Merz said the returns agreement signed by the UK and France last week should be expanded into a three-way pact with Germany to mount a more coordinated response to irregular migration. “The cooperation between the United Kingdom and France … has to be complemented by an agreement that we aim to achieve between the three of us: UK, Germany, France,” he said via a translator.

Merz’s call for a trilateral agreement comes as pressure grows from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, where migration and defence spending have become politically volatile. Critics have accused his Christian Democratic Union party of lacking a clear alternative to populist rhetoric, even as Merz tries to position himself as a stabilising force in Europe.

The southern Israeli port of Eilat is set to shut down completely in the coming days, due to massive debts and paralysis caused by Yemen’s pro-Palestine naval blockade on Israel.

The Israeli Ports and Shipping Authority said on 16 July that Eilat Port will suspend all its operations starting on 20 July.

Hebrew media reports described the situation as a “dramatic step” that could undermine Israeli maritime logistics in the Red Sea, and referred to the port as “debt ridden.”

The United States is losing strategic ground to China due to US President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the global stage and transactional approach to foreign policy, a Democrat-authored report has warned.

Surveying Trump’s first six months in office, the report warns that his tenure has “significantly undermined” Washington’s ability to compete with China.

The report highlights staff reductions at the US Department of State and the “chaotic gutting” of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Agency for Global Media – which oversees Voice of America and Radio Free Asia – as moves that have weakened US power and influence.

Details of members of the SAS are among more than 100 Britons named in the database of 18,700 Afghans, the accidental leak of which by a defence official led to thousands being secretly relocated to the UK.

Defence sources said the highly sensitive document contained names and email addresses belonging to people sponsoring or linked to some individual cases. Personal information about MI6 officers was also included.

The identities of members of the SAS and MI6 are a closely guarded secret, and the possibility that following the leak such information could have ended up in the public domain was a source of significant official concern.

Earlier this week it emerged that the Ministry of Defence had obtained a superinjunction preventing the fact of the leak and a £2bn-plus scheme had been created to relocate some Afghans affected by the breach to the UK to protect them from the Taliban.

Go Colombia!

The recent violence in Suwayda began after Bedouin armed groups kidnapped a Druze trader on the road to Damascus on July 11, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based monitor.

The abduction quickly turned into more widespread violence between the two communities – which have a longstanding rivalry due to land disputes – eventually dragging in Syrian government forces.

Syria’s new government has been attempting to impose its authority after a 14-year civil war and the end of half a century of al-Assad family rule. However, it has found it difficult to do so in Suwayda, partly because of Israel’s repeated threats against the presence of any government forces in the province, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

https://archive.ph/34MlI

🙄 Nazi's gonna nazi I guess

💪

Oh no, a russophobe was hurt how terrible!

Judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Wednesday rejected Israel's request to withdraw arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant.

Israel made the request while the ICC reviews its challenge over the court's jurisdiction to weigh in on its war on Gaza.

The decision, dated 9 July 2025, was published on the ICC website on Wednesday. The judges also rejected an Israeli request to suspend the court's broader investigation into alleged crimes in the occupied Palestinian Territories.