UK - Iran shut down a British power plant for four days in an unprecedented cyber attack, The Telegraph can disclose. It is thought to be the first time that hackers affiliated to the Iranian regime have succeeded in closing down such a facility in the UK, and is believed to be the most successful cyber attack of its kind. The Telegraph understands that the incident took place at the same time as a series of attacks on US water infrastructure last month, which affected 12 states and caused concern in the White House. British officials refused to be drawn on which power plant had been affected, citing security concerns, but it is understood that the facility was disabled for four days while staff fought to bring it back online. It is understood that the plant affected was relatively small and that the outage had no impact on the UK’s wider power supply or energy generation.

IRAN - Iran has threatened to strike American businesses if Donald Trump launches his “economic D-Day” campaign to force Tehran to accept a deal to end the war. Mohsen Rezai, the head of Iran’s national security council, also warned allies of the US that they would be considered enemies, and their interests harmed, if they joined the US president’s financial warfare. Mr Trump said on Wednesday that Iran would face “economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale”. On Saturday, Mr Rezai insisted that the Islamic Republic had additional leverage in the war, claiming that “we have not yet attacked any American economic interests”. He told Iranian state media: “So far, we have only targeted military bases, but if they want to impose economic sanctions on us, the US has oil and economic companies around Iran and elsewhere, and we will strike them.” If Mr Trump enacts his plan “our confrontation will be like an earthquake”, Mr Rezai added.

USA - Donald Trump is twisting the knife again in his war with Iran. Bombs and bullets may have been the US president’s first port of call, but now Trump wants to squeeze the life out of Tehran with another tactic: taking down its crippled economy. Trump said last week that he was about to launch an “economic D-Day” and “economic warfare... on an unprecedented scale” to end the conflict. “These maniacs are on the ropes and these HISTORIC MEASURES will cripple them and their ability to project terror worldwide,” he said on his Truth Social site. But if Trump thinks unleashing US financial firepower will finally turn the tide of the six-month-old conflict, he is in for a rude awakening. Iran’s mullahs have suffered economic onslaughts before and analysts say Trump is deluded to think he can succeed where others have failed.

USA - As US debt rockets, the president and allies are scrambling to prevent a financial earthquake. Trump urged the American public not to worry about the bond markets’ jitters. Asked whether Americans should fret, the president said: “No, I don’t think so. Our country is doing so well despite interest rates.” He later advocated for Bessent by claiming he has “a very natural touch for the bonds”. But if Bessent’s gambit fails, the markets could take serious fright. That would send the cost of borrowing soaring – and not just in the US. “If the US catches a cold, all of you are going to get pneumonia,” says Joseph Brusuelas, the chief economist at accounting and consultancy firm RSM. Governments, including Britain’s, will be forced either to tighten their belts or to let inflation run riot. Mortgages will get more expensive. Investment in roads, schools and hospitals will have to shrink. Taxes will have to rise. Businesses will struggle, jobs will be lost, economies will falter. Trump’s gamble, with the world’s biggest debt stockpile, is that he can keep the party going. But in trying to take on the bond vigilantes, Trump and Bessent may inadvertently have started another unwinnable war.

USA - That $40 trillion figure is $136 trillion short! The actual total national debt is more than $176 trillion. At that level, each and every federal taxpayer is liable for $1.1 million in outstanding debt. How could every media outlet across the ideological spectrum get it so wrong? Because the Treasury Department's official figure for the national debt does NOT include future promised-but-unfunded Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement benefits, according to Truth in Accounting (TIA), the Chicago-based financial analysis non-profit. Based on official documents, here's how TIA broke out that $170 trillion:

• Unfunded Medicare Benefits — $74.5 trillion


• Unfunded Social Security Benefits — $54 trillion


• Publicly-held Debt — $30.3 trillion


• Pension and Retiree Health Care Liabilities — $15.5 trillion


• Other Liabilities — $2 trillion

USA - The US government has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract worth up to $58.62 billion to produce Patriot interceptor missiles amid increased demand for interceptors driven by US and allied air-defense requirements. The Lockheed award converts a previous one-year deal worth $4.7 ​billion awarded in April into a seven-year draft agreement, creating a multiyear procurement plan​ for the interceptors from fiscal 2026 through 2032. Lockheed Martin said the new funding will allow it to triple production of PAC-3 missile segment enhancement (MSE) interceptors by the end of 2030. Jim Taiclet, Lockheed Martin’s chairman, president, and CEO, said the company was moving quickly to expand manufacturing capacity.

PANAMA - Panama Canal's operator is to cut the number of vessels passing through the key waterway due to low rainfall caused by El Niño. The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) told shipping firms on Thursday that 32 vessels a day will be able to pass through it from 15 September, compared to 36 currently. El Niño, a pattern of periodical sea surface warming, affects weather systems globally. This year is expected to be particularly strong, with its effects made more intense by climate change. The shipping industry is already dealing with severe disruptions due to the Iran war causing a large reduction in the number of vessels passing through the crucial Strait of Hormuz. The ACP said the measures were being put in place to preserve service reliability and safeguard water resources for human consumption. About 14,000 ships per year use the artificial waterway - which operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. As well as being a crucial route for global trade, it is also a key source of income for Panama, bringing in about $3 billion (£2.2 billion) a year.

