NETHERLANDS - Cowardice ill befits a military alliance. But it dominated yesterday’s Nato summit in the Hague. The alliance leaders who gathered in the Dutch city showed that they were more frightened of Donald Trump than of Vladimir Putin. To appease the US president, they cut the agenda short, sidelined Ukraine, downplayed the threat from Russia, made empty promises and dodged urgent decisions. It worked — for now. More importantly, extravagant military spending is politically unpopular and economically crippling. “It destroyed the Soviet Union,” noted a summit participant reflectively. The European Nato allies combined are ten times richer than Russia. If they spent even their existing defence budgets properly, the job would be done. Promising to spend a lot of money in the future does not fill the dangerous holes in defence and deterrence right now.

GERMANY - Germany will bring back conscription to boost its armed forces if a plan to use volunteers fails to deliver enough recruits, the country’s defence minister has said. Boris Pistorius said he would begin with a voluntary model to attract young people, supporting the Bundeswehr’s goal of more than doubling its reserve forces in response to Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But he said Berlin would not shy away from a return to full conscription if the armed forces had spare training capacity — and would include such a provision in a bill that will be presented to parliament after the summer break. Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that he wants his country to have the “strongest conventional army in Europe”, vowing to play a greater role in the continent’s defence.

UK - Weekly hate marches and open terror-sympathising have become the norm – and many of the worst culprits are British born and bred. It’s not often you see communists taking a stand for free speech and civil liberties. But in the eyes of the Morning Star, it seems, drastic times call for drastic measures. In a scandalised editorial this week, it thundered that the Home Secretary’s decision to outlaw Palestine Action as a terrorist group is “a dangerous assault on our freedoms”. Ah, yes. The ancient and inviolable freedom of every patriotic Englishman to break into his own country’s military bases and cause tens of millions of pounds’ worth of damage to our aircraft. Thanks for the reminder, Comrades.

USA - A far left Muslim socialist that has only been a citizen of the United States for seven years is the Democratic nominee to be the mayor of the biggest city in the United States. Let that sink in for a moment. Zohran Mamdani is a smooth talker, and he ran an excellent campaign. But if this is what the future of America looks like, we are in enormous trouble. He dreams of creating “a socialist New York”, and many analysts are suggesting that if he wins the general election in November it will open the door for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to run for president in 2028. We have allowed socialist ideology to be preached in our high schools, colleges and universities for a long time, and so we shouldn’t be surprised that large numbers of our young people are now socialists. We are reaping what we have sown, and this is just the beginning.

USA - WhatsApp, Snapchat, and Instagram report millions of abuse cases. Apple reported 250. Either Apple has the world’s safest app — or it’s looking the other way. What’s an acceptable level of online child sexual abuse, blackmail, and sextortion? How many teen suicides must happen before someone acts? Most parents would say the answer is obvious: zero. Apple doesn’t seem to agree. Despite serving as the constant digital companion for millions of American kids, the company has done nothing to rein in the iMessage app — a tool that now functions as an unregulated playground for child predators. Apple has shrugged off the problem while iMessage becomes the wild west of child exploitation: unchecked, unreported, and deadly. That device follows them everywhere — to school, to bed, into the darkest corners of the internet. The threat doesn’t just come from YouTube or TikTok. It’s baked into iMessage itself — the default communication tool on every iPhone, the one parents use to text their kids.

USA - Record-smashing daytime temperatures near 100 degrees are expected for millions from the Plains to the East Coast this week, while nighttime temperatures may stay above 80 in some metropolitan areas. A massive heat dome enveloping much of the central and eastern US this week will lead to levels of heat and humidity not seen in June in many years, warn AccuWeather meteorologists. This would mark the first time for some in many decades that triple-digit heat has been experienced in June.

USA - Not thrilled with mainstream media coverage of US strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities on Saturday, President Donald Trump on Monday erupted against some of the biggest names in American news. In a post on Truth Social, Trump stated: "The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it. Only the Fake News would say anything different in order to try and demean, as much as possible – And even they say they were 'pretty well destroyed!' Working especially hard on this falsehood is Allison Cooper of Fake News CNN, Dumb Brian L Roberts, Chairman of 'Con'cast, Jonny Karl of ABC Fake News, and always, the Losers of, again, Concast's NBC Fake News. It never ends with the sleazebags in the Media, and that's why their Ratings are at an ALL TIME LOW — ZERO CREDIBILITY!"

USA - The Threat Comes from Within. The recent weakness in the US dollar has reignited the debate over the durability of the dollar’s dominance in global finance. Over the first half of the year, the Bloomberg Dollar Index has fallen nearly 8.5 percent, marking one of the sharpest declines since the mid-1980s. Yet while this drawdown has fueled widespread commentary about de-dollarization, it is important to distinguish between dollar weakness — a familiar, cyclical phenomenon — and the far more consequential and complex issue of de-dollarization, which concerns the dollar’s standing as the world’s primary reserve currency and medium of international exchange.

