.
Europe
Hungary
21.07.2025 Hungary and Serbia will jointly build a new oil pipeline aimed at safeguarding affordable energy supplies amid ongoing EU efforts to reduce dependence on Russian energy, Hungarian Foreign Minister Szijjártó announced today. The pipeline, with an expected annual capacity of 4-5 million tons, is planned to become operational by 2027. Hungary will construct 180 kilometers of the new infrastructure as part of the project. 'Brussels wants to cut us off from Russian oil and gas, forcing Hungarian families to pay two to four times more. We won’t allow that,” Szijjártó told in Budapest. “We are building new sources, not shutting them down.” According to the minister, the pipeline will help protect Hungary’s long-standing utility cost reduction program and shield families from energy price hikes driven by EU policies. Budapest has repeatedly warned that ending access to Russian energy would harm its economy and raise household costs, as over 80% of Hungary’s oil imports currently flow through the Druzhba pipeline. In 2023, Hungary and Serbia also launched joint investments in gas infrastructure, including a new interconnector aimed at enhancing regional energy security. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)
Belgium
Monday, 21 July 2025 King Philippe of Belgium has called the humanitarian situation in Gaza 'a disgrace to humanity,” although he did not specifically mention Israel. “I join everyone who denounces the serious humanitarian abuses in Gaza, where innocent civilians, trapped in their enclave, are starving and succumbing to bombs,' the King said in his annual speech ahead of Belgium’s national day. He also called for an immediate end to the 'unbearable crisis.' King Philippe spoke of a meeting he had with a Palestinian and an Israeli father who had both lost a child. He said, “They have put aside their feelings of revenge and chosen to transform their suffering into a message of peace.” The Flemish Forum of Jewish Organisations had criticism about the speech. They do not understand why King Philippe did not also mention the terrorist attack of October 2023 and the hostages who are still held in Gaza. (Source: Royal Central - United Kingdom)
Poland
21.07.2025 The largest conventional oil field in Poland has been discovered in the Baltic Sea, six kilometers from the northwestern Polish port of Swinoujscie, the Canadian firm Central European Petroleum announced today. The Wolin East field is estimated to contain 22 million tons of recoverable hydrocarbons and 5 billion cubic meters of commercial-grade natural gas. Central European Petroleum described it as one of the biggest in Europe. Natural gas deposits within the Wolin concession could be equivalent to more than 300 million barrels of oil. Drilling is being carried out by the US firm Noble Corporation, while Zenith Energy, a well engineering consultancy and project management company, announced earlier this year that the Wolin East 1 well had been successfully delivered to Central European Petroleum. The country imports much of its gas as liquefied natural gas from the Middle East and the US via new terminals in Gdansk and Swinoujscie, as well as natural gas delivered via pipeline from Norway. This Baltic Sea discovery is expected to reduce Poland’s reliance on foreign energy resources and could also affect the nearby German energy market. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)
Romania
July 21, 2025 Romania has signed a framework agreement to buy Israeli-made Shorad-Vshorad anti-aircraft systems for $2.3 bln the Romanian defence ministry said today. The framework agreement with the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems - maker with U.S. backing of Israel’s Iron Dome defence system - provides for the signing of three further contracts, through which six integrated anti-aircraft systems will be acquired. The contracts will also cover training, ammunition and logistical support. The framework agreement will run for seven years, with the first two Vshorad systems to be delivered within three years of the signing of the first of the three further contracts, the ministry said. (Source: Reuters - United Kingdom)
Russia
21 July 2025 In Finland, CheckFirst researchers work to combat online disinformation. They tracked down several versions of the highly secretive Russian signals intelligence (SIGINT) unit Center 16 challenge coins issued by the Russian government, found on a variety of publicly available websites, as well as on the websites of Russian challenge coin manufacturers, such as GosZnak, SpetsZnak, or Breget. Based on this OSINT methodology, CheckFirst researchers were able to identify 10 distinct directorates within Center 16, which specialize on various aspects of defensive and offensive cyber espionage. Previously only a single Center 16 directorate had been identified in the unclassified domain. By examining geographic indicators found on several of challenge coins, such as maps or coordinates, CheckFirst researchers were able to partly map out the geographic structure of Center 16, locating nearly a dozen interception facilities throughout Russia. (Source: intelNews – U.S.)
