Geopolitics beyond the usual borders.
Barely a year after taking office, Ukraine’s prime minister is on her way out. Zelenskyy calls it an “updated political strategy”; the still-unnamed successor will reveal what that means — to Kyiv and to Brussels.
Six US soldiers died in a drone strike on Kuwait's Port Shuaiba as the United States bombed targets inside Iran and Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz again — a conflict now grounding Gulf aviation and rattling global markets.
Lindsey Graham died a day after his last visit to Kyiv, leaving his "sanctions from hell" Russia bill without its author at the moment it might pass. The tributes framing his support for Ukraine, trans-Atlantic ties and Israel double as a map of what Washington's allies just lost.
Typhoon Bavi made full landfall in China's Zhejiang province late Saturday after brushing Taiwan and southern Japan, with more than 1.7 million people evacuated. In Taipei, commentary has sharpened on Beijing's parallel use of legal and political pressure against pro-Taiwan speech during the disruption.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi says new US sanctions targeting a financier linked to Iran's Supreme Leader and Iran's shadow exchange houses violate the no-new-sanctions clause of the June 17 ceasefire memorandum, even as fighting itself has quieted since last week's strikes over Strait of Hormuz ship attacks.
As Typhoon Bavi forced thousands into shelters across Taiwan and Japan's southern islands, Taipei detected a Chinese naval vessel and official ship near its territory — coinciding with a new Chinese law that criminalizes pro-Taiwan speech among ethnic minorities.
Ukraine says it struck 21 vessels supplying occupied Crimea in three days, triggering fuel sales bans and blackouts on the peninsula — a sharper escalation than the refinery strikes and export bans already rationing fuel across Russia.
At back-to-back UN Security Council sessions, the Baltic states and Ukraine pressed for a formal ceasefire resolution while the US condemned Russia's destruction of Ukrainian homes and heritage sites. The push highlights the gap between rhetorical unity and the veto that keeps any binding text out of reach.
Iran answered a second wave of US strikes by firing missiles at Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Jordan — all hosts to American forces — while shipping through the Strait of Hormuz halted and Israel warned of an Iranian plot against Trump.
Iran says it struck US military targets in the Gulf as Khamenei was finally laid to rest in Mashhad, four months after the airstrike that killed him. The burial, long delayed, now coincides with the truce's collapse.
The UN health agency's latest figures put confirmed deaths at 600, with roughly one in three known cases proving fatal. What the numbers leave unsaid matters as much as what they show.
Ali Khamenei's marathon funeral closed with his burial in Mashhad after a week of mass processions and revenge slogans against Donald Trump. France 24 reports the succession points away from clerical rule toward a nationalistic military leadership — with the war against the United States still hot.