Transcription
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat.
Hello and welcome to First Post Vantage with me Horsoya. Let's get started.
The United States just can't seem to quit its situationship with Iran. And who is picking up the therapy bill? The Gulf States. I'll tell you about it.
If this conflict has taught us anything, it's this. Some of the world's most critical maritime choke points are far more vulnerable than we imagined. I'd say it's time the strategic waterways lawyer up. Maybe they could ask the Argentine goldfish for the number of their lawyers. Stay with me. I'll come to that.
Russia and China have been watching closely and they seem to have drawn one clear lesson. Invest in hypersonic missiles. I'll tell you why.
And by the end of September, the last American troops will leave Iraq. After more than two decades, America may be leaving Iraq. But is Iraq or the region really free of America's war of whims?
The India UK free trade agreement is now live. So what does it mean for the two countries and its people? Stay tuned to find out.
And finally, a flamingo, a Grammy winner, and a Trump walked into a bar and we got a headline. Pop star Dua Lipa has thrown her weight behind Albania's Flamingo Revolution opposing a luxury resort project backed by Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. I'll tell you about it.
And remember the two goldfish I was talking about? Well, an Argentine court has made legal history by recognizing goldfish as sentient beings with rights. The phrase "there are plenty of fish in the sea" just went from being relationship advice to a litigious threat. All this and more lined up. But first the headlines.
India approves a new semiconductor program, offers more than $13 billion in financial assistance to accelerate local chip production. The Semicon 2.0 initiative expands on a drive which was launched 5 years ago. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed the program's announcement.
Donald Trump lashes out at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE. He is angry over the suspension of the use of traffic stops after two fatal shootings in less than a week. A Colombian man was shot dead in Maine on Monday and a Mexican man was killed in Texas last week.
Israel Supreme Court suspends a contentious law which was passed just a day prior. The law blocked the arrest of Jewish ultra-orthodox men who refuse military service. On Tuesday, the Israeli parliament approved the legislation. The move drew flak from the opposition as the army struggles with a shortage of personnel.
Power restored across Cuba after the third nationwide outage in less than 10 days. The latest blackout left nearly 10 million people without power. The communist island's electricity crisis has worsened after Donald Trump cut off its oil supplies in January.
And Joe Biden announces his memoir. The former US president also said that his cancer treatment was going well. Biden's presidential memoir is called "Promise Me America." The publication date has been set for the 17th of November this year.
There's an old African proverb: "When elephants fight, the grass gets trampled." In West Asia, the elephants are America and Iran, and the grass, the Gulf States. Air defense systems across several Gulf states, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan, have been activated. This after Iran launched a wave of attacks at America's military installations in the Gulf. Iranian attacks followed renewed US bombardments in Iran for a fourth straight day today. According to the US military, the latest strikes aimed at degrading Iranian capabilities to attack commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran later reported that the southern port city of Bushehr, which is home to the country's only civilian nuclear plant, was hit. Several Iranian military personnel in the southeast part of the country were killed. In retaliation, Iran continued with its attacks on Gulf states. A US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain was attacked. Jordan's military said it downed three ballistic missiles from Tehran. Kuwait and Bahrain's military too intercepted several aerial barges.
Now, the heart of the recent flare-up is the Strait of Hormuz. Washington reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports as Tehran announced the critical waterway closed until the US ends its act of aggression. But more on this in our next story. For now, let's focus on Trump. He has now threatened to attack Iran's energy targets, power plants, bridges.
"I'll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we'll hit energy targets, but we're going to hit them very hard tonight. We're going to hit them hard tomorrow night. We're going to hit it very hard the night after. And then next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges. We're going to knock out all their power plants. We're going to knock out their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate."
He also raised the possibility of a ground campaign, but he was vague about the specifics. For months, he had openly threatened to take Iran's Kharg Island. It's Iran's main oil export terminal. Saying you'll take an island is the easy part. Actually putting troops ashore is where reality starts asking the difficult questions. Amphibious invasions aren't just risky. They're among the hardest military operations ever attempted. There are only so many breach beaches suitable for a landing, which means Iranian forces know exactly where to prepare. They can mine the approach, block landing routes, and turn the shoreline into a firing range with drones, artillery, mortars, and infantry.
The US president now has a new target: Pickax Mountain. It's a heavily fortified nuclear complex in Iran. In Iran, it is called the Ku Kolang Gazla. It is located near Iran's Natanz nuclear complex. It lies within Iran's Zagros mountain range, a geologically active region made up largely of folded limestone and sedimentary rock. And here's why that is important. Beneath its rock lies what Western intelligence believes is one of Iran's most hardened nuclear facilities. Officially, Tehran says it's meant for assembling advanced centrifuges. Unofficially though, many analysts see it as a vault that could one day house uranium enrichment or even more secretive nuclear activities. Pickax Mountain escaped both the June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer strikes and subsequent US-Israeli military operations this year. From space, this mountain appears anything but dormant. Heavy equipment continues to move earth. Tunnel entrances are growing stronger. Fresh excavation scars spread across the landscape. To Western intelligence, the mountain isn't being abandoned. It's being prepared. And that's why Pickax Mountain matters. Even if the complex isn't fully operational today, experts warn that preserving it could hand Iran a protected launchpad to rebuild critical parts of its nuclear program in the years ahead.