by Fitsanakis
The report
Ukraine
July 21, 2025, Monday // 08:54 Aerial assault began around 11:40 p.m. on July 20, when air defense systems were activated in Kyiv Oblast. By 12:24 a.m. on July 21, authorities issued a countrywide air-raid warning as the threat of missiles extended to all of Ukraine. A second national alert followed at 3 a.m. as Russian MiG-31K aircraft, capable of carrying Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, were detected in the air. The Ukrainian Air Force also confirmed launches of Kalibr cruise missiles from the Black Sea and reported that Tu-95 strategic bombers had taken off from Russia's Murmansk Oblast. Between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., Russia carried out a massive combined aerial assault on Kyiv and other regions across Ukraine, deploying attack drones alongside cruise and ballistic missiles. The overnight strikes triggered widespread damage. Fires were recorded in four city districts: Darnytskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, Dniprovskyi, and Solomianskyi. In the western region of Ivano-Frankivsk, Russia used multiple types of missiles and Shahed drones, damaging civilian infrastructure across at least three villages within the Ivano-Frankivsk hromada. In Dnipropetrovsk Oblast Russian forces struck several communities in the Nikopol district - Nikopol, Marhanets, and Chervonohryhorivka hromadas - using FPV drones and artillery. The strikes damaged infrastructure. Another drone strike hit the Mezhova hromada in Synelnykove district, again targeting infrastructure. Ukrainian air defenses shot down seven Russian drones over the region. This renewed wave of strikes adds to the recent pattern of Russian attacks targeting cities far from the frontline. (Source: Novinite - Bulgaria)
Asia
Gaza
July 21 2025 08:33:17 Gaza's civil defense agency said Israeli forces opened fire on crowds of Palestinians trying to collect humanitarian aid in the war-torn Palestinian territory on Sunday. The U.N. World Food Programme said its 25-truck convoy carrying food aid "encountered massive crowds of hungry civilians which came under gunfire' near Gaza City, soon after it crossed from Israel and cleared checkpoints. Eighty were killed as truckloads of aid arrived in the north. Nine others were reported shot near an aid point close to Rafah in the south, where dozens of people lost their lives just 24 hours earlier. Four were killed near another aid site in Khan Yunis, also in the south. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (U.N. OCHA) agency, 87.8 percent of Gaza is now under displacement orders or within Israeli militarized zones, leaving "2.1 million civilians squeezed into a fragmented 12 per cent of the Strip, where essential services have collapsed." Israel yesterday withdrew the residency permit of head of the OCHA office in Israel, Whittall, who has repeatedly condemned the humanitarian conditions in Gaza. Israeli Foreign Minister Saar, in a post to X, accused him of spreading lies about the war in Gaza. (Source: Hurriyet Daily News - Turkey)
Iran
Jul 21, 2025 Even moderates in Tehran have stopped trusting Western promises. In the contemporary era, there have been at least four major betrayals by the United States that continue to underscore Iran’s fear of foreign duplicity. So, what should the West expect now? It doesn’t matter who rules Iran. The leadership - regardless of name or face, whether wearing a crown, a turban, or a tie - shares a foundational belief: the West cannot be trusted to keep its word, honor its deals, or respect Iranian sovereignty. This doesn’t mean Iran is inflexible or incapable of negotiation. But its starting point is not trust, it’s caution. (Source: Responsible Statecraft - U.S. )
by Khatami, a member of the National Committee of Etehad-e Mellat, a leading reformist party in Iran, where he chairs its Foreign Policy Committee. He holds an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Tehran and focuses on U.S.–Iran relations. He has written in Persian and co-authored three books on regional politics.
