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  1. 01

    YEMEN

    Yoink.

    The Yemen-based Houthis just took the key Red Sea port city of Mokha from Saudi-backed troops — they’re also claiming nearby islands across from the critical Bab al-Mandab chokepoint, plus there are unverified reports of hits on the key Saudi east-west pipeline out to the Red Sea (aka, the one that’s helped Riyadh avoid Iran’s Hormuz blockade). Details are still emerging, but markets have seen enough, with Brent spiking to $109. (Guardian)

  2. 02

    UNITED STATES

    Ask Kimi, get Claude?

    Anthropic’s latest AI threat report is a wild read, alleging (among other things) that China’s flagship AI models Moonshot and DeepSeek piped live customer chats into the US firm’s own Claude model, but then served the answers as their own. But it gets spicier: one of China’s presumed intelligence officers uploaded surveillance footage and asked “Kimi” (Claude) if the target was behaving oddly. (Anthropic)

  3. 03

    ICELAND

    Last harpoon?

    Reykjavík will table a bill in February for a permanent commercial-whaling ban, potentially leaving Norway and Japan as the only two still at it. (The Straits Times)

  4. 04

    BRAZIL

    Neck and neck.

    The latest polling now has the left’s President Lula in a statistical tie with the right’s Bolsonaro Jr (son of jailed ex-president), after young Flávio closed a four-point gap in a month. (Bloomberg $)

  5. 05

    INDIA

    BRICS by brick.

    Delhi will host the 18th BRICS summit this weekend, with confirmed guests including China’s Xi (his first visit in seven years) and Russia’s Putin (his first in-person BRICS since attacking Ukraine), plus Iran’s Pezeshkian, South Africa’s Ramaphosa, Egypt’s el-Sisi, Ethiopia’s Abiy, and Indonesia’s Prabowo. It’ll feature a familiar “multipolar” agenda plus energy and food security. (Reuters)

  6. 06

    MOROCCO

    Campaign, with a king.

    Campaigning has now officially kicked off ahead of legislative elections on 23 September, with 27 parties now jostling for 395 seats. The centre-right’s Prime Minister Akhannouch — ag-billionaire-monarchist — is hoping for another term amid debate over inequality, youth jobs, and July’s big migrant rush into Spain’s Ceuta exclave. On that latter point, Rabat also just issued its first official rebuttal of the leaked Spanish police report alleging Morocco’s involvement, refusing to become a “scapegoat for political score-settling” in Spain. (Morocco World News)

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