CHINA - China’s military posture in the Pacific is no longer a regional affair. It’s a full-spectrum expansion. In June 2025, Beijing deployed both the Liaoning and Shandong aircraft carriers beyond the first island chain for the first time. That’s not symbolic. That’s operational reach. The PLA Navy now fields over 370 vessels, including more than 60 submarines. The Fujian carrier, still in sea trials, is expected to feature electromagnetic catapults. That’s a leap in launch capability. The PLA Rocket Force continues to expand its missile arsenal, while the Strategic Support Force is quietly building out cyber and space warfare infrastructure.

USA - 'Crowds on Demand' CEO Adam Swart revealed in an interview this week that his company was offered a $20 million contract for an astroturfed nationwide anti-Trump demonstration scheduled for Thursday. 'Crowds on Demand' is the “largest protest company in the country,” Swart said, noting that they specialize in corporate publicity and celebrity publicity. “We’re probably best known for political advocacy group publicity, that is, creating crowds of peaceful, enthusiastic demonstrators to turn out in favor of a particular cause or in opposition to one. As The Gateway Pundit reported, leftist groups have planned over 400 protests across the nation on the anniversary of the death of Democrat activist and congressman John Lewis. Like many other recent nationwide days of protest, including the now-infamous “No Kings” day, the “Good Trouble Lives On” protests are being organized by the 50501 Movement.

USA - Mark Zuckerberg has said that Meta Platforms will spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” on building data centres to power artificial intelligence, including one with a footprint almost the size of Manhattan. Its first “multi-gigawatt” data centre, which will be called Prometheus, is set to come online next year, the billionaire technology executive wrote on Threads, his social media platform, while another, called Hyperion, would scale up to 5 gigawatts over “several years”. “We’re building multiple more titan clusters as well,” he said. “Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan.” He pointed to a report from SemiAnalysis, an industry publication, that Meta was on track to be the first AI lab to bring a gigawatt-plus supercluster online. The American technology giant is “focused on building the most elite and talent-dense team in the industry”, Zuckerberg wrote.

EUROPE - The European Union is on course for a full-blown trade war with Donald Trump's America after preparing a new set of tariffs. Brussels is preparing retaliatory tariffs on US imports worth €72 billion (£63 billion), as tensions between the EU and Washington escalate. Donald Trump stunned European leaders when he threatened to impose 30% on EU imported goods from August 1. The announcement caught Brussels off guard, with officials having believed a deal was imminent. EU diplomats had previously briefed that a trade deal with a baseline reciprocal 10% levy was all but done and dusted. Brussels' trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic said the fresh threats of 30% tariffs on EU goods would “prohibit” future EU-US trade, if those levies came into force next month. However, Trump has threatened to impose even higher tariffs, if the EU dares to retaliate – as the prospect of an all-out trade war looms ever closer.

UK - There's an ugly impulse that persists in Britain which has reached a cartoonish nadir as a schoolgirl was placed in isolation for doing absolutely nothing wrong. It's the same impulse that middle-class do-gooders who think themselves oh-so virtuous feel when they see a St George's cross flying from an English pub, a feeling that retreats into non-existence when they see the Palestinian flag flown in East London. Courtney Wright, 12, was placed in isolation for wearing a Spice Girls-style Union Jack dress and matching hat to Bilton School in Rugby which invited its youngsters to celebrate heritage at its culture day last week. Courtney being a child untainted by the cynical racism of various fifth columnists who live in the UK took this invitation at face-value, dressed accordingly and gave a speech on British culture. She obviously didn't get the memo, which wasn't written down and the existence of which would probably be denied. But that memo translates to: "Do not celebrate anything British 'causes racism'."

UK - Just wow. There are bad decisions - and then there is this. Like so many others, I read the story this morning about Courtney Wright, the schoolgirl put into isolation for wearing a Union Jack dress to school on a day that was meant to celebrate different cultures, open-mouthed and utterly aghast. Yes, people make mistakes. But this? It is such a bizarre failure of judgement, it absolutely beggars belief. How in anyone’s calculations can a British girl, going to a British school, dressed in a British flag to celebrate cultures be wrong? I tell you something… I have a girl who is the same age as Courtney and if she had have been given the same brief, I’m certain she would have chosen an almost identical get-up. And should there have been any inkling of pushback? I’d have been as appalled as her father, Stuart Field, 47 who rightly said: “She should not be made to feel ashamed about being British - and she certainly shouldn’t be punished for it.”

USA - Two people have been killed after flash flooding hit New Jersey and New York, as parts of the northeastern US braced for more harsh weather. Torrential rain lashed the area on Monday night, with a flash flood warning issued for all five boroughs of New York City and a state of emergency declared in New Jersey. Two people died in the state when their vehicle was swept into a river, with emergency responders at the scene unable to save them, local officials said. Phil Murphy, the state’s governor, urged residents to “stay indoors and avoid unnecessary travel”. Airports across the East Coast also faced widespread disruption. A total of 1,966 flights were cancelled and more than 10,000 were delayed.

