EGYPT - Egypt is pushing to revive a NATO-style Arab military force for rapid defense in case of attacks. The proposal gains traction ahead of an Arab summit, with Cairo seeking regional support. London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is working to rebuild Arab backing for a rapid-reaction force that could deploy to protect any Arab state under attack, and said the proposal has been floated in recent diplomatic contacts ahead of the summit. The outlet framed the idea as a defensive umbrella rather than an escalation with Israel.

MIDDLE EAST - The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union and military alliance comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The council's main headquarters is located in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. The Charter of the GCC was signed on 25 May 1981, formally establishing the institution.

MIDDLE EAST - The United Arab Emirates condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "hostile remarks" against Qatar, adding that ANY ATTACK ON A GULF STATE IS AN ATTACK ON THE GULF'S "JOINED SECURITY SYSTEM," UAE official Afra Al Hameli said on Thursday. On Wednesday, Netanyahu warned Qatar to either expel Hamas officials or "bring them to justice, because if you don't, we will." Netanyahu's warning came a day after Israel attempted to kill Hamas political leaders in an airstrike on Doha, escalating its military campaign in the Middle East and prompting a flurry of international condemnations.

USA - I am devastated. I didn’t know him, but I’m devastated. Charlie Kirk was the Cicero of the Maga movement, energetically debating anywhere, anytime, a one-man campaign for the right to speak your mind. He was so utterly self-assured, he never looked vulnerable, but now I guess he was. Maybe we all are. The world is losing its mind. I thought, “this has to be more than a cultural war?” It’s spiritual. Consider that damaged soul who shot all those kids at the Annunciation Catholic School or the man who stabbed a woman on a train in North Carolina: whatever manifesto they stood on or medications they’d missed, they exuded the sulphuric air of someone oppressed by demons, as if an evil spirit is abroad in the land. We are in need of real leadership right now. We’ve had 20-odd years of weak men and bad men, cowards and charlatans, none capable of cooling things down or bringing people together.

USA - Charlie Kirk became one of Donald Trump’s closest allies by taking the Maga movement to university campuses and delighting in facing down liberal activists while picking apart their world views. More than that, the Turning Point USA founder is a key Trump world insider, close to anyone important within the inner circle and with the US president himself. It makes Kirk’s assassination on Wednesday at a university campus event in Utah a deeply personal affair for the president and his team. “The great, and even legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the heart of the youth in the United States of America better than Charlie,” the president posted on Truth Social.

USA - Before the identity of the shooter was known, prominent right-wing figures were framing the incident as a part of a broader assault by the left against conservatism. "America has lost one of its greatest champions," White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller wrote on X. "All of us must now dedicate ourselves to defeating the evil that stole Charlie from this world." Laura Loomer, a MAGA loyalist who has Trump's ear, called for "cracking down on the Left with the full force of the government. Every single Left wing group that funds violent protests needs to be shut down and prosecuted. No mercy." Elon Musk, the X platform’s billionaire owner, was even more blunt. “The Left is the party of murder,” he wrote. “There’s no excuse for political violence in our country, it’s got to end,” said Steve Scalise, the Number 2 Republican in the House of Representatives, who survived being shot in 2017 at a congressional baseball practice. “It’s a problem that we’ve seen grow and it’s got to be addressed. It’s got to stop.”

UK - Starmer plunged into full-blown crisis as he is forced to sack Mandelson over 'disgusting' Epstein emails just 24 HOURS after backing him - and under a week since Angela Rayner quit. Keir Starmer is wrestling to contain a full-blown meltdown today after he was forced to sack Lord Mandelson as US ambassador. The PM finally acted after another cache of messages emerged from the peer to the notorious paedophile. The dramatic departure throws the government deeper into chaos, just a week before Donald Trump's state visit. It is less than a week since Angela Rayner was forced to resign over her tax affairs, amid claims the premier is 'lurching from crisis to crisis'. Sir Keir now faces mounting questions about his judgment, with even Labour MPs warning the party is 'stained at the very top'.

UK - One of the great tragedies of the way immigration policy has been debated in this country for years, if not decades, is that the conversation is mostly voiced in emotive rather than rational terms. Those who air fears about the flows of foreign-born people into the UK are dismissed as bigots (most famously by Gordon Brown). Those who argue that immigrants are good for the economy are dismissed as being deluded or blind to a mounting crisis. What do those numbers tell us? Well, the big picture is… big. The total flows of migrants coming into the country in recent years have been nothing short of astounding. While the figures have plateaued in the past 18 months or so, as of late 2023, immigration (which is to say, people coming to live here) was running at roughly 1.3 million people a year. Subtract those emigrating in that period (roughly 400,000), and that leaves you with net migration of nearly 900,000 people.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday called on Qatar and other nations that harbor terrorists to expel them or bring them to justice, adding that if they don't, "we will." In his statement, Netanyahu reflected on the upcoming anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, saying, "Tomorrow is September 11th... On that day, Islamist terrorists committed the worst savagery on American soil since the founding of the United States. We also have September 11th. We remember October 7th. On that day, Islamist terrorists committed the worst savagery against the Jewish people since the Holocaust." Netanyahu: "Like with 9/11, we went after masterminds who committed October 7th." The prime minister said that after September 11, the US hunted down the terrorists who committed the crimes, and passed a resolution in the UN Security Council that stated that governments cannot harbor terrorists. "Yesterday, we acted along those lines. We went after the terrorist masterminds who committed the October 7th massacre," Netanyahu said.

