GERMANY - This Sunday, voters in Germany’s former Communist East will elect the next regional government of Saxony-Anhalt, one of the country’s 16 federal states. Regional elections may not be seismic events in Britain, but in Germany this is the most pivotal in decades. Sunday’s vote could be the first time that a radical Right-wing party has controlled a German state since 1945. An AfD state government would control education, state intelligence, asylum and policing in Saxony-Anhalt, a former industrial heartland of coal mines, Soviet-era bases and medieval castles. The party has promised mass deportations, a ban on LGBT symbols, the segregation of German children and refugees in classrooms, and closer ties with Moscow if it takes power. But even if it misses out on a majority in Saxony-Anhalt, the party sees this campaign as a stepping stone towards its true goal: total victory at the next federal election.

UK - European wholesale gas prices trade at seven to eight times the American wholesale Henry Hub price. British industrial gas prices are around four to five times higher than American prices, in a country where approximately half of final industrial energy consumption still consists of directly burning fossil fuels. Despite this, electrification remains unattractive for manufacturers because industrial electricity prices are even more uncompetitive, around 150 per cent higher than US prices and more than three times average Chinese prices. The mess is so total and complete that it would be advisable for future British Right-wing governments, despite their commitment to saner energy policies, not to promise any major immediate consumer relief on energy bills. Fixing this will take decades. Britain, like much of Europe, has got itself in such a horrible mess that there is simply no easy way out.

UK - Andy Burnham has been hit with a warning from the City of London that he risks market turmoil unless he slashes spending. Investors and economists said Britain would face a fresh surge in borrowing costs unless the Prime Minister outlined credible plans to rein in the size of the state. Government borrowing costs around the world have surged to multi-decade highs this week amid a bond market sell-off. Britain has been hit particularly hard, amid growing concerns about Mr Burnham’s first Budget next month. The Prime Minister has made a series of expensive commitments on everything from defence to housing despite the parlous state of public finances. Paying for these policies would require either tax rises, more borrowing or spending cuts elsewhere. Lord O’Neill, a former minister and Goldman Sachs economist who turned down an offer to join Mr Burnham’s Government, said Mr Burnham must “get real” and cut public spending to win back market confidence.

UK - Gene-edited strawberries and tomatoes are set to be sold on British shelves for the first time. Fruits that have had their DNA altered by scientists have reached the final approval stage before being legally allowed to be sold to the public. The Government is set to approve a marketing notice for strawberries that stay in season for longer and tomatoes that contain more vitamin D. The so-called “sunshine” tomatoes, created by John Innes Institute in Norfolk, have as much vitamin D as two eggs or 28g of tuna, according to the developers. Scientists turned off a gene that makes an enzyme convert vitamin D3 into cholesterol so that it stays in the leaves and fruit. Once the products reach shelves, they will not require a label identifying them as being gene-edited. Gene editing involves making small, specific changes to the existing DNA of a product, or removing a section of DNA. The process differs from genetic modification, which adds new genes to a crop.

UK - The El Niño weather phenomenon is 'supersizing before our eyes' as it threatens to wreak havoc on the UK in autumn and early winter, experts have warned. Scientists from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the climate pattern – where Pacific sea surface temperatures become significantly warmer than average – is now 'firmly established' and is set to have huge impacts on rainfall and temperatures globally, triggering floods, drought and extreme heat. Forecasts indicate an 'exceptionally huge likelihood of nearly 100 per cent' that El Niño will cause problems until February – the first time such an unequivocal update has been issued. In the UK, El Niño is likely to make autumn and early winter colder, wetter and stormier, according to the Met Office. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: 'El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters – and those waters are heating up. The world is in the danger zone of extreme weather.

RUSSIA - We have never been closer to nuclear war than we are right now. The Russians are absolutely furious that NATO countries have been providing many of the long-range missiles and long-range drones that have been raining down on their major cities night after night. They are publicly threatening the UK and Germany, and I believe that we should be taking those threats very seriously. Meanwhile, the fact that the Russians are openly aiding Iran’s war effort is deeply upsetting the Trump administration. At this stage, the Russians are not even trying to hide it. Both sides just continue to push the envelope, and that has brought us dangerously close to a shooting war with Russia. When asked about the potential for direct strikes in the UK by the press, Putin did not deny that this is on the table…

INDIA - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday that the war in Ukraine needed to end for humanity's sake and that New Delhi would support every peace effort to stop the fighting. Modi, who made his comments at the start of talks with Putin in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, called Putin "my friend" and hailed growing economic ties between the two countries, which he said were guided by the need to put the interests of both nations above all else. India, along with China, is one of the biggest buyers of Russian oil, which has helped Moscow replenish its budget since it sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 and was hit with sweeping Western sanctions. "As you are aware, India supports all peace efforts in this regard, and we shall continue to do so in the future," Modi told Putin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, according to a Kremlin transcript of their exchange.

IRAN - Mehdi Rahimi, head of the Iranian parliament’s news agency, said that the proposal was under consideration by the country’s leadership and argued that the creation of a regional security umbrella would represent a victory for the Islamic Republic. Shortly afterwards, however, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei stated that Tehran had received no formal invitation, although proposals for dialogue with the pact’s members on collective regional security had indeed been raised. For the moment, this appears to be a political overture intended to test the reactions of the parties rather than the beginning of a formal accession process. Even so, it suggests that the agreement is not intended as an alliance against Tehran, but as the possible foundation of a security system built with Iranian participation.

MIDDLE EAST - The Mecca Agreement is not a new Middle East Order – merely a promise of one. Yet if it manages to accommodate Iran as a member, establish clear rules of mutual restraint and find a form of peaceful coexistence with Israel, the Middle East could for the first time in decades have a security system created primarily by the states of the region. Such a system would not eliminate their differences, but it could allow them to work with and around those differences without constant recourse to an external hegemon and without turning every crisis into a war. The cradle of the Abrahamic faiths might then cease to be consumed by recurring fires and begin its transformation into a strong, interconnected and prosperous region.

UK - A record number of instances of artificial intelligence (AI) lying, ignoring users’ commands or acting in harmful ways to achieve its goals were registered last month, The Guardian has reported, citing a monitoring group. A majority out of the 1,600 complaints on X in 2026 were made by software developers using AI bots in their work, according to AISI. The monitor said that despite the fact that most real-world loss of control incidents did not cause significant harm, it has registered an increase in severity of AI’s deceptiveness and neglect of human commands. Reports by users “evidence AI systems’ willingness to disregard direct instructions, circumvent safeguards, lie to users and single-mindedly pursue a goal in harmful ways,” AISI warned. Tommy Shaffer-Shane, the senior policy manager at the Centre for Long Term Resilience, which operates the observatory, told The Guardian that it is wrong to suggest that AI only misbehaves during testing. “We need to not be complacent that these things won’t happen in the real world and there is evidence that they already are,” he said.