But let's be honest here. We're talking about Trump, and Mr. Dealmaker has a habit of flipping. Let me give you four examples.
First, his U-turn on the Hormuz toll. On Monday, Trump decided the US needed a side hustle. It sounded like Monopoly: World Edition. America becomes the guardian of the Strait of Hormuz and charges every cargo ship a 20% toll.
"Crazy. And we're not going to put it up. Yeah, I want to be reimbursed because we're protecting a very rich portion of the world. We're spending money and so what we've done is we are going to be reimbursed for protection."
Turns out, actually pulling it off would have required a massive military commitment lasting years. And right on cue, less than 24 hours later, Trump walked it back. According to a CNN report, his advisers scrambled to talk him out of this idea.
"And I like that, actually, because I don't think anybody should be able to charge a fee for the uh for the strait or for any other uh strait relationship in terms of other sections of the world. I don't think anybody should be really in that position. But we were doing it as a reimbursement. The Gulf States are going to invest a tremendous amount of money into the United States. And that was very satisfactory to me."
Second, his claim that the war will be short. Four to five weeks is what he predicted, but the conflict has now been going on for 4 and a half months with no end in sight.
Third, Trump's belief that Iranian leaders are rational.
"And we're dealing with people that I think are very rational people. I mean, they were nice to deal with. They were strong people, smart people. I think actually they're smarter than the first and second group, but they're not radicalized."
After the United States and Iran struck a memorandum last month, Trump and US Vice President JD Vance seemed convinced Tehran had suddenly discovered the joys of cooperation. Once the ceasefire collapsed, the warm words vanished.
"To me, I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore with this. You know what is there? They're sick people. They're led by sick people and they're they're vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it. As far as I'm concerned, it's over."
That's quite a journey from handshake diplomacy to name-calling speedrun.
And finally, his repeated claims of Iran being desperate for a deal. He said it exactly 30 times.
"Either Tehran is begging, desperate, or dying to make a deal."
"Know what deals do you? But you're going to find out pretty soon. I think it'll be done. They want to sign."
"They have very little left and they want to make a deal so badly. They called a little while ago. They want to make a deal so badly. I just don't know if they're worthy of making a deal."
But the events of the past few months have shown us the opposite. For three months, Tehran has done something strange for a country supposedly on its knees. It negotiated, and it negotiated hard, demanded concessions, and rejected terms it didn't like.
There's a pattern in America's wars. Iraq gave the world one of the greatest examples of wartime optimism: Dick Cheney's prediction that American troops would be greeted as liberators. Reality, however, tells us something very different. That quote became a lasting reminder of what happens when leaders confuse certainty with understanding and assume a war will follow the version they had imagined. The Trump administration's Iran war record has featured its own collection of similar moments. For 4 and a half months, Trump and his officials have repeatedly offered confident forecasts only to watch events move in a very different direction. It often appears that the administration is discovering the complexities of the conflict at the same time as all of us. The issue is not simply that predictions can be wrong. Wars are unpredictable. The problem is when confidence becomes a substitute for comprehension.
So, Hormuz is at war once again, and now the Red Sea could be heading in the same direction. Four days into the renewed exchange of strikes between the United States and Iran, it is becoming increasingly clear that this battlefield is no longer confined to missile launches or military bases or targets on land. The battlefield has now expanded to the world's busiest shipping lanes, to the world's maritime choke points. This is the age of water wars. Not wars fought for waters, but wars fought by weaponizing the narrow sea lanes that keep the global economy alive. We are seeing this with the Strait of Hormuz. And now Tehran's Houthi allies in Yemen are once again warning that Bab al-Mandeb, the gateway into the Red Sea, could once again become a pressure point. If that happens, it will become a war over the very arteries of the global economy: oil, energy, shipping, supply chains, and ultimately over the price ordinary people pay, whether you're in Mumbai, Tokyo, or London.
So, let's map the world's most critical maritime choke points, the ones already under pressure and the ones most at risk of becoming tomorrow's war. Let's begin with today's flashpoint, the Strait of Hormuz. Today, the body of an Indian marine engineer who had gone missing after a commercial vessel was attacked off the coast of Oman was recovered. And the longer this war drags on, the more civilian seafarers are likely to find themselves on the front lines of a war they are not fighting.