EUROPE - Europe stands at a crossroads - one path leads to peace through diplomacy, the other to war through reckless militarization. As Germany signals a historic shift toward leading a European nuclear weapons program, recruiting France and Britain into a unified deterrent, the continent inches closer to a catastrophic confrontation with Russia. But who is the real aggressor here? Is Europe arming itself out of necessity, or is it fueling a self-fulfilling prophecy of conflict?

USA - Moments before the crack of a gunshot changed everything, thousands of students had gathered under clear blue skies at an idyllic Utah college to hear from a man considered a rock star in conservative campus politics. As the 31-year-old Charlie Kirk sat under a tent, debating political opponents taking their turn at a microphone, many gathered on the lawns cheered – and some protested. Seconds later, they were all running in terror. The activist was struck in the neck by a bullet, mortally wounded. The episode playing out as cameras rolled, some showing the murder in bloody detail. The images will be hard to forget - particularly for the many young conservatives for whom Kirk held celebrity status. The leader of their movement, regardless of the ultimate motive behind his killing, will now be viewed as a martyr for the cause. Kirk's killing is both another episode of shocking gun violence in America – and the latest in an ever-lengthening line of recent political violence.

USA - For decades, artificial sweeteners have been marketed as a guilt-free alternative to sugar - helping people manage weight, control blood sugar, and avoid cavities without sacrificing sweetness. But mounting research suggests these chemical substitutes may come with a hidden cost: accelerated brain ageing and cognitive decline. A new study published in Neurology has linked six widely used artificial sweeteners - aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame potassium, erythritol, xylitol, and sorbitol - to troubling declines in memory, language, and thinking skills. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that these sugar substitutes, found in everything from diet sodas to sugar-free candies, may be silently harming brain health.

UK - One by one our energy giants are turning their backs on green power – leaving Ed Miliband swinging in the wind. Miliband constantly insists we should be proud of ‘leading the world on climate change policy’. But instead of being an example to other nations, we will be a warning. American economist Noah Smith, a passionate supporter of renewable energy, wrote: "To see how a mismanaged and misguided push for green energy can hurt a country’s economy, you have to look no further than the UK…" Lloyd’s of London, our great insurance market, said insurers who operate at Lloyd’s will no longer have to hit targets requiring them gradually to stop underwriting fossil fuel projects. This year BP's new chief, Murray Auchincloss, bluntly announced: ‘We have completely decapitalised renewables.’ Sir Jim Ratcliffe on Monday announced that his Ineos Energy company had ‘stopped investing in Britain’...The trouble is, Miliband is also ensuring that the UK has the last government in the world to see what way the wind is blowing on energy production. The West’s rush to net zero, as some of us have long predicted, is being abandoned because the claims it would benefit the consumer have been exposed as fantasy.

QATAR - Qatar has threatened retaliation after Israel's strike on Doha Tuesday which killed five top Hamas officials. Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in a fresh speech condemned the attack as "state terrorism" on the Gulf country's capital and warned that payback is coming. He said Qatar reserves the right to retaliate, saying, "We've reached a decisive moment. There should be retaliation from the whole region." The Qatari leader continued of the Israeli prime minister, "He just violates all those international laws" - he said through the translator from the Arabic. But for all the tough talk, the reality remains that Qatar has long been host to major US military and naval bases, especially Al-Udeid Air Base - the largest US installation in the Middle East, and is the operational regional HQ for US Central Command (CENTCOM).

USA - When US Navy Seals flew deep into Pakistan to eliminate Osama bin Laden in 2011, the world cheered and President Obama was rightly lauded for defending America, after the worst terror attack on US soil. Few, if any, stopped to ask whether Pakistan had consented, or the strike violated its sovereignty. Yet when Israel takes out Hamas leaders in Doha, who were responsible for orchestrating the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, those same Western voices rush to castigate Jerusalem. The hypocrisy is absolutely astounding. What was deemed legitimate self-defence by the West for the United States, is suddenly branded “reckless” or “unlawful” when it is the Jewish state. Just as the attack that took out Bin Laden was just, necessary and entirely lawful under international law, so too was the Israeli strike against Hamas leaders in Qatar. First, it needs to be underscored that the Hamas terrorists that were targeted, were not “political leaders”. They were terror masterminds, involved in the planning, execution and direction of every facet of the war that Hamas launched on October 7, including the ongoing captivity of hostages.