Economics

On July 17, the Council of the European Union quietly froze the assets of one Russian executive and five companies belonging to a single corporate family, ABS Electro, for supplying electronic components that make Russia’s Shahed and Geran attack drones harder to jam. That was the entire publicly …

By Dan Steinbock Renewed U.S.-Iran hostilities and Israel’s continuing military campaigns reflect rising risks of a wider Middle East conflict and elevated energy and food crises internationally. The United States and Iran traded new attacks overnight into Thursday, intensifying an exchange that has threatened the collapse of their agreement …

Hadi Elis The 2026 NATO Summit may ultimately be remembered not for its official communiqués, but for the questions it raised about the future direction of the Alliance. Beneath the familiar language of transatlantic solidarity, collective defense, and support for Ukraine, a more profound geopolitical shift appears to …

Dr.Nadya Hilmi UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres , Thailand Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar arrive for a group photo before the opening ceremony for the World AI Conference in Shanghai, China, July 17, 2026. Ng Han Guan/Pool via …

On July 14 the crews of the Mombasa and the Al Bahiyah found out. Two UAE-flagged tankers were hit by Iranian cruise missiles in the southern lane, inside Omani territorial waters, according to the Emirati defense ministry. An Indian sailor was killed and eight others were hurt, six …

Owen Kirby The Middle East – for many Western observers – is something akin to Long Covid. One day you believe you are through the worst of it, turning a corner, and the next you are back reliving all the headaches, fatigue and brain fog, short of breath …

In March, Israeli F-35s struck three sites in central Syria that Turkish planners had quietly earmarked for a future airbase. No Turkish soldier had set foot there yet — Ankara had not finished the paperwork. But the message needed no translation: Israel would rather bomb a location pre-emptively …

Dr. Dan Steinbock The United States and Iran traded new attacks overnight into Thursday, intensifying an exchange that has threatened the collapse of their agreement to end the war. According to President Trump, the ceasefire between the United States, Israel and Iran was “over.” The deadly exchanges included …

Israel’s government has crossed a line that previous governments had avoided. In early July 2026, the cabinet openly declared that it would not recognize decisions made under a Supreme Court ruling, creating what opposition leaders and legal figures described as a potential constitutional crisis. The unanimous resolution rejected …