmit data. In some cases, they might be used as kill switches, permitting equipment to be shut down remotely. Our weakness is obvious to all those totalitarian states to see and act upon.

UK - Britain does not have enough warships. This is old news, but we are reminded of it at frequent intervals by the Russians. In particular, we are reminded because they have taken to keeping a warship of theirs permanently on station off our southern and eastern coasts. The frigate Neustrashimy is Moscow’s current Channel guardship. She relieved the Admiral Grigorovich in mid-July and has settled into her predecessor’s routine, loitering and waiting for the next sanctioned shadow-fleet tanker which she will escort past our shores. People who think a Russian attack on NATO would be “over there” – in the Baltics or Poland, perhaps – well, they should think again. Putin might start with a sheaf of Kalibrs fired at London: a city with no air defences.

IRAN - Iran is going to become a member of the BRICS Bank, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran Abdolnaser Hemmati said, state media reported on Tuesday evening. BRICS is an organization made up of eleven countries: Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates. It is an economic and geopolitical bloc that focuses on trade and development. The New Development Bank (BRICS Bank) is a "multilateral development bank established by BRICS with the purpose of mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in emerging markets and developing countries," its website explains. Hemmati announced that Iran was set to join the BRICS Bank in the near future, Iran's semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported. Iran expects the BRICS Bank to provide economic benefits

USA - Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky) went to Fort Knox in northern Kentucky on Monday to inspect America’s gold. “We’re going to be going deep underground to see the gold, but more importantly, we’re going to be talking about what happened to the dollar when we separated from gold in 1971. Over 85 percent of the value of the dollar has been lost since we de-linked from gold,” he added. “Yes, the gold is there, all (approximately) 147 million ounces. It is impressive, but the real point is what it still teaches in 2026,” Rand Paul said later Monday. The dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power since the Fed opened in 1913. $100 then is worth just over $3,300 today.

MIDDLE EAST - The Mecca Joint Defense Agreement is likely to be viewed by Tehran as a major success resulting from its aerial attacks on Gulf states, regardless of how strong the new pact proves to be, experts told The Jerusalem Post late Monday. Emirati researcher and foreign policy expert Huda Albadi told the Post that the pact was ineffectual, describing it as a “paper tiger.” Albadi warned that it was a sign of a concerning regional mentality that would see Israel cast as the destabilizing power, not Iran.

MIDDLE EAST - The agreement between Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey is nothing like a new NATO but it could bring fresh thinking the Middle East urgently needs. Yet the Mecca pact is still a thousand leagues away from being a new NATO. It has no integrated command structure, no joint doctrine, no integrated air defence network, and no joint operational commands. It is best seen as a defensive state-to-state arrangement that could, over time, come up with solutions to challenges. If the new pact is to take root and grow it will first have to be a mutually reinforcing defence industrial complex at a time when wars everywhere are burning through equipment. The Middle East remains in ­urgent need of fresh thinking.

USA - As a presidential candidate, Trump warned during his first campaign that destabilising the region was a mistake. More than a decade on, he knows this all too well. To an American electorate exhausted by 14 years of conflict, Trump promised an end to the forever wars. He said that unnecessary US invasions of the Middle East had only strengthened America’s enemies. “I said, ‘Don’t hit Iraq,’ because you’re going to totally destabilise the Middle East. Iran is going to take over the Middle East,” he said in 2015. More than a decade later, Iran can indeed claim to have “taken over” the Middle East, paralysing the flow of oil and dictating the terms of an American withdrawal. In 2015, Trump began his political career with a warning that unnecessary wars in the Middle East would only strengthen Iran. Ironically, more than a decade later, Trump risks being remembered for the very thing he warned against.

COLOMBIA - Colombia's geological service said the magnitude of the quake, which struck at 7.30am local time (1.30pm UK time), was 7.4 and that its depth was 60 miles. It reported the epicentre as being in San Jose Del Palmar, a community about 250 miles west of Colombia's capital, Bogota, adding that this was the strongest quake the country has suffered in the last decade. At least 111 people have been killed and Colombia has declared a state of emergency following the quake, which has also injured at least 87. Harrowing footage taken from across the country showed the façades of buildings crumbling and people huddling in the street, unable to stand up straight as the ground beneath them rocked violently.

UK - Almost three quarters of England is now in drought, with officials warning conditions under the record-breaking dry spell are 'worsening'. More than 27 million people in England and Wales are under hosepipe bans after the driest-ever July – which saw some parts of the country receive just 1 per cent of the expected rainfall. The National Drought Group today found that 71.3 per cent of England is under drought conditions, with around 45 million people affected. The East Midlands, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, Kent and East Sussex, and Solent and the South Downs became the latest areas to receive the classification.

UK - Britain is facing its worst food security crisis in decades as repeated heatwaves risk ruining farmers’ harvests, analysts have warned. The warning was issued as nearly three quarters of England was declared to be in drought, increasing the threat posed to food production across the country. Soaring temperatures are damaging wheat yields, vegetable crops and milk production, Shore Capital warned, leaving the UK increasingly reliant on food grown abroad. Analysts from the investment bank said the recent period of unprecedented dry, hot weather could damage homegrown food supplies and increase our dependence on costly imported grain. This risks driving up animal feed costs, according to Shore Capital’s Akhil Patel and Clive Black, which will trigger higher prices for consumers. “The UK has not been so close to a food security challenge for many decades,” they said.

UK - Emergency power cuts could be imposed on millions of households at short notice to avoid nationwide blackouts, under new rules introduced by grid bosses. Measures that came into effect this week give the National Energy System Operator (NESO) the authority to tackle electricity shortages with rolling power cuts around the country. Each area would have its power switched off for three hours at a time. NESO would have to give just eight hours’ notice to use the so-called demand control rotation protocol. The new measures, first reported by The Guardian, are designed to bridge a gap between NESO’s current emergency powers and rolling-blackout plans that require government approval. Currently, the UK’s electricity supply emergency code, a national plan of energy rationing, can only be triggered by ministers and requires emergency legislation.

GERMANY - German news coverage of Russia is becoming increasingly radical as the media grooms the public for war, correspondent Thomas Roeper told RT. Roeper made the remarks on Monday after Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung correspondent Michael Martens asked Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky how Europe could help Kiev “kill more Russians.” The journalist hastily clarified that he meant “more Russian soldiers.”

“I’m following the German media and the propaganda they are doing, and they increased the anti-Russian narrative really, well, radical. I can’t use another word,” Roeper said.