USA - US military superiority has failed to deliver victory in the Iran war, exposing limits in manpower, alliances, strategy and political will. Among the most important consequences is the damage inflicted on the United States’ position as the principal guarantor of security for the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, a role Washington gradually assumed after the Second World War, initially alongside Britain and later largely on its own.

USA - At the end of last week, the Trump administration's halt to tungsten scrap exports took effect, as the US and its allies confront a deepening supply crisis and race to find new supplies. To understand the global tungsten crisis, readers must first remember the metal's critical importance to the modern economy. Tungsten is essential to defense systems, industrial tooling, semiconductors, automobiles, energy infrastructure, electronics, artificial intelligence, and the power-grid buildout. Put simply, it is one of the building blocks of the industrial economy, yet its supply chain remains fractured and heavily exposed to China.

GERMANY - Germany's far-right AfD has promised an "economic boom" if it wins Sunday's regional elections and ends up ruling the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, but economists warn their policies would spell disaster. The Alternative for Germany wants to make the ex-communist region a test case for its key ideas -- including deporting irregular migrants and reversing a rapid buildup of renewable energy. Economists warn that deterring foreign workers through xenophobic rhetoric would only accelerate a skilled labour shortage in the state whose population is already greying and shrinking. Ahead of Sunday's vote, the AfD has polled at over 40 percent, harnessing widespread discontent and anger at Berlin - enough to easily win, and to possibly allow it to rule alone.

GERMANY - It turns out we have learnt surprisingly little from the mistakes of the first half of the 20th century. The great politicians of the federal republic are gone. That generation, born during or just before the war, has now disappeared from politics. At the start of September, the political landscape in Germany is facing the greatest upheaval since 1946. Society is divided, and both sides have decided to escalate the confrontation rather than reach out to one another. What lies ahead? State elections in Berlin and the relatively sparsely populated Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania could lead to the collapse of the country’s already unstable party landscape. A good 10 years after its founding, the Right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) is by far the strongest party at federal level, lying well ahead of the CDU/Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). And now everything is heading for a major crash. And when Germany wobbles, Europe wobbles.

USA - When the owner of a three-bedroom townhouse in Orlando’s 300-acre Margaritaville resort, a master-planned estate near the Walt Disney World Resort, sold the property earlier this year, he was in for a nasty shock. He had purchased the newly built home for $710,000 (£525,000) in 2022 as a short-term buy-to-let investment, seeking to cash in on booming demand from both holidaymakers and families relocating to Florida in the wake of the pandemic. Since then, the market has undergone a sea change. When the investor sold up this year, he received just $340,000 – less than half what he paid four years ago. “That was six months ago,” he says. “Now, I’m negotiating on a property with the same kind of floor plan, and we’re talking a price of around $300,000.”

NEPAL - The full horror of the catastrophe that unfolded in Nepal and Tibet last week is still becoming clear. On August 26, a glacial collapse triggered a series of flash floods and landslides along the Nepal-Tibet border. Shocking footage of the disaster reverberated around the world, showing people fleeing for their lives as millions of tons of earth, rock and water obliterated entire villages. So far, at least 1,003 people have been confirmed dead on the Nepali side, with 3,916 confirmed missing. In Chinese-controlled Tibet, another 16 have been confirmed dead and 546 missing. The death toll is expected to rise in the coming days and weeks. But while rescuers continue to pick through the devastation, with fading hope of good news, an ideological battle has begun over what, exactly, caused the disaster: the extent to which climate change was directly responsible for the collapse or merely an exacerbating factor, and even the possible influence of Himalayan infrastructure projects hundreds of miles away.

CHINA - Beijing, which has sought to build influence in the strategically important region, warns of ‘consequences’ after Taipei was invited to a forum in Palau. China has threatened the tiny islands of the South Pacific with unspecified “consequences” after the government of Taiwan was invited to take part in a gathering of Pacific leaders, highlighting the struggle for diplomatic dominance in a remote but increasingly strategic area of the world. “Taiwan is not a dialogue partner for the forum, so we have serious concern,” said Qian Bo, Beijing’s representative at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), which is being held in the nation of Palau. “We have made our concerns clear to the government of Palau and to the secretariat. This is objected by all. It should not have happened… we think it’s very inappropriate.” China insists that it is the rightful ruler of Taiwan, a democratic island that has governed itself since 1949, and insists that the two must be “reunified”, by force if necessary. Palau is one of only 12 countries that recognise Taiwan diplomatically, and China uses financial support and pressure to keep it isolated.

KYRGYZSTAN - A squirming Vladimir Putin has been told by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to halt his war in Ukraine for the sake of humanity during a meeting in Kyrgyzstan. The two world leaders met on the sidelines of the two-day Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, which seeks to be a counterbalance to the West. The regional SCO bloc – which brings together Russia, China, Iran, India, Pakistan, four central Asian countries and Belarus – is celebrating its 25-year anniversary. 'We need to move from an endless war to the end of the war,' Modi told the Russian president, who was awkwardly looking down and away from the leader's gaze, during the broadcast on Monday. A stern-faced Putin then slapped down his earpiece – used to hear the translation – and said through gritted teeth: 'Thank you very much, Mr Prime Minister. We are moving in that direction.' On the ground in Ukraine, there is little sign Putin is edging towards peace. The Russian leader appears to be stepping up the war, launching repeated strikes across the country, including attacks on food warehouses which are now being blamed for shortages.

