USA - A recent study from the University of Michigan has shed light on a critical challenge facing the global transition to electric vehicles: the inability of copper mining to keep pace with the growing demand. According to GlobalData, there are over 709 operational copper mines worldwide, with the Escondida mine in Chile being the largest, producing an estimated 882,100 tons of copper in 2023. Despite this seemingly huge output, the rapid pace of electrification globally is outstripping the mining industry’s ability to keep up. In fact, the authors state that, “We show in the paper that the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce.”

THAILAND - Thailand will apply to become a member of the BRICS economic bloc, the government of the Southeast Asian country announced on Tuesday. BRICS has invited non-member countries aspiring to join to take part in the group’s summit, scheduled for late October in Kazan, Russia. Attending the summit would be an opportunity for Thailand to accelerate the application process, Chai said. Originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, BRICS added Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates at the beginning of 2024. Since then, 15 more countries have signaled interest in admission, including Bahrain, Belarus, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Senegal and Venezuela. The expanded BRICS makes up about 30% of the global economy and a population of around 3.5 billion, or 45% of the world’s total. It also accounts for over 40% of the world’s oil production.

GAZA - Israel shrugs off world condemnation of deadly weekend attack on Rafah as it restarts military operations today. Israeli tanks rolled further into Rafah today as a defiant Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue the war against Hamas. Despite growing international condemnation of an air strike that killed scores of Palestinians in the city on Sunday, the Israeli military once again launched heavy airstrikes on the southern enclave, killing at least seven more people sheltering in tents. As tanks and other military vehicles ploughed into the city - where 1.4 million Palestinian refugees are holed up - the Israeli government showed little sign of changing course.

GAZA - Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tanks reached the center of the town of Rafah on Tuesday, according to multiple media outlets, indicating that Israel intended to fight outwards toward the periphery rather than closing in from the outside. The Wall Street Journal reported: Israeli tanks advanced farther into Rafah on Tuesday, according to witnesses, as the Israeli military said it was expanding operations in the southern Gaza city amid growing international condemnation. The tactic of penetrating to the heart of an enemy city and fighting back out was pioneered by Israel in the West Bank during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, and later became a model of urban counter-terror warfare. The idea is to confuse enemy fighters by attacking them from the rear.

USA - The Biden administration has decided Israel’s weekend strike in Rafah that reportedly killed nearly 50 displaced Palestinians did not cross the “red line” President Joe Biden set two months ago, a US official said Tuesday. The administration made clear in public and in private on Tuesday that the incident, while devastating, would not trigger any serious reprimand from Washington. It’s the strongest indicator yet that Israel is conducting a military operation that the administration can accept, even if US officials don’t like every aspect of it. A senior administration official, granted anonymity to detail sensitive internal thinking, said the attack that successfully took out two Hamas operatives while killing 45 civilians and injuring dozens more did not cross Biden’s “red line” described first on March 9. The operation as a whole shows Israel has heeded US warnings to go into Rafah with a more targeted, precise operation, the senior official and two spokespeople said.

GAZA - The deadly fire that broke out in Rafah following an Israeli airstrike outside the designated “humanitarian zone” Sunday night may have been caused by the secondary detonation of Hamas munitions located near a civilian safe zone, according to the Israeli military. The airstrike, which eliminated several senior Hamas commanders, has been the subject of international condemnation due to the apparent civilian casualties. However, Israel said it prepared carefully and followed international law in launching a precision strike that was not anticipated to cause wider damage. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is currently investigating the possibility that the deadly fire, which broke out after the airstrike at a complex housing displaced Gazans in Rafah, was caused by the secondary detonation of Hamas munitions or other flammable material stored near the target of a precise airstrike against senior Hamas terrorists, according to IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, who provided further details about the incident in an English-language press conference on Tuesday.

ISRAEL - Israel's foreign minister has savagely rebuked Madrid, accusing it of “being complicit in inciting genocide against Jews and war crimes” on the day Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognised Palestine as a state yesterday. The diplomatic move has no immediate impact on the war in Gaza, but adds to international pressure on Israel to soften its devastating response to October’s Hamas-led attack. Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz accused Spain of “being complicit in inciting genocide against Jews and war crimes” and told the country that its consulate in Jerusalem will not be allowed to help Palestinians. Last week's joint announcement by Spain, Ireland and Norway triggered an angry response from Israeli authorities, which summoned the countries’ ambassadors in Tel Aviv to the Foreign Ministry, where they were filmed while being shown videos of the Hamas attack and abductions.

