GERMANY - Saying no to Donald Trump can be a dangerous game, as Sir Keir Starmer is finding out. But Germany is no longer mincing its words, with the US president’s demand for help from NATO allies in Iran given short shrift by Berlin. “This war has nothing to do with NATO,” Friedrich Merz’s spokesman declared emphatically to Mr Trump’s request for allies to secure the Strait of Hormuz. “It is not NATO’s war.” “It is not our war; we did not start it,” added Boris Pistorius, the German defence minister, later. “What does Donald Trump expect from a handful or two handfuls of European frigates to achieve there in the Strait of Hormuz, which the powerful American navy cannot manage alone?” he asked. In rare German criticism of Israel, Mr Merz accused it and the US of not having a plan to end the war. “With each day of war, more questions arise,” he said. “Let me make this very clear once again: Germany ⁠is ⁠not part of this war, and we do not wish to become one.”

MIDDLE EAST - When Mojtaba Khamenei released his first statement after succeeding his slain father, the Iranian supreme leader praised the “brave and faithful” Houthis of Yemen, one of two militias in Iran’s axis of resistance that have yet to intervene in the Middle East war. With the Strait of Hormuz blocked, the Strait of Mandeb on the Red Sea remains the only option for oil transit in the region. Iran’s chokehold on the region’s oil supplies has restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, one of two maritime arteries through which a third of the world’s seaborne oil passes. The other one, the Strait of Mandeb on the Red Sea, remains open, with dozens of tankers amassing off Saudi Arabia’s coast to load oil diverted from the east. The Houthis only have to launch a few missiles and drones to complete Tehran’s grip on the region’s oil. “They are waiting for a sign from Iran,” Ahmed Nagi, the senior Yemen analyst with the International Crisis Group, said. “I think it’s a calculated choice. At the end of the day the Houthis view this as an escalation against not Iran alone but the entire axis. If Iran is weakened, they will be the next target.”

USA - President Trump has suggested that the US could intervene in Cuba “very soon” after American negotiators demanded the resignation of the communist island’s president, according to reports, and protests broke out. In Moron, a city about 250 miles from Havana, anti-government demonstrators set fire to a Communist Party office and chanted: “Libertad! Libertad!” Many Cubans have taken to banging pots at sundown. At the White House on Monday night, Trump said: “I do believe I will be having the honour of taking Cuba.” He added: “Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it. They’re a very weakened nation right now.”

USA - The war in Iran has emphatically demonstrated American military might on the world stage. There is only one superpower in the world today, and it isn’t headquartered in Moscow, Beijing or London. Alongside Israel, the United States has decimated much of Iran’s defences, air force, navy, ballistic missile sites, nuclear infrastructure, and its political leadership. All in the space of just three weeks. The Iran war has also sharply exposed simmering deep-seated tensions in the transatlantic alliance, as well as the open cowardice, petulance and weakness of European leaders, including among its increasingly diminished major powers – principally the UK, France and Germany, as well as the European Union, representing 27 member states.

UK - The Iran conflict will trigger the biggest spike in food prices since the invasion of Ukraine, the president of the National Farmers’ Union has claimed. His warning comes as ministers will promise for the first time to hold food production at present levels, as part of a government blueprint for land use this week. Tom Bradshaw told The Times that while food inflation was unlikely to surpass the 19.1 per cent rise in the year to March 2023, the conflict had triggered an “inflationary wave” that would probably peak in the autumn. He also said that profiteering by fuel and fertiliser suppliers may also be worsening inflation. By targeting tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian forces have disrupted trade in two of the biggest agricultural necessities: oil and fertiliser. Before the US and Israel bombed the Islamic Republic, a fifth of the world’s seaborne trade in oil and gas flowed through the strait, along with a third of that in fertiliser, which is made from gas.

ISRAEL - The IAF has carried out over 400 waves of airstrikes across Iran since the war began. Israel will continue its campaign against Iran for at least three more weeks, IDF Spokesperson Brigadier General Effie Defrin told CNN on Sunday. “We have thousands of targets ahead,” Defrin said. “We are ready, in coordination with our US allies, with plans through at least the Jewish holiday of Passover, about three weeks from now." "We have deeper plans for even three weeks beyond that,” Defrin added. The IDF Spokesperson's statement came as US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said he expects US operations against Iran to end within "the next few weeks."