And now let's zoom out and look at where this happened. This is the Strait of Hormuz, a passage between Iran and Oman. At its narrowest point, it is just 39 km wide. Yet before the current conflict, between 20 and 21 million barrels of oil move through these waters every single day. That's roughly 1/5 of the world's seaborne oil trade. Which is why Hormuz isn't just another shipping route. It is one of the world's most important energy lifelines. Only weeks ago, after weeks of fighting in parallel diplomatic engagement, there were hopes that tensions between Washington and Tehran could ease. Instead, the ceasefire has collapsed. Military confrontation has resumed, and Hormuz once again has become the world's most sensitive energy flashpoint. Iran's Revolutionary Guards now say the strait will remain under pressure until what they describe as American aggression comes to an end.
But before Hormuz returned to the headlines, there was the Red Sea. It was there that the world first saw how war could disrupt one global shipping lane. I love after the Gaza war started in late 2023. Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi movement launched a campaign of sustained missile and drone and speedboat attacks on commercial shipping. Their declared target were vessels linked to Israel. But the impact was felt by the entire world. Some of the world's biggest shipping companies stopped using the Red Sea altogether. Ships that would normally pass through the Suez Canal were forced to sail around the southern tip of Africa. Thousands of kilometers longer, weeks of additional travel, higher fuel costs, higher freight charges, and eventually higher prices for consumers across the world. The attacks stopped when a Gaza ceasefire came into effect. But now the Red Sea is once again edging towards a conflict as Houthis in Saudi Arabia resume strikes this week. We told you about this last night. But if this tit-for-tat continues, the Red Sea could once again become an active theater of conflict. And if fighting escalates further, Bab al-Mandeb, the narrow gateway linking the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, could once again emerge as one of the world's most vulnerable maritime choke points.
Now, just take a look at the map on your screen. This is Bab al-Mandeb, just 32 km wide. It connects the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea. Around 12% of global trade passes through this narrow gateway. That is nearly 4 million barrels of oil every day. So if Hormuz is the Gulf's exit, Bab al-Mandeb is the Red Sea's front door. And today, Iran's proxies are once again warning to make Bab al-Mandeb the pressure point again.
Now, if both Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb come under threat, what's the hope for the rest of us? These are only two of the several maritime choke points on which the world depends. Now, there are only a handful of places in the world where the world's shipping lanes narrow dramatically. The tiny stretches of water carrying massive volumes of global trade. Control these choke points, and you influence the entire global economy.
Take the Strait of Malacca between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Only 2.8 kilometers wide at its narrowest point. Yet it handles 23 million barrels of oil every day. Even more than Hormuz. Nearly 40% of global maritime trade passes through this corridor. Around 80% of China's imported oil comes this way. Military strategists call it China's Malacca dilemma. Any disruption here would ripple through factories, ports, supply chains across Asia.
Then there's the Suez Canal, one of history's greatest engineering achievements, connecting Europe and Asia. In 2021, the Ever Given container ship blocked this canal for just 6 days, not because of any war, but because of one stranded vessel. Yet global trade worth billions of dollars was disrupted. That is how fragile these maritime arteries really are.
Let's go east: the Taiwan Strait. This is less about oil and more about technology. More than 20% of global maritime trade by value passes through these waters. That's nearly half of the world's container fleet. And supply chains linked to the world's most advanced semiconductor industry. If tensions between China and Taiwan escalate, and if Beijing were to launch an invasion of the self-ruled island nation, the consequences won't stop in Asia.
Add to that Gibraltar, the Turkish Straits, and the Danish Straits. Each one may appear small on a world map, but together they form the arteries of the global economy. And this, the entire world's economy, is at stake today because strategic waterways are no longer just geography. They are leverage. Today it's Hormuz and the Red Sea. Tomorrow it could be the Taiwan Strait or even the Strait of Malacca. The question is, is the world ready for the next water war?
Donald Trump believed four months of relentless high-intensity air operations would teach Iran a lesson. He thought his fighter jets would show the world one thing: that the United States is still the undisputed superpower. Trump assumed the air raids would terrify America's rivals. That did not happen. Instead, Russia and China just sat back, tracked America's military operations, looked at the scorecard, and took home a completely different lesson. According to US assessments, Moscow and Beijing have reached the same conclusion: invest in hypersonic missiles. A lesson they learned not from the world's biggest military, but from the sanctioned, diplomatically isolated Iran.
This war has shown us one thing. Drones and jets can be spotted, they can be intercepted, and they can be shot down. But hypersonic missiles have no counter. Because these weapons travel at Mach 5, which is five times the speed of sound, they can outrun, outmaneuver, and outsmart the world's best defense systems. And that's exactly why Russia and China are betting on them.
Let me begin with Russia. Vladimir Putin has two stars in his hypersonic arsenal: the Kinzhal and the Avangard. A few weeks ago, Putin spoke about them in great detail. Listen to this.
"We began working on the Avangard intercontinental range missile system in 2004 and it has been on combat duty since 2019. We then introduced the Kinzhal medium-range air-launched hypersonic missile, which has been on combat duty since 2017. It is already being used during the special military operation, but we continue working on improving it."