Japan
July 21, 2025 - 10:08:11 Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s ruling coalition failed today to secure a majority in the 248-seat upper house in a crucial parliamentary election, NHK public television said. The loss is another blow to Ishiba’s coalition - Ishiba’s Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, the Buddhist-backed Komeito - making it a minority in both houses following its October defeat in the lower house election, and worsening Japan’s political instability. Soaring prices, lagging incomes and burdensome social security payments are the top issues for frustrated, cash-strapped voters. Stricter measures targeting foreign residents and visitors also emerged as a key issue, with a surging right-wing populist party leading the campaign. US President Trump has added to the pressure, complaining about a lack of progress in trade negotiations and the lack of sales of US autos and American-grown rice to Japan despite a shortfall in domestic stocks of the grain. A 25 percent tariff due to take effect Aug. 1 has been another blow for Ishiba. It was the first time the LDP has lost a majority in both houses of parliament since the party’s foundation in 1955. (Source: The Korea Herald - South Korea)
Syria
Monday), July 21 2025 08:45:19 Calm returned to southern Syria's Sweida province on Sunday, after a week of sectarian violence between Druze fighters and rival groups. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave an updated toll late Sunday of 1,120 killed since the violence erupted a week ago, including 427 Druze fighters and 298 civilians from the minority group, as well as 354 government security personnel and 21 Sunni Bedouin. The Observatory had said Druze fighters retook control of the city on Saturday evening. Residents of Sweida city number at about 150,000. Government security forces had blocked roads leading to the province in order to prevent tribal fighters from going there. The United Nations migration agency said more than 128,000 people in Sweida province have been displaced by the violence. Israel had bombed government forces in both Sweida and Damascus earlier in the week. (Source: Hurriyet Daily News - Turkey)
North America
United States
Mon, July 21, 2025 Deep-sea mining. The leader of one of the most aggressive seabed mining startups spent years invoking global warming to spark interest in extracting avocado-sized rocks rich in electric-vehicle battery metals from the bottom of the ocean. We want to help the world transition away from fossil fuels with the smallest possible climate change and environmental impact, Barron, the Australian chief executive officer of a company then known as DeepGreen, told a 2019 meeting of the United Nations-affiliated International Seabed Authority (ISA), which for a decade has been debating regulations to allow the mining of untouched, biodiverse deep-sea ecosystems in global waters. More than a thousand miles southwest of Mexico on a September morning in 2022, a yellow, 80-metric-ton machine slowly rumbled across the seabed on tank-like treads, a plume of sediment billowing behind. During a two-month test for Barron’s firm, renamed as The Metals Company (TMC), the 38-foot-long prototype vacuumed up 3,000 metric tons of nodules, sending them through a tube to a specialized surface vessel called the Hidden Gem. TMC hailed the trial as a success. Allseas, a Dutch-owned, Swiss-registered offshore engineering and construction company, developed the technology, the world’s only working prototype of a nodule mining system. The company supplies the apparatus to TMC and is its second-largest shareholder. To meet TMC’s production targets, it must now build a much bigger version capable of harvesting nodules nearly around the clock under crushing pressure far from shore. TMC would help ensure the nation's energy security and industrial competitiveness for generations, Barron said before a congressional committee in Washington, DC., earlier this year. TMC had successfully tapped into the US president’s pursuit of China-free metals, expressed as a desire for dominion over Canada and Greenland. The global seabed, TMC repeatedly emphasized as it lobbied politicians and the White House, holds the planet’s largest estimated reserves of minerals like cobalt and nickel in the form of black rocks called polymetallic nodules. These cover the Pacific Ocean floor by the billions. Trump cleared the way for a race to the abyss to extract nodules, even though seabed mining technology remains under development and commercially unproven. In April, President Trump issued an executive order expediting US licensing of seabed mining, departing from international law to unleash what the administration called a ’gold rush’ to ’counter China’s growing influence.’ The country is set to conduct ISA-sanctioned tests of two seabed mining machines in the Pacific over the next year. Within days of Trump's order, Canadian-registered TMC’s US subsidiary filed the world’s first application to mine the seabed in international waters, including an area it licenses from the ISA. An $85 million investment from a leading Korean metals processor soon followed. Nasdaq-listed TMC’s shares, which have periodically languished below a dollar, hit a 52-week high of $8.19 on Thursday. A Silicon Valley startup called Impossible Metals, meanwhile, has applied for a license to explore and possibly mine nodules in US waters off American Samoa, with an aim to raise $1 billion. Then on July 14, a top executive at US defense giant Lockheed Martin told the Financial Times the company is in talks to give seabed miners access to international areas of the Pacific it licenses from the US. At the ISA’s annual meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, delegates today decried Trump’s move, with China’s representative denouncing the US for unilateralist hegemonic acts and attempting to replace the global standards with US standards. China already dominates the critical minerals supply chain on land. 97% of global nickel ore processing capacity lies outside of North America. China processes 74% of the world’s cobalt ore, according to a 2024 report from the Wilson Center. China also maintains more than 80% of the capacity for refining those metals into advanced EV battery materials. Delegates in Kingston ordered a report on ISA-licensed seabed miners at risk of violating their contracts with the body, a thinly veiled reference to TMC and other companies that might also seek to apply for US licenses to mine in international waters. The countries that TMC relies on for seabed mining and processing technology are among the ISA’s 169 member nations (plus the European Union) that oppose unilateral mining in international waters. A Japanese corporation, Pacific Metals Company, that planned to process TMC’s nodules has now told investors that it would only “launch operations once the international rules are finalized.” In a recent investor briefing, Pacific Metals emphasized that when it comes to nodule processing, it considers “international credibility to be a material issue.” All those parties have a legal obligation to ensure that deep sea mining only takes place through the ISA, says Robb, an Amsterdam-based attorney who specializes in ocean litigation. Whether nations would be enabling deep-sea mining through commercial relationships with US-licensed seabed mining companies was the subject of whispered conversations among ISA delegates this month as they continued drafting mining regulations. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea prohibits unilateral mining by any country or corporation. It also requires the ISA to administer the global seabed for the benefit of humanity, with any royalties from mining divided among member states. The US never ratified the treaty, though it had generally adhered to its provisions and still participates in ISA proceedings as an observer. Pressure is growing on member states to not supply technology to seabed mining companies the US licenses, process their nodules or buy metals from them, as the treaty mandates ISA countries treat unilateral mining as illegitimate. Thirty-seven ISA countries support a moratorium on seabed mining until its environmental impacts are better understood. “Product lines derived from ventures that violate international law will carry reputational and legal concerns that increase the risk of the investment and can undermine its return,” ISA Secretary-General Carvalho said. While TMC has told investors it expects to begin mining within a year of receiving a license, the technology to extract minerals from the seabed at depths of four kilometers be years away from being deployed at scale. Its competitiveness with terrestrial mining is unknown, as is the economic viability of processing and refining seabed minerals amid seesawing metal prices and the growing market share of battery technologies not reliant on nodule metals. The US lacks metallurgical capacity to refine nodule minerals. Given the rapid evolution of batteries and other relevant technologies, there is great uncertainty about the future demand for critical minerals, researchers at RAND wrote in a recent report. “A seabed mining industry, as a whole, faces considerable opposition from nations and organizations concerned about the potential negative environmental impacts.” At the ISA, delegates convened behind closed doors on Friday to debate how to respond to TMC’s plans. Barron, who once sat with the delegation of a tiny Pacific island nation that sponsors one of TMC’s ISA contracts, has been absent this year. ’The US has every right to pursue seafloor resources in international waters,’ he wrote Wednesday on X. TMC however, cautioned investors in a May securities filing that a US mining license wouldn’t be recognized internationally, which could affect “logistics, processing, and market access” for the seabed minerals TMC mines. A US seabed mining license would require TMC to deploy American-built and owned vessels. How the companies would comply with that mandate is unclear. Allseas said in a statement that it would take about two years to engineer the technical systems to support full-scale mining but it won’t begin that work “until we are confident that all relevant regulatory conditions are met.” Allseas, which itself owns an ISA-licensed seabed mining company, has come under pressure from Dutch politicians and activists not to provide technology for unilateral mining. In a May 14 securities filing TMC said it’s evaluating U.S.