UK - Is the secret of artificial intelligence that we have to kid ourselves, like an audience at a magic show? Some fascinating new research suggests that self-deception plays a key role in whether AI is perceived to be a success or a dud. In a randomised controlled trial – the first of its kind – experienced computer programmers could use AI tools to help them write code. What the trial revealed was a vast amount of self-deception. “The results surprised us,” research lab METR reported. “Developers thought they were 20 percent faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19 percent slower when they had access to AI than when they didn’t.”

USA - After stepping off the plane in Nashville, having paid far more than expected for your flight, the rental car desk awaits. Four days with a Toyota Camry costs $670. A Starbucks coffee on the way to the hotel is another $7. Your budget hotel somehow costs $500 for the weekend, breakfast not included. Eating out for dinner means the day’s spending is comfortably into four figures. Welcome to America in the summer of 2025, where years of surging prices have left consumers struggling with widespread sticker shock. Inflation, which began to rise sharply in 2021, has significantly increased the cost of just about everything. Overall, prices are about 26 per cent higher than they were before the Covid pandemic, according to the personal finance company NerdWallet. There is a strong sense among American families and tourists that costs are becoming uncontrollable, hitting households of all income levels. The rising price of holidays, groceries and fuel are among the most visceral everyday examples of the soaring cost of living.

UK - Where is the next Greece, a country that will spark a global financial crisis? Over the last 15 years there have been plenty of different potential candidates. Turkey, perhaps, with its out-of-control inflation. Or France, with its huge budget deficits and rioters who block any reforms. Or even the United States, with an erratic president at war with the central bank. You could make a plausible case for worrying about any of them. And yet, over the last week it has become painfully clear that the next Greece is Britain – and the warning signs are already in place.

NETHERLANDS - It was the first country to develop a stock market. And it was among the first to create joint stock companies, global banking, and trading houses that could span continents. The Netherlands has always been one of the pioneers of business and capitalism, a place where new ideas are perfected. The trouble is, it is now pioneering something entirely different in electricity rationing, a policy that will make it very hard for companies to operate in and impossible to expand. And let’s not kid ourselves. Now that rationing has been imposed by the Dutch, it will almost inevitably be imposed in Britain as well, with catastrophic consequences for the economy.

IRAN - Iran said it will hold talks with its main Asian partners, Russia and China, on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit on Tuesday, as Tehran looks for support following a 12-day air war with Israel last month. “We will have bilateral meetings with the Chinese foreign minister, which naturally has its own importance in the current situation, as well as with the Russian foreign minister,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Telegram. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is a 10-nation Eurasian security and political grouping whose members include China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and Iran. Tianjin, in northern China, is hosting the 25th SCO Foreign Ministers' meeting. Since the re-imposition of American sanctions on Iran during US President Donald Trump’s first term, Tehran has deepened ties with both Moscow through a 20-year strategic pact and Beijing, which buys as much as 90% of Iranian oil exports.

UK - This is what happened to the Scottish nurse Sandie Peggie. When she objected to his presence, she was suspended from work. Peggie brought a claim for sex discrimination and harassment against her employer, NHS Fife, and the trans-identifying male doctor who insisted on using women’s facilities. The tribunal ran out of time in February, and her hearing resumes this week. In the meantime, there has been a seismic change in the legal landscape. In April the Supreme Court ruled that in the Equality Act, “woman” means a biological female, so a “women’s changing room” is only for females - and always was. This sounds like a slam dunk for Nurse Peggie. But NHS Fife has given no sign that it understands employers aren’t legally allowed to let men use women’s spaces, even if those men “identify” as women. It seems set to continue defending the case, at huge public expense.

USA - This Is not normal! We just had four “1-In-1,000-year storms” in a single week! What is it going to take for people to finally wake up? I am old enough to remember when “1-in-1,000-year storms” were actually rare. These days, we are constantly being hit by them. In fact, here in the United States we just witnessed four in a single week. This is not normal. In fact, this is not even close to normal. We just keep getting pummeled by major disaster after major disaster, and yet most people act as if all of this is just temporary and weather patterns will eventually become stable again. I had never heard of four “1-in-1,000-year storms” occurring during a single week.

IRAN - An Iranian movement has reportedly raised more than $40 million for the assassination of President Donald Trump, as the country’s senior religious clerics make clear that "every cell of the resistance in the West is charged with carrying out this sentence." Iranian leaders recently issued two death warrants, or fatwas, against Trump and deemed him an "enemy of Allah" who must be killed. Those calls prompted the creation of a new organization dubbed the "Blood Covenant," which claims to have raised nearly $40.3 million for the president’s assassination, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). The Blood Covenant operates "under the aegis of the Iranian regime" and poses a substantial threat to Trump given Tehran’s resources and coordination on the matter, according to MEMRI, which monitors jihadi movements in the region.