This Week in the World Affairs Brief
THE AGE OF ABUNDANCE IS NEARLY OVER
This week’s title comes from a substack essay by “Bianka” of “waronomics” entitled, “The Age of Abundance is Over.” She makes the point that with today’s AI and robotic-driven global manufacturing, coupled with “just in time” replenishment of stockpiles, rather than warehousing, the world is being set up for a devastating economic collapse when the global supply chain breaks down from unreliable electricity and disruptions to the fragile worldwide trade and transportation network. Although she has precious little understanding of the resilience of peacetime markets, her predictions will mostly come true from another factor she doesn’t understand—the role war will play in the near future. Ultimately she is wrong about it being already “over” but it is getting close to being over, in part because of Trump’s continuing mishandling of the unnecessary Iran war, which is impacting oil, fertilizer, and LNG shipments around the world. Think what would happen with a war with China which supplies about 80% of key industrial and consumer goods to the West. Hardly anything we consume in the US doesn’t have some Chinese components which will cease to flow when WWIII begins. Bianka’s essay is a good reminder to us all about the importance of preparing against the inevitable and severe shortages to come. To receive a free, one-time copy of the Brief, along with options on how to subscribe, click on Request a sample on the left
Also:
- Trump’s Iran War Drags On
- The War Against RFK Jr. and the MAHA Vaccine Movement
Trump's order to hold fire was given several hours after an Omani delegation arrived in Tehran Friday for talks on a new arrangement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Two regional sources with knowledge of the negotiations said progress has been made in the talks and that an agreement between Oman and Iran could be reached over the weekend.
More color:
Trump's decision reflects both his willingness to provide more space for diplomacy and a recognition that — short of a return to major combat operations — the current level of U.S. strikes has reached the limit of its effectiveness.
If Trump orders a return to strikes, the U.S. military can mobilize on relatively short notice.
The U.S. military is still preparing plans for a possible return to major combat operations, but Trump hasn't given orders to move in that direction, the sources said.
For the celebration, we have opened all the content of our “America's 250th” history and civics hub—a site we created for this special milestone. Free access will remain until July 31 for nonsubscribers, so take the opportunity to share it with those in your circle.
every inhabited continent is running below its recent average for area burned this year, with Africa, the Americas, and Europe at record lows.
Those are remarkable statistics. They don't mean wildfires have disappeared or that smoke isn't a serious public health concern. They simply demonstrate that the broader wildfire picture is very different from the one often portrayed in daily news reports.
Everything from roads to bridges to tunnel entrances have also be restored at surprising speeds, which also suggests the US bombings have had a rallying effect among civic workers and the broader population in support of the nation and the government.
WSJ offers but one example as follows: "Near Kangavar, in western Iran, satellite imagery from Planet Labs in March showed two tunnel entrances and an access road damaged by airstrikes aimed at blocking access to an Iranian missile base. Within weeks, imagery from Airbus revealed a neatly paved road leading to freshly excavated entrances."
These types of defense tech gatherings occur semi-frequently, are somewhat secretive, and typically involve American and European defense companies demonstrating new weapons systems, particularly in the realm of drone warfare. These events also sometimes involve the Ukrainians showing off their own advancing capabilities to international customers.
NBC News has noted, "Wildberries, whose banking arm had sanctions imposed on it by the European Union this week over its financial contribution to the Russian budget, plays a central role in Russia’s consumer economy."
"Its targeting by Ukraine appears to be part of Kyiv’s attempts to ensure ordinary Russians feel the impact of the war which has raged on Ukrainian territory for more than four years," the report adds.
Institutions built to prevent atrocities eventually face the question of what they actually protect. For the United Nations, voting patterns, internal investigations and its own decisions this year no longer support the fiction of neutrality. An UNRWA school in Gaza sat above a Hamas tunnel shaft and three anti-tank positions, and its own principal was on the payroll of both institutions at once - a fact that American investigators, not the UN, brought to light.
Institutions built to prevent atrocities eventually face the question of what they actually protect. For the United Nations, voting patterns, internal investigations and its own decisions this year no longer support the fiction of neutrality. An UNRWA school in Gaza sat above a Hamas tunnel shaft and three anti-tank positions, and its own principal was on the payroll of both institutions at once - a fact that American investigators, not the UN, brought to light.
The United States has sanctioned a senior UK-based Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB) official alongside six other individuals and entities that it said provided material support to terrorist group Hamas.
There you have it. The Black Nutritionist herself liberates epigenetic wisdom stolen from her people’s genome by the colonizers: you should literally eat whatever you want all the time because nothing matters and ‘broccoli is the same as a Three Musketeers GMO bar because everything is a social construction.
It’s a very postmodern take on diet.
Sophie Cunningham, one of the WNBA’s biggest stars, is standing up to protect women’s sports and is saying she opposes allowing men who identify as women to play in women’s sports.
The House rejected an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Tuesday that would codify President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender-identifying people from military service.