Let me first tell you about the Kinzhal. This is an air-launched hypersonic missile. It can reach speeds of up to Mach 10, that's more than 12,000 km per hour, and it has hit targets 2,000 km away. The Kinzhal has been repeatedly used against Ukraine. The other hypersonic weapon in Russia's arsenal is the Avangard. This is the world's fastest missile. It can reach speeds up to Mach 20, that's 25,000 km per hour. There is no air defense system in the world that can intercept this missile. Clearly, the Avangard is Putin's trump card. No pun intended. According to the Pentagon, Russia makes about 100 hypersonic missiles every year. By 2035, Russia is expected to have 1,000 of them.
Now, let me tell you about China. If Russia's strategy is intimidation, China's philosophy is industrialization. Beijing has two main hypersonic systems. The first is the Dongfeng-17. This missile travels at Mach 10 and can travel up to 2,000 km. But the most serious threat comes from the Dongfeng-26. This missile has a speed of Mach 18, that's 22,000 km per hour. And it has a peculiar nickname: the Guam Killer, because the missile can reach US bases in the Pacific Ocean, particularly those on Guam Island. But China's real edge is in its factories. According to the Pentagon, China can make 370 hypersonic missiles every year. Beijing will have almost 4,000 missiles by 2035. In the next 10 years, Russia and China will have a combined arsenal of 5,000 hypersonic weapons.
Naturally, Washington is worried. The White House has raised the alarm because the United States is being outmatched and outclassed in the hypersonic race. Compared to Russia and China, the US only has a handful of hypersonic missiles. Those two have not been fully inducted. They are still undergoing testing. But there hasn't been much to celebrate. The US has witnessed multiple failed launches. At least eight failures have been reported in the last 5 years.
That brings me to the Iran war. Russia and China seem like ordinary spectators, but they have sniffed out America's Achilles' heel. Fighter jets and strategic bombers have limitations. They need to refuel and rearm. Not to mention each mission puts the pilots at risk. On the contrary, missiles maximize on damage. They are cheaper. They are deadlier. We've already seen that in videos. US-made air defense systems worth billions of dollars have failed. Iranian missiles have shattered America's image. The United States has learned its lessons. It is racing to build interceptors. On the contrary, Moscow and Beijing are building hypersonic missiles. Those may seem like two very different races, but if the Iran war is the dress rehearsal, Russia and China have booked VIP seats. They are sitting in the front row. They are taking notes faster than anyone else.
For 23 years, America fought, occupied, withdrew, returned, trained, advised, and bombed Iraq. Now, the final chapter is being written. By the end of September, the last American troops will leave Iraq. This was announced in a recent meeting between US President Donald Trump and Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zedi. The meeting was held at the White House on Tuesday.
To understand this, we need to go back to 2003. The United States invaded Iraq under the banner of "shock and awe." The justification: weapons of mass destruction, secretly stashed by Saddam Hussein. The problem: those weapons never existed. More than two decades later, over 170,000 American troops, trillions of dollars, thousands of lives, and countless political speeches later, America is finally leaving. Remember, this isn't Washington's first goodbye. The US withdrew combat troops in 2011. ISIS stormed across Iraq in 2014. America came back. This time, however, Washington insists Iraq is ready. Its military has been trained. ISIS has largely lost its territorial grip. The mission, they say, is complete.
But if the military mission is ending, the strategic mission is only changing uniforms. Because Donald Trump isn't walking away from Iraq. He's simply changing the dress code from camouflage to corporate suits. Standing beside Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zedi, Trump made one thing abundantly clear: American troops may leave, American companies will not. In fact, Trump promised massive new oil deals.
"Iraq has tremendous potential because of their oil and because of other things, but because of their oil. And we're going to be doing a lot of deals. We're going to create a lot of jobs for both countries. And we're going to be taking out a lot of oil. A lot of oil is coming out. And the American companies are doing it, mostly American companies."
Now, Trump did not just host the Iraqi prime minister. He promoted the tremendous chemistry between them. Al-Zedi got a positive review on Trump's charm scale. The US president used all forms of flattery on the Iraqi leader.
"And it's great to have you at the White House. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And he's a young man. He's young and he's handsome, which I don't like. I'm not happy about that."
Ali al-Zedi is a businessman with zero political baggage, handpicked and publicly backed by Trump himself over veteran politician Nuri al-Maliki. And here's the nickname already doing the rounds in Washington: They're calling Al-Zedi the "Trump of the Middle East." No political resume, no career politician polish, just a businessman who walked into the top job. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? That's not a coincidence. That's chemistry. Trump doesn't do diplomacy with career diplomats. He does deals with dealmakers, and in Ali, he's found a mirror.
