The UK economy is showing signs of slowing, but calling the latest figures an outright economic slump would be misleading. Britain’s GDP grew by 0.4% in the second quarter of 2026, down from 0.6% in the first quarter. That is a slowdown, but it still means the economy expanded and the UK actually recorded the…
At least 13 people have died in the Philippines after nine consecutive days of heavy rain triggered flash floods, landslides and other accidents across the northern part of the country. Eight people were also reported missing, while more than half a million people across 33 provinces had been affected in the initial assessment. But the…
The reported Houthi ground offensive around Mokha and north towards Al-Khawkhah is significant for a reason that goes beyond Yemen’s civil war: control of this coastline could give the Houthis greater leverage over one of the world’s most important maritime corridors. Recent reporting confirms that Houthi attacks on Mokha have intensified, including repeated missile and…
Erling Haaland has unexpectedly become part of a major drug seizure in Ecuador — not because of anything he did, but because traffickers allegedly used the Manchester City and Norway star’s image to mark packages in a shipment of cocaine. Ecuadorian police seized 469 kilograms of cocaine packed into 370 packages after stopping a truck…
The latest US-Iran confrontation over the Strait of Hormuz is becoming a battle not only over a strategic waterway, but over who gets to define what “control” actually means. President Donald Trump says the United States has “total control” of the Strait, declaring that the American naval presence is a “wall of steel” and suggesting…
The Democratic Republic of Congo’s latest Ebola outbreak has crossed a grim milestone: more than 2,000 people have died, with health authorities reporting 4,381 confirmed cases and 2,011 deaths. The outbreak, declared less than three months ago, is now being described as the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record. But the most alarming part is not…
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is facing one of the most serious challenges of his presidency after UEFA, CONCACAF and the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) jointly accused him of “deception” and a breach of trust over a controversial plan involving the commercialization of the World Cup. But despite the dramatic language, this is not yet a…
Syria has sentenced former President Bashar al-Assad to death in absentia, alongside his brother Maher, while his cousin and former Daraa security chief Atef Najib also received a death sentence. The ruling is a landmark moment for a country still dealing with the consequences of the 2011 uprising and the war that followed. But the…
Reports of a missile attack on a Saudi-linked commercial vessel in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, reportedly killing three crew members, two Pakistanis and one Indonesian, are the latest warning that the Red Sea shipping crisis is becoming harder for commercial operators to ignore. The details of the reported incident are still developing, and there has…
Mark Zuckerberg is making a big bet on an AI future where superintelligence is not controlled by a handful of governments or technology companies, but is placed directly in the hands of ordinary people. In a new vision for Meta, Zuckerberg argues that advanced AI should focus on individual empowerment, invention and a balance of…
