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South Korea's former first lady Kim Keon Hee, wife of impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol, arrives at a court to attend a hearing to review her arrest warrant requested by special prosecutors at the Seoul Central District Court, in Seoul, South Korea August 12, 2025.

REUTERS

Hard Numbers: South Korea’s ex-first lady jailed, Mexico transfers cartel members to US, Europe threatens to re-sanction Iran, Poland rearms

800 million: South Korea sent Kim Keon Hee – the 52-year-old wife of former President Yoon Suk Yeol – to solitary confinement on Tuesday, after arresting her for stock manipulation, bribery, and election meddling. Prosecutors accused Kim of making over 800 million won ($580,000) by manipulating the stock price of local BMW dealer, Deutsch Motors. Her husband President Yoon was impeached and detained after he tried to impose martial law in December last year.

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Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with Judiciary Officials in Tehran, Iran, on July 16, 2025.

Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

Iran’s next act?

– By Willis Sparks

Iran’s government is in big trouble.

Twelve days of war earlier this summer demonstrated that Iran has little capacity to defend its cities or its nuclear facilities from Israeli and US strikes.

Meanwhile, its most potent proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — have taken bad beatings over the past year. Former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, Iran’s principal state ally in the Middle East, now lives in Moscow rather than Damascus.

And within Iran, no one knows exactly what will happen when the ailing 86-year-old supreme leader makes his final exit. Everyone in a position of power in Iran must wonder how a succession, which the country hasn’t experienced in 36 years, will affect his influence, power, and access to wealth. And simmering beneath all of that, the risk of civil unrest inside Iran is always present – it can be triggered by a single incident on the street or inside a police station.

But the regime still has a not-so-secret weapon, and it’s precisely the one that Israel and the United States attacked in June.

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An oil tanker is being loaded at Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal in Saudi Arabia May 21, 2018.

REUTERS

Hard Numbers: OPEC+ further expands oil output, Ukraine attacks drone corruption, UK releases gonorrhoea vaccine, & More

547,000: OPEC Plus, the eight-member oil cartel de facto led by Saudi Arabia, announced on Sunday it would increase oil production by 547,000 barrels a day, the latest in a series of increases that first started in April. In response, oil prices dropped more than 2% on Monday.

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View of Tehran at sunset on February 26th, 2025.

Arne Bänsch/dpa via Reuters Connect

Hard Numbers: Iranian water shortages prompt public holiday, Trump admin to burn contraceptives, Ozzy leaves the stage for the last time, & More

1: Iran announced an impromptu one-day public holiday on Wednesday for Tehran’s residents, in an effort to save on water and electricity. Intense heatwaves have added strain to an already-worsening water crisis in the country, brought about by climate change and mismanagement.

$10 million: The Trump administration will incinerate nearly $10 million worth of US-funded contraceptives – intended for poorer nations – in France, after storing them for months in a Belgian warehouse following cuts to USAID programs. The White House reportedly rejected offers from the United Nations and other NGOs to buy or distribute the supplies themselves.

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- YouTube

Is the US Intelligence community at a breaking point?

With Congress slowing down during the summer recess and President Trump fresh off some major victories—from a joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure to pushing through a massive tax and spending bill—Ian Bremmer heads to Capitol Hill to hear how Democrats are responding on the latest episode of GZERO World. Senator Mark Warner, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, is sounding the alarm about a deeper crisis: an intelligence system being weaponized for politics. “Analysts are being told to change their conclusions—or lose their jobs,” he says. “We’re in uncharted, dangerous territory.”

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Spy games and loyalty tests with Senator Mark Warner


It’s been a banner stretch for President Trump: a major strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, a sprawling tax-and-spending bill pushed through Congress, and a growing foreign policy resume. But beneath the surface of all the flag-waving and victory laps, Democrats like Senator Mark Warner are warning that the real story is unfolding in the shadows—inside an increasingly politicized US intelligence community.

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A satellite overview shows the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Facility, amid the Iran-Israel conflict, near Qom, Iran, June 29, 2025

Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS

Hard Numbers: US intel shows two Iranian nuclear sites survive, EU adopts fresh Russia sanctions, Pakistani bird-seller loses nest egg, CBS sunsets Colbert, Cancer takes a long-term hit

1: A new US intelligence assessment says that the US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities last month destroyed only one of the three sites targeted. While Fordow – Iran’s most fortified enrichment site – was mostly destroyed, the Natanz and Isfahan sites likely did not suffer the same damage. US President Donald Trump, who has said all the sites were “obliterated”, reportedly rejected a more thorough, weeks-long bombing campaign because it would have clashed with his stated objective of disentangling the US from foreign conflicts.

18: The European Union on Friday approved the 18th package of sanctions against Russia over President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. The centerpiece of the measures is a new cap on the price that members can pay for Russian oil. The package, which requires unanimous approval from EU members, overcame opposition from Slovakia, which won some exceptions from wider EU plans to phase out Russian energy imports altogether.

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Members of Syrian security forces ride on a back of a truck after Syrian troops entered the predominantly Druze city of Sweida, Syria July 15, 2025.

REUTERS

What’s behind Syria’s surging sectarian violence?

The latest round of deadly sectarian violence in Syria started off small. Last Sunday, a Bedouin tribe reportedly robbed and attacked a Druze man at a checkpoint in southern Syria, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The incident quickly escalated into a battle that has left more than 350 people dead and drawn in not only Syrian government forces, but also Israel, which intervened forcefully under the pretext of protecting the Druze.

The clashes add to a series of sectarian flare-ups since the fall of the Assad dictatorship seven months ago. In March, forces aligned with the government massacred nearly 1,500 Alawites in response to a failed rebellion by Assad loyalists within the community, and in April, dozens were killed when the Druze clashed with security forces near Damascus.

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