Hello,
Here are the five things you need to know today:
IRAN. New strikes punctuate the waiting game.
THE SAHEL. The juntas scramble as Moscow reprioritises.
ICELAND. A no vote says more about Reykjavik than Brussels.
AUSTRALIA. A loss for Labor is an omen for the Liberals.
PALAU. China breaks up the party before it begins.
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IRAN. Tick-for-tock
New strikes punctuate the waiting game.
The US hit Iran's Larak Island after an earlier strike on Hormuz shipping. Donald Trump posted an AI video of refineries on fire, saying "Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!!". Iran attacked US bases in Jordan and the UAE. Oil jumped.
INTELLIGENCE. Iran’s claim to have destroyed several US fighter jets may be as fake as Trump’s social media feed, but reports of dozens of Patriot interceptors being used seem genuine. And this was likely Iran’s objective, as Washington’s arms and oil inventories fall in tandem. Trump’s separate claim that Venezuelan reserves will top up the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has meanwhile fallen flat. Not only are they too heavy, they’re not out of the ground.
FOR BUSINESS. The SPR stores light, sweet crude, not the bitumen that comes from Venezuela. Munition stores are little better. A military assessment leaked to the Washington Post asserts “America can no longer afford to fight this conflict without breaking itself.” All this should be bearish for crude, with the ingredients for a TACO. Yet another former official, ex-counterterrorism chief Joe Kent, has flagged this may just see Trump resort to the “nuclear option”.
THE SAHEL. The Niamey within
The juntas scramble as Moscow reprioritises.
Niger's army quashed a mutiny Sunday with the help of Algerian fighter jets and Russian mercenaries, after rebel troops had briefly occupied the capital’s airport. Libya's rival factions signed an agreement to hold elections with 24 months.
INTELLIGENCE. If Libya holds elections under a power-sharing deal being fostered by