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Asia
Yemen
9 July 2025, 20:02 Survivor search ongoing as Houthis sink second Red Sea cargo ship in a week. The Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated Eternity C was carrying 25 crew when it was hit by rocket-propelled grenades fired from small boats on Monday, attacked again on Tuesday. The Iran-backed Houthis said they attacked the Eternity C because it was heading to Israel, and that they took an unspecified number of crew to a 'safe location'. Twenty-one of the crew were Philippines citizens. It is the second vessel the Houthis have sunk in a week, after the group on Sunday launched missiles and drones at another Liberian-flagged, Greek-operated cargo ship, Magic Seas, which they claimed 'belong[ed] to a company that violated the entry ban to the ports of occupied Palestine'. All 22 crew of Magic Seas were safely rescued by a passing merchant vessel. Since November 2023, the Houthis have targeted around 70 merchant vessels with missiles, drones and small boat attacks in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. They have now sunk four ships, seized a fifth, and killed at least seven crew members. The group has said it is acting in support of the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and have alleged that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK, which have carried out air strikes on Yemen in response. (Source: LBC - United Kingdom)
North America
United States
10.07.2025 US President Trump yesterday named Transportation Secretary Duffy as the interim administrator of the space agency NASA. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)
10 July 2025 President Trump was basking in the praise of a group of African leaders yesterday, many of them speaking a different language, when the Liberian president took to his microphone and spoke in English. “Liberia is a longtime friend of the US and we believe in your policy of making America great again,” President Boakai said at a White House meeting before advocating for US investment in his country. “We just want to thank you so much for this opportunity.”Trump was impressed and inquired where Boakai got his language skills. “Such good English,” Trump said. “Where did you learn to speak so beautifully?” “In Liberia?” Trump asked. “Yes sir,” Boakai said. 'That's very interesting,' Trump said. “I have people at this table who can't speak nearly as well.” English is Liberia's official language, though multiple Indigenous languages are spoken there as well. (Source: Times Live - South Africa / Reuters - United Kingdom)
10 July 2025 - 06:40 Yesterday, US President Trump was announcing a new 50% tariff on US copper imports and a 50% duty on goods from Brazil - a country with a balanced US trade relationship - both to start on August 1. Trump was setting off a scramble by companies to import as much copper as soon as possible from Chile and other major suppliers. He blamed the decline of the US copper industry on past administrations, saying copper was needed for semiconductors, aircraft, electric vehicle batteries and military hardware. Trump's Brazil tariff order came in a letter to Brazilian President Lula da Silva that vented anger over what he called the Witch Hunt trial of Lula's right-wing predecessor, Bolsonaro. Trump also criticised what he said were Brazil's attacks on free elections, Americans' free speech and 'secret and unlawful Censorship Orders to US Social Media platforms”. He ordered the US Trade Representative's office to launch a new “Section 301" unfair trade practices investigation that could add even more tariffs, citing 'Brazil's continued attacks on the Digital Trade Activities of American companies'. Brazil is the 15th largest US trading partner, with total two-way trade of $92bn in 2024, and a rare $7.4bn US trade surplus. Top US exports to Brazil are commercial aircraft, petroleum products and crude oil, coal and semiconductors while Brazil's top exports to the US are crude oil, coffee, semi-finished steel and pig iron. Trump's administration has been touting tariffs as a significant revenue source. Treasury secretary Bessent said Washington has taken in about $100bn so far and could collect $300bn by the end of the year. The US has taken in about $80bn annually in tariff revenue in recent years. (Source: Times Live - South Africa / Reuters - United Kingdom)
July 10, 2025 The Trump administration is undertaking a sweeping force posture review slated for release in late summer or early fall that could fundamentally reshape the U.S. military’s global footprint. In a speech at his first NATO defense ministers meeting in February, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth underscored the Trump administration’s view that Europe could no longer be a U.S. priority, saying that given the strategic realities, European NATO leaders “should take primary responsibility for defense of the continent.” In May, in Singapore, Hegseth underscored the U.S. commitment to the Indo-Pacific and called it the United States’ priority theater. Media coverage of the Pentagon’s 2025 Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance - issued this spring as a placeholder for the National Defense Strategy, which is expected to be released late this year - suggests that the department intends to fund a military buildup in the Indo-Pacific by diverting resources from other places, including Europe, and accepting greater risk in those areas. Even Whitaker, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said in May that Washington was not going to have any more patience when it came to reducing the U.S. presence in Europe. If that process results in a significant and swift reduction of U.S. forces in Europe, an outcome that administration officials have publicly suggested is possible, ’the alliance will become more vulnerable to further Russian aggression’. NATO has been overly dependent on the United States for its military capabilities since the alliance’s founding, in 1949. After the Cold War, when most European militaries substantially cut their defense budgets, this dependence only deepened. The United States also lowered its defense expenditures and reduced its forces in Europe, from about 300,000 during the Cold War to about 100,000 troops today (including 20,000 additional forces Washington deployed in 2022 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine). U.S. capabilities have remained key to NATO’s posture, plans, command and control, and force models. Washington must carefully plan any such shift, leaving U.S. forces in place long enough that Europeans can work to fill the coming gaps and ’retain their credible deterrent against Russia’. It is critical that any drawdown be closely coordinated with NATO military authorities and that ’allies agree in advance’ to cover lost capabilities. The Trump administration’s attitude toward Russia is also ’feeding NATO allies’ concerns’ about the U.S. commitment to Europe. Trump has been reluctant to define Russia as a threat, instead calling Putin a good guy and making clear his aim to normalize U.S. relations with Moscow. Senior U.S. officials have also downplayed Putin’s risk to Europe. Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, who also oversees diplomacy with Moscow, said in an interview with the conservative broadcaster Carlson in March that it was preposterous to think that Russia would ’march across Europe’ - argument meant to suggest that European assessments of the Russian threat are overblown. ’NATO allies had planned to present a Russia strategy for approval at the June summit but suspended it in fear that they could not get Trump on board”. Washington can ill afford to rapidly reduce its presence in Europe just as Russia ’is gearing up for further aggression’. The Russian military, although not without its flaws, is no longer the disorganized force it was just over three years ago. Since February 2022, Putin has transformed Russia’s economy and military to support prolonged confrontation. Russian defense spending in 2025 amounts to 7.7 percent of GDP, a 12 percent increase from 2024. Moscow’s defense industrial base is running at full capacity. Today, the U.S. Army supplements NATO forces along the alliance’s frontier with Russia in the Baltics and Romania, and it maintains permanent bases in Germany and Poland. The U.S. military also stores equipment, its Army Prepositioned Stocks, in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland to outfit army reinforcements that arrive by air. The U.S. Navy has six Aegis-class destroyers deployed at a U.S. base in Rota, Spain, to support NATO’s missile defense and take on other maritime tasks in European waters, such as maritime patrols in the Baltic Sea. The U.S. Air Force has combat and support squadrons stationed at allied bases across NATO territory, from the Incirlik Air Base in Turkey to those in Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the Azores. U.S. capabilities have remained key to NATO’s posture, plans, command and control, and force models. The United States must tell its partners exactly where any new gaps will be - long before they appear. U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance platforms are essential for NATO’s awareness of Russian activity. Their withdrawal would leave the alliance especially vulnerable to Russian hybrid attacks, such as undersea cable sabotage, jamming, or cyberattacks. With fewer U.S. intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets in place, such acts would be harder for European countries to detect or attribute. Fewer such resources would also limit early warnings about incoming attacks and hinder NATO’s ability to select, prioritize, and engage Russian targets ’in the event of conflict’. The personnel that process, analyze, and fuse this intelligence - many of them American - are too specialized to replace quickly and often in short supply. The United States provides European militaries with most of their sustainment units, including medical and logistics personnel and a large share of specialists in cyber, space, and electronic warfare. ’Europe also remains highly reliant on U.S. air-to-air refueling tankers, heavy lift aircraft, and other such strategic enablers to move forces across the continent’ and supply it with battlefield intelligence. Despite European allies’ progress on procuring the military equipment needed to meet their newly mandated responsibilities in NATO planning, they have made less headway in developing these particular capabilities at scale. ’With a pared-down U.S. presence, critical shortfalls of air and missile defenses would become even more acute, leaving allied forces and countries that are within striking distance of Russian missiles and drones particularly vulnerable’. ’Other essential capabilities - long-range precision missile systems such as HIMARS, stockpiles of precision-guided munitions, and advanced drones - could also be diminished by a premature’ U.S. withdrawal. One of NATO’s key ’deterrents’ against Russia is its credible ability to target high-value assets within the country. Losing stocks of long-range missiles would significantly erode this deterrence and increase ’Europe’s’ vulnerability ’in the event of a Russian attack’. If the United States goes forward with a rapid reduction in forces, Moscow might judge that ’European’ unity would collapse. Moscow has long sought to undermine NATO, seeing its demise as a critical step toward reasserting Russia’s position as a global power. With ’Europe’ feeling vulnerable, Moscow would ratchet up its coercive tactics to intimidate European publics and pressure their governments to be more accommodating to Moscow. Putin would assume that with a smaller U.S. presence in Europe, the West would be forced to favor de-escalation. Because a reduction in U.S. assets in Europe would lead to slower NATO response times, ’Putin might have greater confidence that Moscow could successfully seize territory, for example in a Baltic state or in Svalbard, a strategic Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic’, and then use coercion and nuclear threats to compel NATO to accept the result. The best way to prevent a future war in Europe is to make sure Moscow never dares to start one. And that will require Washington and its European partners to design a careful and coordinated handoff. (Source: Foreign Affairs - U.S.)
by Kendall-Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security. From 2015 to 2018, she was Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council; Townsend, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. From 2009 to 2017, he served as U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy; Johnston, an Associate Fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
10/07/2025 - 6:15 GMT+2 US issues sanctions against Albanese, the UN investigator probing abuses in Gaza. (Source: Euronews - based in Lyon, France)
Thursday 10 July 2025 04:17 BST Yesterday, the US resumed deliveries of certain weapons to Kyiv, including 155 mm munitions and precision-guided rockets known as GMLRS. (Source: The Independent - United Kingdom)
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