GERMANY - Heatwaves and drought have sent water levels on Germany’s Rhine river plunging to multi-year lows, driving up freight costs on the world’s busiest inland shipping route. The Rhine’s depth dropped as low as 53cm on Monday at the critical Kaub chokepoint near Frankfurt, marking the lowest July reading in decades. Any reading below around 80cm will prompt barge owners to start shrinking their loads and raising their prices.

USA - Marco Rubio has unveiled a plan to dismantle the International Criminal Court (ICC), accusing it of posing “an intolerable threat to US sovereignty”. The Trump administration said it would pressure other countries to withdraw from the court, marking a sharp escalation in efforts to isolate the Hague-based institution and starve it of political and financial support. “The ICC and its friends are waging a war against our country, not with bullets or missiles, but with statutes, compacts and the force of so-called international law,” the US secretary of state said in a video statement.

UK - When my eldest daughter came to me wanting to buy a custom-made prom dress for several hundred pounds, I felt mean for saying no. But this expectation is fast-becoming the new reality for parents of teenagers in 2026. I should know – I have three of them. There is the essential spending; my eldest child, Isaac, is 19 and has just finished his first year at university. His accommodation, train fares, money to live on and mobile phone all tot up to the tune of more than £1,000 per month.

CHINA - The proliferation of low-cost suicide drones and interceptor drones appears to be accelerating as nation-states begin stockpiling these expendable platforms, reflecting a rapid and structural shift in modern warfare toward mass, attributable weapons. More concerning is that some of these drones appear to be marketed far beyond traditional military channels and potentially sold to the highest bidder.

IRAN - When Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz closed on Monday, the regime wanted to assert its control over a waterway vital to the world’s economy. But it may end up unravelling its own in the process, after the United States said it would reimpose a crippling naval blockade. Even before President Trump’s announcement on Monday, the numbers painted a grim picture for the regime. The Iranian economy is predicted to contract by 10 per cent this year and the conflict may push the country into its worst unemployment crisis in decades. Analysts say that millions of jobs are at risk. Inflation has rocketed to more than 80 per cent, and food prices are rising even faster. Iran’s leaders had acknowledged even before the conflict that they had no solution for its sanctioned and corruption-riddled economy.

IRAN - Having choked off shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is now signalling it could play its most dangerous card yet: using their Yemeni proxy organization, the Houthis, to shut the Bab el-Mandeb gateway to the Red Sea, opening a new front against Washington and putting two of the world's most vital energy arteries at risk. As US strikes deepen inside Iran and Houthi attacks escalate in tandem, analysts say Tehran is widening the conflict and seeking to increase pressure on Washington by extending the threat to global trade and energy supplies beyond the Gulf.

USA - The phrase “too big to fail” originally described banks so large and so entangled with the rest of the economy that governments felt they had no choice but to bail them out rather than let them collapse and take everything down with them. Medicine now sits in a similar position: so much wealth, so many careers, and so large a share of the market are tied to the existing system that almost no one with the power to change it can afford to, and so, rather than fix the corruption, everyone involved has every incentive to keep it running. In parallel, the FDA (the agency responsible for catching trial manipulation), is itself financially dependent on the industry it regulates. In short we effectively have a “too big to fail” scenario where no one can afford to rock the boat by challenging the premises it rests upon (but can get rich through insider trading). As such, while small attempts are made to reform things, as the years go by, things become more and more corrupt and the American people ultimately pay the price by becoming sicker and sicker from what the “health” agencies give to us.

EUROPE - When Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, he triggered an energy shortage and a cost of living crisis that dealt a blow to Europe’s zeal for net zero. Just this week, new data shows that Europe is struggling to wean itself off Russian gas. In the invasion’s wake, populist politicians have increasingly questioned whether Europe needs to race to climate neutrality at top speed and at all costs. Beleaguered businesses, meanwhile, reeling from soaring energy bills and cut-price Chinese imports, are begging to be spared from yet more red tape and higher climate-related costs. Brussels has been unable to ignore the backlash. In the past 18 to 24 months, it has taken the pruning shears to its thicket of green rules. The European Commission’s rhetoric, from president Ursula von der Leyen down, has focused less on fighting climate change and more on the cost of energy and the security of supply. The electrification plan is shaping up as a litmus test of the EU’s changing mood.

MIDDLE EAST - The war in the Gulf that everyone thought had ended has been revived, with more than 100 US strikes on targets inside Iran over the weekend. They were a response to a blatant breach by Tehran of the agreed 60-day ceasefire with attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This critical waterway has become pivotal to the entire conflict with Iran using their geographical proximity effectively to force its closure. Last month, Washington and Tehran signed a memorandum of understanding under which the Strait would be reopened and shipping restored. Some 500 vessels have used the route since then. But they have largely done so on sufferance from Iran which is dictating “approved” routes for ships. Those that follow an unsanctioned course are being hit by missiles.

USA - The Federal Reserve could be forced to step in and bail out Wall Street in the event of a stock market meltdown, an executive at the banking giant ING has said. Bob Homan, global chief investment officer, said the US central bank could mimic efforts by the Japanese government in 2002 and 2009 when it took stakes in failing financial institutions during banking crises. Stock markets have endured sharp corrections this year as a result of the Iran war and concerns about surging valuations among AI-linked companies. The benchmark S&P 500 on Wall Street dropped nearly 8 percent following the outbreak of the Middle East conflict but has climbed 19 percent since then as tech stocks have rocketed. Many analysts have raised concerns that stocks linked to AI are beginning to show signs of entering bubble territory, echoing the era before the dotcom crash in the early 2000s.