USA - President Donald Trump heads this week to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit as American allies come to grips with the vast impact his foreign policy has already achieved from Iran's nuclear ambitions to the future of funding for European security. The summit, which will take place in The Hague, Netherlands, will provide a platform for Trump to push for his proposed requirement that NATO's 32 member states reach 5% gross domestic product (GDP) spending on defense.

MIDDLE EAST - The exiled Crown Prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, is calling on the Iranian people to rid themselves of the tyrannical Islamic regime, declaring, “This is our Berlin Wall moment.” Pahlavi referred to the historic November 1989 moment when Germans on both sides of the Berlin Wall separating East and West Germany surged forward and crossed over the wall, marking the beginning of the end of East Germany’s repressive government.

MIDDLE EAST - Can anyone explain to me what just happened? The last 24 hours have been beyond weird. Just hours ago, everyone was freaking out because Iran had just fired a bunch of missiles at a major US military base in Qatar. But then we found out that most of the missiles were intercepted, not a single person was hurt, and very little damage was done. On top of everything else, President Trump announced that the Iranians had informed the US that the missiles were coming in advance…

USA - If Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu are not awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, the institution no longer holds any meaning. Give one to them! The American bombing of Iran’s nuclear programme was the single greatest intervention on behalf of global peace we have seen in our lifetimes. The CND may have hilariously condemned the most effective non-proliferation campaign in history, but it goes without saying that the world is a much safer place when we woke up this morning than it was when we went to bed last night. Israeli intelligence had revealed that the Ayatollah’s plan was to produce a set of many small nuclear bombs. What are the chances that they would not have been fired at Paris, New York and London by Iran or her proxies?

MIDDLE EAST - This is the most significant moment in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Donald Trump finally did what he threatened he would do – and what all his predecessors unwaveringly refused to do – and deployed his 30,000lb bunker bombs to take out Tehran’s nuclear enrichment facilities. Make no mistake, we are in a new political reality. The Middle East is a region that invites hyperbole, but I can say, without exaggeration, that what happened in Iran last night affects not only the region but the entire world. The question that must now be asked, and not just by terrified civilians on both sides, but by leading strategic thinkers in America, Israel, Iran and, indeed, beyond is as simple as it is vital: What next?

RUSSIA - Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev warned that multiple nations are “ready” to supply Iran with nuclear warheads following the United States’ airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities on Saturday. Medvedev, a former Russian president and current deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council issued a series of X posts following the United States’ attack against Iran. Medvedev stated Iran’s “enrichment of nuclear material — and, now we can say it outright, the future production of nuclear weapons — will continue.” Medvedev also claimed that a “number of countries” are “ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads,” without directly naming any of the supposed nations, although Russia has consistently backed Iran’s nuclear program. “The US is now entangled in a new conflict, with prospects of a ground operation looming on the horizon,” Medvedev added. “Donald Trump, once hailed as ‘president of peace,’ has now pushed the US into another war.”

IRAN - Iranian state-owned outlet Press TV has released a new report quoting Major General Kowsari, a senior member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security Commission, who stated: “The Parliament has reached the conclusion that the Strait of Hormuz should be closed, but the final decision in this regard lies with the Supreme National Security Council.” If Ayatollah Ali Khamenei approves the proposed closure of the critical maritime chokepoint — through which approximately 30% of global seaborne oil and 20% of LNG transit — Brent crude and natural gas futures will surge sharply this evening.

MIDDLE EAST - Iran would have no legal authority to order a halt to traffic through Hormuz, so would need to achieve this by force or the threat of force. If its navy tried to bar entry to the strait, it would likely be met with a strong response from the US Fifth Fleet and other Western navies patrolling the area. But it could cause severe disruption without a single Iranian warship leaving port. One option would be to harry shipping with small, fast patrol boats. Or it could launch drones and fire missiles toward ships from coastal or inland sites. That could make it too risky for commercial ships to venture through. Similar tactics have been employed successfully by the Houthi militia in Yemen to disrupt traffic through the Bab el-Mandeb strait leading into the Red Sea on the other side of the Arabian peninsula. The Houthis have mostly fired missiles and drones at ships after warning owners of vessels linked to the US, the UK and Israel that they will be attacked if they approach the area.