There are strategic reasons behind the flattery. Reason number one: Iran containment. Iraq has a Shiite majority, deep economic ties with Iran, and powerful Iran-backed militias operating in broad daylight. Get close to Baghdad, and you get leverage over Tehran without firing a shot. Reason number two: leverage over the militias themselves. Weapons flows, influence networks, regional security. All of it runs cleaner through a friendly government than through drone strikes, wouldn't you say? Reason three: rewriting the narrative. 23 years of "occupier" is a hard brand to shake. A cooperative Baghdad lets Trump flip that script. From invasion to investment, from soldiers to shareholders. Reason number four: the oil. Obviously, massive new deals, mostly American companies, as Trump said himself, because nothing says friendship quite like a drilling contract. And reason five: the bigger chessboard. A US-friendly Iraq doesn't just weaken Iran's regional network, it strengthens Washington's Arab partnerships and opens another door into a region that's been slamming doors on America for years. In simple terms, if Iran is the target, Iraq is the neighborhood, and Trump just moved in next door.
23 years ago, America came to Iraq looking for weapons that didn't exist. Today, it's leaving, chasing oil contracts arm-in-arm with the leader Washington itself helped install. Call it a withdrawal if you like. Call it a rebrand if you prefer the taste of truth. Either way, Washington didn't lose interest in Iraq. It just found a version of control that doesn't need soldiers. Just two businessmen and a handshake.
The India-UK trade deal is now officially in effect. From today, nearly 99% of Indian exports can enter the UK duty-free. While a range of British products, from Scotch whiskey to luxury cars, are set to become cheaper in India. But the biggest win isn't what Indians will buy. It's what India can now sell. Here's the report.
From Wednesday, one of India's biggest trade deals has officially come into force. The India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement is now operational, opening Britain's market wider than ever before for Indian businesses. For the first time, nearly 99% of Indian exports can enter the UK duty-free. For Indian businesses, it's a chance to sell more, earn more, and compete better in one of the world's biggest consumer markets. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it a significant milestone in the India-UK partnership, saying the agreement will create fresh opportunities for farmers, entrepreneurs, and micro, small, and medium enterprises or MSMEs. He also said it would deepen cooperation in technology, innovation, professional services, and improve mobility for skilled Indian professionals through the accompanying social security agreement.
"Success for us, I think, will ultimately be measured by more businesses trading, investing, and creating jobs."
"Trade agreements are just not a harbinger of good trade because when you do a trade agreement, you give a lot of tariff predictability, a lot of regulation predictability. So we believe trade agreements will definitely lead to and translate into more investments on both sides, and those investments will not only create more supply chains between the two countries but also maybe add to the global supply chains and create more pathways for Indian businesses to go to different parts of the world also."
But what changes for Indian consumers? The biggest difference will be at the premium end of the market. Imported British products, from Scotch whiskey and luxury cars to chocolates, cosmetics, medical devices, and select food products, are all expected to become cheaper, although not overnight. Tariffs on most products will be reduced in phases over the coming years. Take imported British cars. Today, they attract import duties of up to 110%. Under the agreement, that duty will gradually fall to 10% over the next decade, under a quota system. That means brands like Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Jaguar, McLaren, and even the Tata-owned Land Rover (since it's built in the UK) could eventually become significantly more competitive in India. Scotch whiskey is another headline winner. Import duty, currently at 150%, will immediately fall to 75% before reducing further to 40% over the next 10 years. Gin will follow the same schedule, while several other premium spirits, including bourbon, vodka, rum, brandy, tequila, and liqueurs, will also see tariffs come down in phases.
Economists say the real story isn't cheaper luxury imports, it's India's exporters. The UK is already India's fifth largest export destination, and from today, exporters will enjoy duty-free access to one of the world's largest consumer markets. These labor-intensive sectors employ millions of Indians, and they include textiles and garments, leather and footwear, gems and jewelry, engineering goods, auto components, marine products, processed food, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, and agricultural products. Industry body ASSOCHAM believes the agreement could nearly double bilateral trade to around $120 billion by 2030, making this one of India's biggest export opportunities in recent years. And the gains don't stop with manufacturing. Indian IT companies, consulting firms, engineers, architects, accountants, healthcare professionals, and education service providers are all expected to benefit from easier market access and greater regulatory certainty in the UK. The agreement covers 137 service sub-sectors, making it one of India's most comprehensive services-focused trade packs. There's another major benefit for Indian professionals. Under the double contribution convention, Indian professionals temporarily working in the UK will no longer have to make social security contributions in both countries for assignments of up to 5 years. This reduces costs for both employees and employers and improves the competitiveness of Indian companies operating overseas.
All in all, don't expect prices to crash overnight. Most of these tariff cuts will happen gradually over the next few years. But it isn't just cheaper Scotch or more affordable luxury cars. It's what this deal could do for India's economy. More exports, more factory orders, more jobs, more investment, and a much bigger market for Indian businesses.