EUROPE - Supporting both the Jewish state and observing international law is becoming increasingly difficult, bloc’s chief diplomat says. The EU is divided over the war in Gaza because the goal of upholding international law appears to clash with support for Israel, the bloc’s security and foreign-policy chief, Josep Borrell, has admitted. “We will have to choose between our support to the international institutions and the rule of law, or our support for Israel,” he said, adding that making the two “compatible” will be difficult. The EU resoundingly condemned the Hamas incursion into Israel last October and recognizes the Jewish state’s right to defend itself, but “this right to defend has to be implemented in accordance with International law,” Borrell stressed. “The question is: does it happen? And if it doesn’t happen, what to do?”

GERMANY - Berlin says it does not want to get directly involved in the Ukraine conflict. Berlin considers Vladimir Zelensky's request for a NATO “missile shield” over Ukraine a step too far, German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said on Monday. Speaking to the New York Times last week, the Ukrainian leader argued that NATO should shoot down Russian missiles from their own territory, as the US and UK had done with Iranian missiles and drones aimed at Israel. “From our point of view, that would be an involvement, a direct involvement in this conflict. And that is something we are not aiming for,” Hebestreit told reporters in Berlin. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg insisted that “there are no plans to send NATO troops to Ukraine or to extend NATO’s air-defense shield to Ukraine.”

USA - It’s a drone world. All over the world, law-enforcement agencies and military forces are going all-in towards these unmanned flying vehicles that have become the standard equipment to survey and even attack foes and invaders. From the forests of Eastern Europe to the American Western Mountains of Colorado, all we hear about is Drones. Drones everywhere. In Europe’s battlefields, drones have long become the ‘ace in the sleeve’ for combatants – from small FPV quadcopters to big deadly craft like the American Predator, Russian Lancet, Iranian Shahed or Turkish Bayraktar drones.

MIDDLE EAST - Other groups that participated in the October 7 massacre… include Palestinian Islamic Jihad - and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah faction headed by none other than the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas. The involvement of terrorists from Abbas's Fatah faction in the October 7 slaughter and terrorist attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians, however, may surprise some people. Many in the West consider Fatah, which dominates the PA, to be a "moderate" party that wants to live in peace and harmony with Israel.

UKRAINE - While politicians in Britain pontificate, a thousand miles away, outside the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s war with Russia is intensifying. Kyiv has been forced to redirect thousands of troops to the north-eastern part of the front line to fend off Putin’s assault, leaving its defences exposed elsewhere. The war is reaching a critical juncture, as yet again Western interest in aiding Ukraine is at risk of waning. President Zelensky appears to be aware that Ukraine’s time is running out: over the weekend, he called on US president Joe Biden and Chinese premier Xi Jinping to attend the upcoming Ukraine peace summit in Switzerland to advance a “real peace”.

UK - Regulators must 'act quickly' to introduce safeguards protecting the electoral process from the threat posed by artificial intelligence, experts have urged. The warning came as a study found that bogus photographs and video footage generated by AI could influence the coming general election in a string of sinister ways. It concluded that so-called 'deepfake' imagery could be used for character assassinations on politicians, to spread hate, erode trust in democracy and to create false endorsements. Research by The Alan Turing Institute's Centre for Emerging Technology and Security (Cetas) urged Ofcom and the Electoral Commission to address the use of AI to mislead the public, warning it was eroding trust in the integrity of elections.

UK - The victim of an alleged assault in a West Sussex village reportedly in the midst of a growing crimewave has spoken of his shock at the "non-stop" attack. Two girls, aged 14 and 15, were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and released on bail. The arrests came after what police described as an "unprovoked attack" at The Passage to India restaurant in The Square, Barham, at 10pm on Sunday, May 19. Muhammed Islam, 64, said he had been trying to reason with a group of youths who weren't customers at the restaurant but insisted on using its toilets before he was allegedly set upon.

UK - University courses labelled as “Mickey Mouse” degrees that are attended by one in eight undergraduate students will be closed down under a Conservative policy expected to be unveiled today. The money saved from fewer tuition fees will fund 100,000 extra apprenticeships a year, a rise of nearly a third compared to the 340,000 total places offered last year. Writing in The Telegraph on Wednesday, Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, says: “We will outlaw rip-off degrees so that no more students are lured on to courses that don’t deliver the outcomes people deserve. Our clear plan will help hundreds of thousands of young people find a path to a financially secure future. Many graduates would be better served doing an apprenticeship. Rather than being saddled with debt, apprentices gain real-world experience and earn while they learn.”