MIDDLE EAST - A US-led force in the Red Sea is seeking to protect shipping there. But the number of ships sailing through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden was still down about 70% in June compared with the average level of 2022 and 2023, according to Clarkson Research Services Ltd, a unit of the world’s largest shipbroker. This has forced vessel operators to reroute their traffic around the southern tip of Africa instead of going through the Suez Canal — a lengthier and more expensive journey for ships traveling between Asia and Europe. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would quickly hit Iran’s own economy as it would prevent it from exporting its petroleum. And it would antagonize China, the biggest buyer of Iranian oil and a critical partner that’s used its veto power at the UN Security Council to shield Iran from Western-led sanctions or resolutions.

VATICAN - Pope Leo XIV has seemingly rebuked President Trump over his decision to launch missile strikes on Iranian nuclear sites. The US launched multiple strikes against Iranian targets on Saturday evening, with Trump urging Iranian leaders to come back to the negotiating table. Leo, who has held the papacy for less than two months, posted on the X platform on Sunday afternoon with a warning that “war does not solve problems.” “War does not solve problems; on the contrary, it amplifies them and inflicts deep wounds on the history of peoples, which take generations to heal,” he wrote. ”No armed victory can compensate for the pain of mothers, the fear of children, or stolen futures.” ”May diplomacy silence the weapons! May nations chart their futures with works of peace, not with violence and bloodstained conflicts!”

VATICAN - The Pope also weighed in on the broader problems plaguing the Middle East: Alarming news continues to emerge from the Middle East, especially from Iran. Against this tragic backdrop, which includes Israel and Palestine, people’s daily suffering, especially in Gaza and the other territories, where the need for adequate humanitarian aid is becoming increasingly urgent, risks being forgotten. This is a cry that requires responsibility and reason, and it must not be drowned out by the din of weapons or the rhetoric that incites conflict. Every member of the international community has a moral responsibility to stop the tragedy of war before it becomes an irreparable chasm. There are no “distant” conflicts when human dignity is at stake.

IRAN - Tehran’s weapons programme has ben ‘obliterated’ says president as America enters the war. Donald Trump said Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities had been “obliterated” after US stealth jets launched a bombing raid overnight, bringing America directly into Israel’s war against Tehran. The US president authorised strikes on Iran’s three principal nuclear sites, including the underground Fordow plant, in the early hours of Sunday morning. “We have completed our very successful attack on the three nuclear sites in Iran, including Fordow, Natanz, and [Isfahan],” Mr Trump told the nation. In what is the most consequential decision of Mr Trump’s presidency so far, the assault is a massive escalation and risks opening a new era of instability in the Middle East. In response to the strikes, Iran’s official news channel warned on Sunday that every American – civilian or military personnel – in the region was now a “legitimate target”.

IRAN - Two paths are open to Iran — renew negotiations with the US over the republic’s nuclear programme, or retaliate with further warfare. Now that the much-debated question of American involvement in the Iran-Israel war has been answered, there are two roads left to travel: the renewal of negotiations between the US and Iran to reach a deal over the republic’s nuclear programme, the terms of which are well-known to both, or further warfare, leading to losses on both sides and potentially beyond their borders. The ball is now in Iran’s court, as Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, will decide whether to agree to end its nuclear enrichment programme — something the Islamic has so far refused to do — or continue the fight and extend his missile salvo to American military bases around Iran.

USA - The war in Ukraine, tensions in the Middle East, tariffs, inflation and so on and so forth. It sometimes feels like there’s no end to bad news, and, especially in the age of doom scrolling, that can take a toll on people’s mental wellbeing. As a consequence, more and more people actively try to avoid the news or at least ration their exposure to it. As Statista's Felix Richter reports, according to the Reuters Institute’s latest Digital News Report, an average of 40 percent of respondents from 48 countries included in the survey said that they sometimes or often actively avoid the news, a significant increase from 29 percent in 2017, when the question was first asked. As the following chart shows, selective news avoidance, as the Reuters Institute calls it, became significantly more widespread across all markets in recent years, with more than four in 10 respondents from the United Kingdom and the US consciously reducing their news intake. The report finds that news avoidance is often linked with low trust in the news...

MIDDLE EAST - MSNBC issued an on-air correction on Morning Joe Friday after Middle East correspondent Matt Bradley falsely reported Palestinians had been killed in Gaza while waiting for aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). On Thursday, Bradley had been introducing a video package about “controversial aid sites” run by GHF in Gaza. It was the latest in a series of mainstream media efforts to discredit the organization, which is currently the main provider of food aid in Gaza, distributing 2 to 3 million meals a day. The United Nations and Hamas both oppose GHF because it undermines their role and power in Gaza. As Breitbart News has noted, such reports have been false: no deaths or injuries have ever taken place at GHF aid distribution sides."