Pakistan keeps telling the world that its illegal occupation of Kashmir is legal. But the people are not convinced. Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir is boiling. The slogans aren't just against Islamabad. They're against the Pakistani army, and more importantly, against the army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir. Civilians living in occupied Kashmir want Pakistan's forces gone. They've even come up with a nickname for Pakistan's army: "the oppressors of Kashmir." That's some performance review. Let me tell you about what happened today. Thousands marched in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The demonstrations took place in Muzaffarabad. The protests were led by the Joint Awami Action Committee, a local body fighting for freedom. They want to kick out Pakistani troops from occupied Kashmir. Take a look at the rally. And how did Pakistan react to this? With more troops and barricades. There's an old saying: "If the only tool that you know how to use is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail." That is the case in Pakistan as well. The army treats any pushback like a security operation. Meanwhile, international media remains silent. No op-eds have been written. No prime-time shows have called out the Pakistan army's exploitation. So, let me tell you about them. More than 100,000 people marched from Rawalakot to Muzaffarabad today. These are cities in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. This after nine civilians were killed by Pakistan's army yesterday. The death toll is only rising. Since June, Pakistan's army has killed more than 30 civilians in occupied Kashmir. So, why are the people protesting? The immediate reason is politics. The protesters are opposing the reservation of 12 seats in their regional assembly. Protesters say these seats have been reserved for outsiders, especially for politicians from Pakistan's Punjab province. Let's be honest, nobody risks bullets for legislative reservations. The real reason is that the unrest has been building for years. People have repeatedly complained of soaring prices, rising unemployment, rampant corruption, and the theft of electricity by Pakistan's army. But let's call a spade a spade. This has been Islamabad's own doing, or shall I say, Rawalpindi's. In most countries, armies defend borders. In Pakistan, the army runs the country. It shapes local politics. It runs the foreign policy. The army operates businesses and owns housing societies. Pakistan doesn't have a civilian government. It has an army with a department for civilian affairs. And any time the occupied people of Kashmir ask for their rights, Pakistan's army greets them with barricades, internet shutdowns, arrests, and bullets. India has raised the issue at global forums repeatedly. New Delhi is now calling for more international attention to the human rights abuses.
"The ongoing protests in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir are a direct consequence of Pakistan's decade-long, decades-long, sorry, systemic exploitation, denial of fundamental rights, and administrative oppression in areas under its illegal and forcible occupation. We expect and hope that the international community will hold Pakistan accountable, fully accountable, to these egregious abuses and mistreatment."
But there is more to this story. The protests in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are not happening in isolation. Balochistan has been burning for over a decade. That is Pakistan's largest province. Ordinary Baloch want Pakistan's forces gone. There is also unrest in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Pashtuns have picked up weapons to fight Pakistan's army. And now Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is in turmoil. That is quite the collection of internal fires. What's even more striking are the slogans in all three provinces. The chants are the same, and they are directed against Pakistan's army. Field Marshal Asim Munir has not been spared either. Here's the bitter truth: Pakistan's army can control the media. They can shut down the internet. They can ban organizations. They can arrest protesters. And they do. But history shows that you can't silence public frustration indefinitely. And when the walls of a house begin to tremble, collapse isn't an event. It's a countdown.
Our next story is about the European Union. Apparently, the EU has made a major sacrifice. It has decided to ban gold imports from war-torn Sudan. This is after the civil war in the country is already in its fourth year. After countless reports of gold being used to fund the conflict, after hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of displacements, the EU has finally decided that buying gold from Sudan may not be the best idea. So, the brilliant minds in Brussels got together, and they decided to use their favorite weapon: a ban and sanctions. And as usual, there seemed to be some glaring loopholes in the European scheme. Our next report has the details.
There's a genocide underway. Multiple genocides, in fact, in various parts of the world. But perhaps the most ignored one is taking place in Sudan. A brutal civil war is raging in the country. It's been underway since the 15th of April 2023, and it has left hundreds of thousands dead. Almost 9 million people have been displaced, and 25 million reportedly face famine. It's a major crisis that has been consistently ignored over the past four years. But now Europe has woken up. It has decided to pay attention to the crisis in Sudan. And in all its wisdom, Brussels has used its most terrifying weapon: the dreaded trade ban. Yes, Europe has decided to ban gold imports from Sudan. And it doesn't stop there. Europe is also banning exports to the country of chemicals used in gold mining, specifically mercury and cyanide. The EU's infallible logic is that gold is funding the war. So if Sudan can't mine or export gold, the fighting will stop. There's just a small hiccup in the EU's plan. It doesn't really buy gold from Sudan anyway. And Sudan is not buying mercury or cyanide from the EU either, which makes the new sanctions regime a massive dud. The only thing they seem to have gotten right is that gold is fueling the civil war. Here's a brief overview.
