It's a busy time to be president of Argentina. When not batting away his inner circle's corruption scandals, or hopping across the border to campaign for ideological allies, Javier Milei is rolling out the red carpet for dignitaries back home.
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IRAN
A fragile and unofficial US-Iran pause is still holding, with President Trump reporting the US is “having good talks” with Tehran. For its part, Iran still says it’s in control of Hormuz, and is rejecting claims of any direct US talks, while seemingly testing the truce: US partners Israel, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia have all reported drone attacks on their territory, possibly from proxies. (Reuters)
UNITED STATES
After his absence from Friday’s big Silicon Valley open letter against bans on open AI models, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei has argued that while open models do foster innovation, unchecked releases pose unique risks. The answer, he says, is to curb authoritarian access to advanced chips, crack down on mass distillation (copying), and ensure every capable AI model — open or not — goes through mandatory safety testing. His critics argue he’s just fearmongering to get competitors hit by regulation. (Anthropic)
AUSTRALIA
Canberra has announced a feasibility study for a new refinery in the state of Western Australia. If greenlit, Australia’s third oil refinery would be its first new one in 60 years. (gov.au)Comment: To be clear, it’s just an announcement — of a study — and Australia would still rely on imported crude inputs for any new refinery. But add it to the list of capitals rethinking every energy vulnerability in the wake of the Hormuz squeeze.
FRANCE
President Macron has visited frontline emergency crews in southwestern France, after mobilising military reserves and requesting EU air support for what he’s declaring France’s worst wildfires in the post-war era. Next door, Spain is also battling its own record-breaking blazes, pushing combined evacuations across both countries past 330,000. (France24)
CAMEROON
An International Chamber of Commerce arbitration tribunal in Paris has ordered Yaoundé to pay Australian miner Sundance Resources $616M in damages after Cameroon’s government unlawfully handed the firm’s Mbalam-Nabeba iron ore rights to a China-backed rival. (mining.com)
NETHERLANDS
Shares in Dutch chip-machine pioneer ASML tumbled almost 8% intraday on Monday following reports a state-backed consortium in China is now making its own immersion deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography tools. (Barrons)
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