USA - Dearborn, Michigan, has a massive Muslim population. Members of that community, like other groups that have come to America, brought their own agenda, ideologies, beliefs, politics, economy and religion. But there are concerns that Islam’s Sharia law, which governs not just religion for Muslims but everything in their lives, and Sharia’s demand that Islam ultimately dominate everyone, including non-Muslims, has caused alarm. In that city, a Muslim mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, recently told a Christian minister that he was “not welcome here,” and then refused to apologize for attacking the resident. “America, we have lost this city. This is a city that is no longer up under American laws; we are up under Sharia law. We will not have it anymore,” Lorenzo Sewell, the pastor of 180 Church, said. “Enough is enough.” It followed several other protests in Dearborn concerning its move to Sharia influences, which are radically Islamic and anti-Christian.

GERMANY - To many voters alarmed by mass migration, this man is a charismatic messiah. He's also a pro-Russian on the verge of becoming the first far-Right nationalist to run a state government since the Nazis... So is this the most dangerous man in Germany?

USA - We all knew that this was coming. For ages, people like me have been ranting that we would be facing a financial nightmare if we didn’t get the national debt under control. Of course most of the population didn’t want to listen, and they just kept sending big spenders back to Washington. Now we are 40 trillion dollars in debt and we are spending well over a trillion dollars a year just in interest on that debt. Nobody can deny that we have reached a stage where our debt spiral is totally out of control. The federal budget deficit for the month of July was 432 billion dollars. Interest on the national debt for the month of July was 118 billion dollars.

USA - This epic bond market rout shows investors are losing confidence in countries’ ability to repay their debts. I’m not going to dwell unduly on the causes beyond pointing out the two most obvious – the gathering backlash against globalisation and the related outbreak of heightened geopolitical instability. Both these triggers show every sign of spiralling out of control. The upshot is a bond market rout of epic and global proportions, made all the worse in recent weeks by the inflationary pressures resulting from an inability to resolve the Gulf conflict and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

AUSTRALIA - Japan will conduct tests of hypersonic missiles and other projectiles on Australian soil, the two countries’ defense ministers said yesterday as they deepened military cooperation, including with a codeveloped laser system. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles said alongside his Japanese counterpart, Shinjiro Koizumi, in Canberra that the deal would see a “better and enhanced arrangement between Australia and Japan for Japan’s use of our missile ranges over the course of the next decade.” “We have spoken previously about Australia being able to provide strategic depth to Japan across a range of areas, but one of them is the use of our ranges,” Marles said.

CHINA - Russia and China are both opposed to Japan’s accelerating militarization and growing debate over acquiring nuclear weapons, Beijing’s ambassador to Moscow, Zhang Hanhui, has said, warning that Tokyo’s policies could trigger a new arms race. The envoy warned that if Tokyo decides to create its own nuclear weapons, the strategic balance in Northeast Asia will be completely disrupted, and “a nuclear arms race in the region could erupt at any moment”. “If Japan’s right-wing forces continue to play with fire on nuclear policy, the Japanese will ultimately once again find themselves in the dock of history,” Zhang added.

CHINA - Just nine months ago, Antelope Reef was nothing more than a coral sandbar in the South China Sea. Nearly two dozen Chinese dredgers moved in soon after. By March, satellite images showed piers, pontoons, a helipad and a number of buildings, built on sand raised from the seabed and held in place by reinforced sea walls. Now, new images reveal that China has completed the first phase of construction with a runway taking shape, and two concrete plants built to feed Beijing’s insatiable appetite for expansion. It has done so at lightning pace. Beijing says this western outpost of the Paracel Islands archipelago will be used for weather forecasting and scientific research. More likely is that it will become a military base. AMTI reported signs of a new landing strip taking form on the island’s northwestern edge – the only part of the island capable of hosting a 10,000-foot runway. That would be enough to accommodate all of China’s advanced fighter jets, as well as their nuclear-capable H-6 bombers.

UK - Britain is braced for a wet and stormy autumn because of what could be the strongest El Niño in a century. The Met Office said the “unprecedented” oceanic heatwave would lead to storms and rain between October and December. El Niño is a powerful natural climate phenomenon that pushes up global temperatures. The natural warming of sea temperatures is forecast to reach more than 3C in the coming months, making this year’s weather event “the largest since the 19th century”, according to the Met Office. US scientists confirmed in June that El Niño conditions were under way in the tropical Pacific following a sharp rise in sea-surface temperatures. He told The Telegraph: “The weather map in November is looking wet and stormy on average. Mild, wet and stormy – early winter will be when El Niño peaks.” The weather event means 2027 is forecast to be the warmest year on record. “We should be clear that this is an unprecedented event,” Professor Scaife said. “I have never seen an El Niño signal this intense in our forecasts.”