MIDDLE EAST - The central question now confronting Washington and Jerusalem is no longer whether Iran can be weakened militarily. It is whether the United States and Israel are prepared for what may come next: a prolonged war of attrition with the Iranian revolutionary regime. How this war unfolds and how long it lasts will depend on the war aims of the United States and Israel. Is the ultimate objective regime collapse and the possibility of positive political change in Tehran? Is the goal to weaken the regime enough to create conditions for a future uprising by the Iranian people? Or is the aim more limited, degrading Iran’s nuclear and missile programs sufficiently for the president to declare victory and end the war? Where those objectives land will determine whether this conflict lasts weeks, months, or far longer.

MIDDLE EAST - Strengthening regional stability in the Middle East is based on moderate Sunni-majority states and Israel's national interests. One of the most notable phenomena of the war against Iran is the renewed rivalry and struggle between Shi’ites and Sunnis in the Middle East. What is unfolding before our eyes is not only a blow to the Shi’ite regime in Iran, but something much broader, which likely constitutes a turning point regarding the place of Shi’ites in the Arab world, and perhaps in the Muslim world more generally.

SAUDI ARABIA - Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, has been advising US President Donald Trump to “keep hitting the Iranians hard,” White House officials told the New York Times in a report published on Sunday. This follows the same advice of the late Saudi King Abdullah, who had reportedly told Washington repeatedly to “cut off the head of the snake.”

CHINA - Beijing is directly mediating a ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan, neighboring countries that have been engaged in intense fighting since February, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said. Foreign Minister Wang Yi has had phone conversations with his Afghan and Pakistani counterparts during the past week, the ministry’s spokesperson Lin Jian said in an X post on Monday. Making it clear that China will continue to facilitate reconciliation and ease tensions between the neighboring countries, the spokesperson said, “China hopes Afghanistan and Pakistan will remain calm and exercise restraint, engage face to face ASAP, achieve a ceasefire at the earliest opportunity, and resolve differences and disputes through dialogue.”

CUBA - US President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric against Cuba on Monday, saying he expected to have the "honor" of "taking Cuba in some form" and that "I can do anything I want" with the neighboring country. The threatening statements come even as Cuba and the United States have opened talks aimed at improving their largely adverse relations, which have reached one of their most contentious moments in the 67 years since Fidel Castro overthrew what had been a close US ally. "I do believe I'll be ... having the honor of taking Cuba. That's a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form," Trump told reporters as the island faces an unprecedented economic crisis, exacerbated by an oil blockade the US imposed after capturing former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. "I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth," Trump told reporters at a signing event in the Oval Office.

UK - The eyes of the world are rightly focused on the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf, its malign impact on the price of oil and gas and the destructive consequences for both businesses and consumers. Yet away from the current oil shock and the flames engulfing the Middle East is another firestorm which, although largely hidden, could prove as devastating as the great financial crisis (GFC) of 2008 when the world’s banking system had to be rescued by Western governments. Now, once again, banks and the fund managers looking after our pensions and savings are in a state of panic.

MIDDLE EAST - The American collective memory is scarred by Persian misadventures. Voters recall the charred remains of helicopters in the desert during the 1979 hostage rescue shambles; they remember the IEDs of Iraq and the 'forever war' of Afghanistan. The moment the first US helicopter clips a rotor, or a warship is scuttled by a mine, and American lives are lost by the dozen, public support will shrivel. For a President who promised to bring troops home, placing boots on Iranian soil is a hard sell that could cost him the House and the Senate.

USA - A top advisor to Donald Trump admits he is worried about Israel "contemplating using a nuclear weapon" in the Middle East conflict. David Sacks, the czar for artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency in the Trump administration, warned that if Israel came under concerted attack it could use the nuclear option. He has spoken about the risks of an “escalatory approach” in the conflict with Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. “Israel could get seriously destroyed,” he said, before adding: “And then you have to worry about Israel escalating the war by contemplating using a nuclear weapon.” Israel and the United States have been pummelling Iran but despite the triumphalist tone from Trump, there does not appear to be any clear end in sight.

CHINA - China's most dangerous technology has already been deployed, and you're likely already within the system's database, according to a new book. Social media giant TikTok and AI behemoth DeepSeek - both Chinese-made applications - are 'Trojan Horses' employed by the Chinese Communist Party to scrape up sensitive data on Americans, writes Wynton Hall in his forthcoming book 'Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI.' The AI and social media companies track users' keystrokes, IP addresses, habits, browser history and more - a threat that could help China build profiles on US citizens for things like espionage, influence campaigns, or surveillance.