EUROPE - The price of wheat has soared to a three-year high as fears grow that Russia will escalate its attacks against Ukraine, threatening exports from the breadbasket of Europe. Wheat futures rose to as much as $7.35 a bushel on Thursday, the highest level since July 2023, adding to concerns of further food inflation. Russia has mounted attacks on crucial facilities across Ukraine in recent months. In July alone, it launched 35 attacks against ships in port, 22 against ships at sea, and 67 against port infrastructure. The sustained attacks and damage to ports are affecting shipments from Ukraine. Wheat shipments from Russia are also forecast to fall by more than 50 percent in August, compared with the same month a year earlier. Russia, the world’s biggest wheat exporter, shipped 1.5 million tonnes of wheat in July, down from a five-year average of 3.1 million.

UKRAINE - Ukraine is “gradually, slowly losing” the war. Those are not the words of a Kremlin propagandist but Ukraine’s own Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s recently dismissed defence minister, speaking to Reuters last week. In the days after he made that grim prediction, Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukraine to near-apocalyptic levels. In a fiendishly effective move, the Kremlin switched from mass drone and missile strikes to continuous, 60-hour-long waves of bombardments which saw nineteen air-raids on Kyiv in a single day, exhausting defenders and dwindling stocks of air-defence missiles alike. Meanwhile, Ukrainian claims that they are turning the tide of the war in their favour with deep strikes on refineries and logistics warehouses deep inside Russia are being hollowed out by Russia’s massively larger campaigns of retaliation and revenge.

GERMANY - Germany is standing on the precipice of a gas shortage that could drive up winter energy bills for already battered households and industry. That risks sending the barely reheated economy back into the deep freeze. If there’s a mild winter, Germany might stumble through. But if the mercury plummets, then businesses and consumers could suffer a painful economic chill. The reason why Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, will be anxiously watching his thermometer is that Germany has fallen behind in its annual summer race to fill the country’s gas storage tanks in time for winter. The amount of gas in the storage facilities is the lowest for this time of year since records began in 2009. The tanks are only 51 percent full. By the start of November, the aim was to hit 70 percent, but most forecasters reckon there’s now little chance of getting anywhere past 60 percent by then.

UK - Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, has warned of a severe downturn in global stock markets if the AI bubble bursts. In a letter to G20 finance ministers, Mr Bailey raised concerns over the economic fallout if the debt-fuelled AI investment boom begins to unravel. He warned that the soaring levels of debt that have been used to fund AI “could amplify a future market correction”. If the valuation of AI companies starts to plummet, then investors face the prospect of losing trillions of dollars overnight. This could trigger a dangerous chain reaction if they are then forced to sell other assets. Mr Bailey said the risk was compounded by investors borrowing huge sums to invest in a small number of AI companies and data centre providers, pushing up their valuations to astronomical levels. He warned that a cyber attack at a major institution could rapidly unleash chaos across the world’s financial markets. His warning comes after a number of tech giants have reported incidents of AI agents going rogue, deceiving internal systems to launch cyber attacks elsewhere.

USA - A search is under way for 15 people feared missing after major flash flooding at the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona. Floodwaters inundated remote canyon walking trails and a historic lodge where hikers were staying on Saturday afternoon, washing away footbridges and sweeping large boulders into the Colorado River. Video circulating on social media showed raging rapids carrying an entire bunkhouse downstream. By Sunday, the National Park Service and Arizona Department of Public Safety had evacuated more than 62 people, with no injuries reported.

UK - Shoppers face further price increases as shops and supermarkets pass on the rising costs of plastic packaging to consumers. The British Retail Consortium (BRC) said that retailers have been hit by a tide of fees relating to packaging and the Government’s net zero policies. The “outdated” packaging recovery note (PRN) system alone has seen the average price per tonne of plastic double from around £180 in 2025 to more than £370 in 2026, according to analysis by the BRC. This means retailers will pay £100 million more this year because of the PRN costs alone. New levies on waste were rolled out last year, designed to further shift the financial burden of managing household packaging waste away from local authorities and taxpayers and on to businesses.

ICELAND - Iceland has rejected commencing accession talks to join the EU. Opponents defeated the measure in a referendum on Saturday, with 52.8 per cent of people voting No, against 47.2 per cent for Yes. The capital, Reykjavik, was the only part of the island nation of 400,000 people where a majority voted Yes. Public broadcaster RUV said on Sunday morning that, with only a few ballots left to be counted, “the nation rejects accession negotiations with the EU”. The result means any discussions of Icelandic accession are frozen at least until 2028 – an apparent disappointment to Brussels, which had appeared willing to compromise on thorny issues to facilitate Iceland’s accession.