USA - President Donald Trump issued a blunt warning to Israel on Tuesday to “not bomb Iran” as he departed for the NATO summit in The Hague, taking a critical position just 24 hours after brokering a fragile ceasefire already threatened after a missile strike from Iran. Speaking to reporters before takeoff, the president said that both Israel and Iran had breached the terms of the truce and made clear he was “not pleased” with Israel’s promise to launch retaliatory airstrikes after agreeing to the deal. Asked by a reporter about whether Iran had violated the ceasefire Trump replied: “They violated but Israel violated it, too.” The president continued: “Israel as soon as we made the deal they came out and they dropped a load of bombs the likes of which I had never seen before. The biggest load that we have seen. I’m not happy with Israel.” Before departing, he said: “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard, that they don’t know what the f*** they are doing.”

NETHERLANDS - President Donald Trump posed with other world leaders for the “NATO Family Photo” after arriving in the Netherlands for the NATO Summit. Trump flanked King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands in the family photo, while French President Emannuel Macron was to the queen’s left. British Prime Minister Kier Starmer, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, dozens of other leaders of NATO countries, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posed for the photo on the steps of the Netherlands Royal Palace. Ukraine is notably not in NATO. The photo followed Trump’s greeting with the King and Queen of the Netherlands and glowing remarks from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Trump’s push for NATO countries outside of the United States to pay their fair share, something he has long advocated for.

USA - The oil taps are open again. On June 24, President Trump announced that China is now free to purchase crude from Iran. The statement came mid-flight aboard Air Force One, en route to a NATO summit in The Hague. The message was posted to Truth Social. “China can now continue to purchase Oil from Iran. Hopefully, they will be purchasing plenty from the US, also. It was my Great Honor to make this happen.” That was the quote. No ambiguity. No walk-back. The sanctions that blocked this trade were reinstated in 2018 and expanded through 2024. They targeted Iranian crude exports and penalized Chinese importers. That wall is now down. Beijing buys over 90% of Iran’s oil exports. The timing is not random. The announcement followed a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran, brokered by the United States after weeks of missile exchanges and airstrikes.

IRAN - There are many people out there that seem to think that the Iranians have essentially surrendered by agreeing to this ceasefire, but that is not the case at all. The Iranians still hate the United States, they still hate Israel, and they still plan to move forward with their nuclear program. Ultimately, their long-term goals have not changed at all. But a ceasefire is certainly strategically advantageous for the Iranians at this moment, and so they eagerly embraced President Trump’s proposal. Unfortunately, those that believe that this ceasefire is the end of the story are way off base. In the western world, we tend to view a ceasefire as a complete cessation of hostilities that leads to permanent peace. But in Islam, a ceasefire is viewed very differently. Islamic law allows for a temporary “tactical pause” in hostilities known as a “Hudna”, and it is considered to be a time to rearm and regroup in order to continue the fight later.

NETHERLANDS - €1million-a-minute meeting is most expensive ever held. Reports of potential sabotage on the Dutch rail network add to tensions before President Trump and other leaders meet, protected by a huge military operation. It will be the shortest ever Nato summit in terms of face-to-face talks, as well as the most expensive, as the Western alliance strains every sinew to avoid confrontation with President Trump. Hosted by the Netherlands in the Hague, the country’s political capital, the summit centres on a single session of Nato leaders scheduled to last for two and a half hours. The cost of gathering is €183 million, or more than €1 million a minute — a bill of just over €10 for every single Dutch citizen. Opening the summit, Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary-general and former Dutch prime minister, stressed that the extra defence spending — difficult for many European allies — would cement American commitment to guaranteeing European security.

USA - US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that a ceasefire was now in effect, soon after Iranian state-linked media announced Tehran had fired its “last round” of missiles at Israel. “THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT. PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social around 1:00 am stateside. Iran had launched a fresh barrage of missiles at Israel as the ceasefire deadline announced by Trump neared. A spate of questions linger over the viability of a ceasefire, Iran and Israel’s participation, the potential resumption of nuclear talks between the West and Tehran, and the ultimate fate of Iran’s supplies of enriched uranium.

MIDDLE EAST - The Iran-Israel ceasefire has come into effect, Iranian state media outlet Press TV said on social media, following a spate of Iranian strikes that have stoked confusion over Tehran’s willingness to participate in the agreement. “Ceasefire begins following four waves of Iranian attacks on Israeli-occupied territories,” the media channel said in an X update. As of five hours ago — in comments preceding US President Donald Trump’s announcement that the detente had taken effect — Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi had refuted the existence of a formal arrangement, while allowing for the easing of hostilities.