Morning Brief, Wednesday 24 June

The US Senate voted 50-48 to direct President Donald Trump to pull American forces out of hostilities with Iran unless Congress authorises further action. Four Republicans joined most Democrats, giving the resolution a bipartisan sting even if the administration says it will ignore the measure as unconstitutional. The vote followed House approval earlier this month and marked the first time both chambers have passed such a war-powers resolution since the 1973 law was enacted.

At sea, the ceasefire looked less like peace than a traffic-management problem with mines. The International Maritime Organization began contacting ships to evacuate more than 11,000 seafarers stranded around the Persian Gulf, while Oman and Iran opened temporary corridors because the usual traffic separation route is still unsafe. Kpler counted 36 cargo ships through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, while AXSMarine counted 42 commercial vessels in all, far below the pre-war average of 120 to 138 ships a day.

The next argument is over control. Marco Rubio said Washington would not accept tolls or tariffs for the waterway, while Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the passage would stay under Iranian administration. Allianz estimates more than 1,000 ships remain stuck, and the World Shipping Council says the backlog may be far larger. The ceasefire has moved the crisis from missiles to maps, fees and insurance, which is better for sailors but still bad for the world economy.

France recorded its hottest day on record on June 23, beating national heat indicators set in 2003 and 2019. Pissos in Landes hit 44.3°C, Bordeaux reached 42.1°C and Rennes reached 41.3°C, each setting local records. The state placed 58 departments under red heat alert from midday Wednesday, putting much of the country under exceptional risk and leaving little overnight relief.

Spain endured its first summer heatwave with Andújar in Jaén reaching 45°C and AEMET issuing orange and red warnings across large areas. The same heat dome trapped Saharan air over the Iberian Peninsula, keeping temperatures 5°C to 10°C above normal for late June and turning many nights tropical or torrid. Madrid, Almería and Zaragoza faced nights that may not drop below 25°C.

France counted the cost quickly. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said 40 people had drowned since June 18, mostly young people seeking relief in water, and emergency services reported call volumes up by 30% to 40%. More than 1,800 schools closed, another 8,000 changed timetables, 70 trains were cancelled, and one nuclear plant shut down over cooling problems.

This heatwave is not just weather with a nasty mood; it is a stress test of schools, hospitals, rails, power plants and ordinary judgment.

The AI trade cracked hard in Asia and spread west. South Korea's KOSPI closed down 9.99%, its worst recent session, after circuit breakers fired repeatedly and Samsung Electronics and SK hynix each lost more than 11%. Japan's Nikkei fell 3.55%, Shenzhen dropped 2.35%, Hong Kong lost 1.8%, and European chip names weakened as the selloff reached the continent.

Wall Street then joined the argument. The Nasdaq opened about 3% lower before trying to recover, while a key chip index slumped about 7% to 8%. Micron, Sandisk, Seagate, Western Digital and Intel took heavy hits as investors questioned whether vast AI infrastructure spending will produce profits soon enough to support rich valuations.

SpaceX added a speculative tremor. The newly listed rocket and satellite company briefly fell below its $150 IPO opening price on Tuesday before bouncing, after a record-breaking debut had pushed its value above $3 trillion at one point. Retail investors bought heavily in the first days, but many faced broker holding periods that limit quick exits, a reminder that not all buyers in a hot float have the same doors open.

The selling does not prove the AI boom is finished. It does show that markets have begun asking for receipts, not just renderings of future data centres.

China placed a machine at the top of the TOP500 supercomputer ranking for the first time since 2017. LineShine, housed in Shenzhen, reached 2.198 exaflops and displaced the US Department of Energy's El Capitan, which posted 1.809 exaflops. The system uses domestic CPUs rather than US-style GPU-heavy architecture, which lets Beijing show self-sufficiency despite American export controls.

The headline still needs careful reading. Experts said the TOP500 benchmark does not capture the real AI performance of hyperscaler systems run by Microsoft, Amazon, Google and xAI, many of which do not enter the ranking. LineShine ranked fourth on an AI-like test, so the win is more a statement of engineering independence than proof that China has leapt ahead in model training.

Donald Trump answered the wider race with two executive orders. One aims to build a US quantum computer powerful enough for scientific discovery and commercial applications by 2028. The other speeds migration to post-quantum cryptography for high-value government systems, bringing deadlines forward to 2030 and 2031 from the earlier 2035 path.

Meta, meanwhile, launched own-brand AI glasses starting at $299, with translation, visual identification and an assistant powered by Muse Spark. The same contest now runs from labs to faces: whoever owns the chips, the cryptography and the interface will shape the next computing stack.

Germany stopped all train traffic late Tuesday after the GSM-R digital radio system failed at about 22:30. Deutsche Bahn suspended long-distance, regional, S-Bahn, private and freight services because drivers need the radio link to communicate with signal control centres. Trains resumed after roughly two hours when IT teams activated an emergency system, but delays and short-notice cancellations continued into Wednesday morning.

Passengers paid the price in the usual modern way: they had vouchers, screens and apps, but often lacked useful information. Some travellers in Frankfurt said no hotel rooms were available, while one ICE train left nearly empty because waiting passengers were not told in time. The outage revived questions about resilience after an earlier German rail communications disruption in 2022.

Airbus faced a different but equally technical problem. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency ordered inspections of 16 A380s after cracks appeared in wing mid spars, structural parts that carry heavy flight loads. Five Emirates aircraft must be inspected before their next flight, and 11 others, including one Qantas jet, must be checked later but within the specified cycle limit.

The incidents share no cause, but they rhyme. Transport networks sell confidence as their main product; a failed radio layer and a cracked wing component show how quickly confidence depends on parts most passengers never knew existed.