Four Republicans joined Democrats to kill the amendment, sponsored by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), by a slim margin of 212-217. The four Republicans who voted with Democrats are Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) — who both represents districts that voted for Kamala Harris — and Reps. James Moylan from Guam and Kimberlyn King-Hinds from the Northern Mariana Islands.
The Kremlin will no doubt take the ongoing threat and targeting of Wildberries' hubs very seriously. Reuters has reviewed that "Together with smaller rivals, Wildberries and Ozon sell goods and services worth the equivalent of 8.5% of Russia's gross domestic product. They provide jobs for 4 million people, or more than 5% of the country's workforce."
Lavrov underscored in the meeting "the unacceptability of further arming" Ukraine and accused European countries of pursuing Russia's "strategic defeat."
The Kremlin has of late warned the West of its growing direct involvement in targeting Russian energy sits as part of Ukraine's long-range drone operations, which have unleashed serious damage on oil production and export infrastructure.
For his part, Trump downplayed the blockade, claiming it hasn’t started yet. “So far, it hasn’t happened, might happen, but we take care of things,” Trump told reporters while meeting with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun in the Oval Office.
The administration accused 60 trading partners of failing to enforce bans on forced labor. It comes as a global 10 percent tariff is set to expire.
More Tanker Attacks: Iran-backed Houthi militants said they targeted two Saudi Arabian tankers in the Red Sea
Trump ultimatum: Trump vowed the US will strike an Iranian bridge or power plant after every Iranian attack on shipping.
Iran responds: The IRGC threatened to hit Gulf energy infrastructure if Iranian infrastructure is attacked, saying it will cut off electricity among US allies.
Latest Gulf missile attacks: Iran claimed attacks on US-linked targets in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan.
Nuclear tensions: Iran denied nuclear activity at Pickaxe Mountain, calling US claims a 'fabricated pretext' for attack.
Oil climbs: Renewed Gulf attacks and shipping threats continued to lift oil prices.
officially, nobody knows anything yet. Siad's lawyer told Reuters that "Daniel Siad never stopped proclaiming his innocence" - and that her client died of a heart attack. To AFP, she was more careful, saying that if it was a heart attack, the strain and anxiety of the case will have played its part. The autopsy, presumably, will referee. And if that first statement sounds familiar, it should: when Jean-Luc Brunel was found dead in 2022, his lawyers announced that "Jean-Luc Brunel never stopped declaring his innocence." The French defense bar evidently keeps the line on file.
Dramatic footage posted on X shows what appears to be a Russian Geran-4 jet-powered, one-way attack drone striking a passenger train in Ukraine.
If authenticated, the footage shows just how rapidly drone warfare is evolving beyond conventional two-stroke power plants toward miniature turbojets that sharply increase speed, compress warning and response times, potentially render many existing small-drone interceptors ineffective, and accelerate the overall tempo of combat across modern battlefields.
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi will become Ukraine’s new commander-in-chief, replacing Oleksandr Syrsky. The move follows days of protests and speculation over a shake-up in the country’s military leadership.
They show CBP flagged Daszak as "an extremely high person of interest," built out a formal targeting event, and then stood down two days before his flight at the request of the FBI's New York Field Office.
The White House stated in an email to The Epoch Times that the New Jersey error highlights the need to pass the SAVE America Act, which Republicans say is necessary to ensure election integrity.
‘If those states want that money, they need to provide documentation that these payments are legitimate,’ the health secretary said.
The Wall Street Journal reports that defense giant Lockheed Martin is planning a low-cost version of the Patriot interceptor missile that will cost less than half as much as the current version.
The PAC-3 Adapted Capability Effector will cost less than half the price of Lockheed's PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement interceptor, which currently costs $4 million per round.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin has stated that more than 400 UAVs were launched toward Moscow and its suburbs overnight in one of the largest single raids since the war's start.
Yemen's Houthi rebels have announced they are imposing a new maritime embargo against Saudi Arabia in response for a recent attack on Sanaa Airport, and after years of the kingdom leading a blockade of Houthi-controlled Yemeni ports.
The interception of a Chinese vessel accused of illegal fishing highlights the technical lengths many use to remain undetected across millions of square kilometres of open ocean.
Tuvalu Police operating on a Sea Shepherd patrol boat boarded and arrested a Chinese longliner, the Lu Rong Yuan Yu 138, on July 9 for allegedly illegally operating within the small South Pacific nation's waters.
Russia overnight and into early Sunday morning unleashed what Ukrainian officials have described as its largest barrage of ballistic missiles focused on Kiev of the war.
Among the key targets was a large complex owned and operated by UKRTAC, a Ukrainian producer of military gear and personal protective equipment. Its manufacturing facilities and warehouses in the capital were destroyed in the assault.
Fast-forward to early 2026, and the battlefield dynamics had shifted dramatically. Iran’s precision strikes began threading through advanced air defenses, hitting high-value targets across the Gulf with surprising accuracy. Intelligence analysts pointed to one key factor: Iran had ditched GPS for China’s Beidou satellite navigation system.
That move followed an Axios report that said the Trump administration had notified Israel it was deploying additional aerial assets to the region, signaling the US military could expand strikes on Iran as soon as this weekend.
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