There's a civil war raging in Sudan. On one side, you have the Sudanese army. It's a military junta led by Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, who took over after a coup in 2021. On the other side, you have his old coup partner, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. He also goes by the name Hemeti. The two of them took over the country in 2021. Al-Burhan commanded the army. Hemeti had his own paramilitary called the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF. They carved up Sudan among themselves. But in 2023, Al-Burhan wanted Hemeti to merge the RSF with the Sudanese military. Hemeti didn't want to lose his private army, so he launched a civil war. For over 3 years now, the two former coup partners have been fighting each other, and they've managed to hold on so long because each controls vast gold reserves. Look at this map. It shows the concentration of Sudan's gold mines. Al-Burhan and his army hold the mines to the north and the northeast. Hemeti and his RSF control the ones in central and south Sudan. As the EU has managed to deduce after 3 years of war, Sudan's warlords are selling the gold to buy weapons and keep fighting. The ruling military junta reported about $1.5 billion of gold exports last year.
"Production for 2025 is something like 70 tons. Mhm. Uh, not all of it has been exported, like 20 tons has been exported through the official channels. The rest, we are not sure whether it has been exported or has been kept inside the country, but the gold kept going out. Unfortunately, much of it has been smuggled, smuggled through the borders or across the borders through different countries and going to the Gulf, nearly to the UAE."
And there lies the problem with the EU's ban. Most of the gold from Sudan doesn't go to Europe directly. The RSF reportedly sells gold to the UAE after smuggling it into neighboring nations. Meanwhile, the Sudanese army sells its gold to Saudi Arabia. So any Sudanese gold entering Europe comes from the Gulf after it has been blended with gold from other nations. So Europe will have a tough time identifying Sudanese gold. And unless it plans to ban all gold imports from the Gulf, the ban on Sudanese gold is largely symbolic.
Next, let's look at the ban on mercury and cyanide exports to Sudan. These chemicals are used to mine gold. Mining companies contribute to about 20% of Sudan's gold output. 80% of the gold is dug up by artisanal miners. People who have no protective gear and who regularly suffer because of toxic chemicals like mercury and cyanide. Mercury is used to extract gold from its ore. The artisanal miners risk life and limb by handling it directly. Most of the gold extracted ends up going to their well-armed bosses, while the toxic byproducts of the mining end up in Sudan's villages. In theory, the ban on chemicals is a good idea. However, Sudan's warlords aren't shelling out for premium European mercury and cyanide. They are buying the chemicals from Asia, from major chemical exporters like China. So again, the European ban is symbolic at best. Therefore, the European actions will not make any difference. It's just another day well spent in Brussels.
It's the Albanian pop queen versus America's first daughter. Dua Lipa has taken up the cause of the Albanian people. She has decided to challenge the Albanian government and, by proxy, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. For those of you who don't know, Ivanka and Jared have caused quite the stir in the Balkan nation. Since the 2nd of June, tens of thousands have been protesting in Albania's capital. Every night, they are protesting against a planned luxury resort. A resort backed by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, which is being built on protected land. Now, Albanians are outraged that permission for the resort was granted by the government. They're even more furious that the government removed environmental protections too fast to track it, and that too without any sort of public consultation. Dua Lipa has weighed in on the issue. She was on a podcast and this is what she said.
"What I actually find concerning is the principle that the government could just change the law to remove the environmental protection without any kind of public consultation."
She also said, and I quote, "I find it so inspiring to see how much people really care." Her support has been enthusiastically welcomed by the Albanian protesters. Many have taken to social media to thank her. Her comments echo the sentiments of the protesters. They feel the government has betrayed them. And what started as protesters against the resort has spiraled into demonstrations against the Albanian government itself.
"It's been too long with this kind of political culture. Well, where the prime minister and the political parties of this country think they can do anything. There are no barriers to what they think is acceptable, uh, in, in politics. I'm here because I want an end to this Machiavellian political culture where power and greed justify anything. Uh, we first need to start with changing the government. We cannot, uh, have a discussion with this government, uh, by, uh, having the same laws or same people governing us for the 30, for the last 36 years. We need a new government, and then from there on to change with a more transparent and more people-oriented government."
The protests in Albania have been dubbed the Flamingo Revolution, and the name comes from the resort controversy. The Jared and Ivanka-backed resort will be built on two locations. One is Albania's largest island called Sazan. The second location is on the mainland directly across the island. This area is a protected wetland. It's home to several endangered animals such as seals, sea turtles, flamingos. That is why the protests are being called the Flamingo Revolution.
"The flamingo was born as the symbol of this whole movement, which started in Vlorë, and Vlorë is precisely the place where many of the flamingos have their habitat. The rhetoric of the flamingos has now been used as a symbol, a symbolism for protecting protected areas. But it turned out that the flamingo was all of Albania, not just Vlorë."
Albanians have been protesting for over 45 days now, and they show no signs of slowing down. The country's prime minister, Edi Rama, has been trying to placate the protesters. He says the resort is a blessing.
"It has never been a question if this will go ahead or not. This is a blessing for the country. Uh, an investment of 4 billion euro in a country that has 27 and a bit more, uh, billion euro GDP speaks by itself."