-based vessel options. The US hasn’t built a specialized seabed mining ship like the Hidden Gem. Only eight US ocean-going bulk cargo carriers - large ships that can hold tens of thousands of pounds of nodules and transport them to shore - are in service. Seven of them are at or near the end of their lifespan, according to a 2024 US Maritime Administration report. Impossible Metals uses a nodule collector, called Eureka, that’s designed to hover above the ocean floor, its robotic claws selecting individual nodules that its artificial intelligence program determines aren’t inhabited by marine organisms. Scientists estimate that at least 30% to 40% of deep ocean life in the seabed targeted for mining live on nodules. The company has delayed a planned trial of the Eureka in an ISA-licensed area of the Pacific until at least 2027 because the technology needs further refinement. Impossible Metals’ mining license application is for US waters, not areas controlled by ISA. And any mining wouldn’t happen until at least the early 2030s. In a small lab in Pasadena, California, scientists at an Impossible Metals spinoff called Viridian Biometals are trying getting the metals out of the nodules. Nodule minerals precipitate out of seawater, forming layers around a piece of whale bone, a shark tooth or another small object at the rate of a few millimeters every million years. Nodules contain nickel, cobalt and copper particles scattered throughout every rock, mostly embedded in a matrix of manganese oxide. Viridian scientists are tinkering with rock-breathing microbes that oxidize nodules to extract the most valuable metals. As microbes inside a freezer oxide the manganese bits, they release nickel, cobalt and copper ions into a solution. All this happens at ambient temperature and pressure, which saves an enormous amount of energy and doesn’t produce any toxic waste, says Viridian CEO Macris. “We love what Viridian is doing but we’re just not sure if it will be mature enough when we need it,’ says Impossible Metals’ CEO Gunasekara. TMC has found one overseas metals processor. Last year, Pacific Metals Company of Japan fed a 2,000-ton pile of nodules collected by TMC in 2022 into an electric-arc furnace to produce 500 tons of a material. In February, it was smelted into a nickel-cobalt-copper alloy. In April, Pacific Metals announced it would transition from processing nickel ore to smelting nodules. But it doesn’t expect full production to begin until 2029 at the earliest. TMC has also struck a deal with metals giant Korea Zinc, which is assessing the feasibility of refining nodules into battery materials, a process TMC has so far tested only in the lab. If TMC, Impossible Metals and other companies mine the ocean floor under a US license, then federal law requires the minerals to be processed and refined in America. Aside from Viridian’s early efforts, the US has no such capacity. A single facility in the US capable of processing and refining nodules would cost several billion dollars, and could take up to a decade to reach full production, according to Verbaan, director of metallurgy technical services for Swiss testing and certification company SGS. The US tax and spending bill enacted on July 4 allocates $5.5 billion to the Department of Defense for investments in critical minerals supply chains. (Source: Yahoo / Bloomberg = U.S.)
"1$: 0.8564 euros"
Jul 21, 2025 09:26 IST "No one is above the law". Obama handcuffed, put in jail: Trump posts AI-generated video on his Truth Social platform, amid poll fraud charge. The video comes after the Trump administration accused Obama of election fraud in 2016, with the US President backing calls for his prosecution. Trump's Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Gabbard has accused the former President of attempting to undermine Trump's victory in the 2016 election. Citing declassified documents, Gabbard claimed senior officials during Obama's regime manufactured and politicised alleged intel assessments to show that Trump's win was due to Russian interference. She also called for Obama and former senior US national security officials to be prosecuted, which has also been echoed by Trump. (Source: India Today)
NATO
21.07.2025 NATO Secretary General Rutte participated today in an online meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group - hosted by German Defense Minister Pistorius and UK Defense Secretary Healey - aimed at enhancing support for Ukraine by 'providing additional US assets through investments from allies in Europe and Canada'. NATO will coordinate the initiative through its command in Wiesbaden, Germany, at the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), which manages logistical hubs in the eastern part of the alliance territory. (Source: Anadolu Agency - Turkey)
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