Now, clearly, the protesters don't agree, and neither does the Albanian pop queen. And for Dua Lipa lovers like me, you will understand what I'm about to say next. Will Dua Lipa's dissent force Rama to reverse the new rules? Will it melt his cold heart? Because her backing has given the demonstrators a boost, and they're positively levitating right now.
Every once in a while, a story comes along that's so strange, you almost dismiss it before you hear it. This one starts with two goldfish at a sushi restaurant who made legal history in a courtroom. Now, I understand what you must be thinking: that does not sound like a landmark legal case. More like the beginning of a joke. But bear with me, because underneath the absurdity is a question that is anything but funny: Who deserves rights and who gets to decide? This week in Buenos Aires, an Argentine court gave two goldfish an answer. Their names are Fede and Maggie, and their story is worth hearing to the end.
Can you think of moments when the law had to rethink who deserved rights and who didn't? Take women, for example. In many legal systems, they were denied full legal rights, or children, for that matter. Historically, they were treated as property. Rights are almost never handed out all at once. They expand. And history, in many ways, is the story of expanding the circle of rights. And this week, that circle just got a little bigger. Not for humans, for two goldfish. Their names are Fede and Maggie.
Until a few days ago, they lived exactly where you'd expect decorative fish to live. Not in a pond, not in an aquarium, but inside a 40-liter glass box bolted outside a sushi restaurant in Buenos Aires. Cars rode past. The afternoon sun beat down on the glass. Children tapped on the tank. Most people walked by. One person stopped and looked a little longer. She is a volunteer from an animal rescue organization in Argentina called Jurás Vakas. And this group didn't ask the court to rescue the fish. They demanded something much bigger: treat them not as property, but as beings with rights. The lawyer argued that the conditions violated Argentina's Law 14.346, a law that penalizes animal cruelty. The court agreed. Fede and Maggie were declared sentient beings, legal subjects, not property. They were moved from their 40-liter tank to a 2,500-liter aquarium at the home of an aquatic animal specialist who described them as "astronauts." Fede and Maggie have reportedly settled in well, which is more than most of us can say after a house move.
Here's the part that sounds complicated, but really isn't. A sentient being is simply a creature capable of feeling pain, stress, fear, comfort. A rock is not sentient. A chair is not sentient. But an animal that can suffer, that can feel relief when that suffering stops, that is sentience. And legally, this matters. This matters enormously. Until rulings like this one, animals in most legal systems are treated like objects, like a table or a car. If someone hurt your dog, the law cared about it roughly the way it would care about a scratched bicycle: damage to someone's property, nothing more. The ruling says, "No, Fede and Maggie are not property. They are beings with rights."
As unusual as this sounds, Fede and Maggie are not the first animals to win a day in court. In Argentina in 2014, a court recognized Sandra the orangutan as a non-human person. She was living at the Buenos Aires zoo. The court ordered improved living conditions. It was one of the first rulings of its kind anywhere in the world. In 2021, even Pablo Escobar's hippos made legal history. A US federal court recognized their legal standing in support of a Colombian case. Yes, that Pablo Escobar. In New York in 2022, a court heard arguments for granting legal personhood to Happy the Elephant living at the Bronx Zoo. The court ultimately said no. But the case became a landmark in the global animal rights debate.
There is a line from George Orwell's Animal Farm, written as satire about Soviet politics: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Nearly 80 years later, it doubles as a remarkably accurate description of animal law. The law has long created a hierarchy of animals. Some with strong protections, others with almost none. Orangutans and chimpanzees get personhood rulings. Dogs and cats get welfare laws and legal duty of care. And until a few weeks ago, goldfish got nothing. Fede and Maggie just changed that.
Here's our take from this tiny tale. Laws don't just punish wrongdoing. They reveal who we believe is worth protecting. Argentina just answered that question for two goldfish.
Now, Spain booked a place in the FIFA World Cup final after beating France with a 2-0. Minutes later, the internet booked France a permanent seat in the meme museum. That's football in 2026. 90 minutes decide the match. The next 90 post decide your legacy. Spain won the game, but the internet made sure France lost it twice.
Heat. Heat. And now it's time for Vantage Shorts. Images that tell a story.
A 38-foot T-Rex skeleton named Gus has fetched a staggering $50 million at a Sotheby's auction in New York, making it the most expensive dinosaur fossil ever sold. In Denmark, obstacle racing champion Ida Matilde clears six obstacles in 3 minutes and 33 seconds before the 10-story wheel makes one full rotation. And in China's Xinjiang region, villagers marked the centuries-old Encore festival with horse racing, traditional dances, and prayers for a bountiful harvest.
Finally, taking you back in history, on this day in 1997, the world lost fashion icon Gianni Versace, who was shot dead outside his Miami home in one of the most infamous murders of the decade.
That's all for today. Thank you so much for watching. See you tomorrow.
Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat up here. Yeah. Heat.