Morning Brief, Monday 6 July

NATO leaders travel to Ankara with one audience member in mind. Donald Trump has derided the alliance as weak, pressed allies toward a 5% of GDP defence-spending goal and allowed US officials to hint that American support could depend on who pays most. Mark Rutte has shortened the main council session to two or three hours, a small act of summit choreography designed to reduce the chance of a public blow-up. European allies, meanwhile, plan to showcase contracts and higher spending, including a reported 20% rise in 2025 to €450 billion.

Turkey has supplied the setting, and a warning. Authorities detained more than 200 activists, journalists, lawyers and left-wing figures ahead of the summit, with at least 103 placed in pre-trial detention, while Ankara imposed a ban on public gatherings from June 28. Riot police used tear gas against an anti-NATO protest on Sunday, and government media framed the raids as counterterrorism operations.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan also wants arms deals from the gathering, including movement on jet engines and Eurofighters, which turns a security summit into a marketplace. The alliance can spend more and still look brittle if its host jails critics and its indispensable member doubts the club, so Ankara will measure not only budgets but nerves.

Russia launched ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones at Kyiv in the early hours of Monday, striking residential buildings in Podil and damaging blocks in Darnytsia. Ukrainian officials said at least three people were killed and several wounded, while rescue teams searched floors where residents were trapped. The barrage followed a strike days earlier that killed at least 30 people in the capital, and Volodymyr Zelenskyy again pressed Western partners for more Patriot missiles. Ukraine also struck energy infrastructure near Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea, according to the Moscow-appointed governor.

Iran, meanwhile, turned mourning into state theatre. Thousands gathered at Tehran's Grand Mosalla Mosque for farewell rites for Ali Khamenei, who was killed in February in joint US-Israeli strikes, but his son and successor Mojtaba Khamenei did not appear. Iranian sources said he was injured in the same attack, while security concerns also kept him away. The absence mattered because the funeral was meant to project continuity after a war that Iran answered with missile attacks on Israel and US interests.

Benjamin Netanyahu added a separate provocation by saying some Christian villages in southern Lebanon had asked to be annexed by Israel, without naming them. Israeli ministers still say they seek no Lebanese territory, while also insisting troops will remain in security areas until Hezbollah ceases to threaten northern Israel. Castles rarely decide modern wars, but absences, buffers and apartment blocks can decide how much trust is left in truces that had little to spare.

Venezuela raised the official death toll from the June 24 twin earthquakes to 3,342, with 16,740 people injured and 17,345 left homeless. Authorities said rescue teams had pulled 6,462 people from rubble and distributed more than 9,585 tonnes of food, but families in La Guaira still searched for bodies and complained that promised help had slowed. Interim President Delcy Rodríguez created a new disaster task force, replaced the transport minister and asked for sanctions relief to free assets for reconstruction.

Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands braced for Super Typhoon Bavi, which forecasters expected to bring sustained winds of 260 to 280 km/h and gusts up to 333 km/h early Monday. Officials opened five evacuation centres with capacity for 1,900 people, and FEMA pre-positioned 1.1 million litres of water, 1.2 million meals, 6,700 cots and 90 generators. The eye was expected to pass closest to Rota, a small island of about 1,500 people, and warnings included catastrophic wind damage, surge and 10.7-metre waves.

Southern France fought a different emergency. A wildfire near Trévillach spread across roughly 2,000 hectares, forced about 10,500 people from their homes and pushed Tour de France organisers to close the French part of Monday's stage to spectators. Heat, wind and humidity below 10% turned embers into mobile hazards, while European reinforcements joined French crews. The common thread is not bad luck but thinner margins, where states must evacuate, feed and reassure people faster than weather and geology can punish delay.

OPEC+'s core seven members agreed to raise output targets by 188,000 barrels per day from August, the fifth monthly increase since April. On paper, that lifts quota additions close to 800,000 barrels per day. In practice, war has made the numbers squishy: the US-Israeli war with Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz to tankers from key producers and helped cut OPEC+ output from 42.77 million barrels per day in February to 33.13 million in May. The group will meet again on August 2 and says it can accelerate, pause or reverse the adjustment.

The more important valve is Hormuz. The chokepoint, which normally handles about a fifth of global oil flows, has gradually resumed traffic since the US and Iran agreed a 60-day ceasefire on June 17. Middle East crude exports reached 9.62 million barrels per day in June, roughly half the pre-war average, and July shipments are tracking a little higher. Brent traded near $72 a barrel on Monday, down from above $120 during the conflict.

Lower Chinese demand, strategic reserve releases and non-Middle East supply have helped cool prices, but a reopening strait does not instantly repair war-damaged logistics. Oil markets have stopped screaming; they are now listening for the smaller sounds of ports, tankers and restart crews.

Germany's Alternative für Deutschland re-elected Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla as co-chairs at its Erfurt congress, but the smoother headlines hid a sharper turn. Six of the 14 new federal board members come from state branches that domestic intelligence classifies as confirmed right-wing extremist, and deputy chair Sven Tritschler rejected moderation by defending the party's remigration demand. Outside, police counted more than 31,000 protesters, while organisers claimed around 50,000; officers escorted delegates into the venue from before dawn to dodge blockades.

France faces a more judicial kind of political suspense. Marine Le Pen awaits an appeal ruling that could uphold a five-year ban from public office after her conviction over the misuse of European Parliament funds. If the ban stands, Jordan Bardella would inherit the National Rally candidacy for 2027; if it is reduced, Marine Le Pen could still run before the first round on April 18. The party has staged unity, but the court now holds the campaign timetable.

Édouard Philippe used a Paris rally of about 5,000 people to present himself as the right-centre alternative, promising school reform, longer working lives and a shield against what he called two angry extremes. Bruno Retailleau dismissed the pitch as a rerun of Macronism, which showed how crowded the non-Le Pen lane already looks. Europe's right is not merely rising; it is sorting out whether power rewards polish, provocation or a good lawyer.

easyJet's board said it was minded to recommend a £5.5 billion takeover offer from Castlelake, the US aviation investor, after the bidder returned with a fifth proposal. The £6.90-a-share price represents a 73% premium to the closing price on May 29, when Castlelake first disclosed its interest. Earlier approaches started at £5.60 on June 12 and rose to £6.50 on June 23, but easyJet rejected them and at one point called the approach highly opportunistic. A firm offer is due by August 3 after due diligence.

Castlelake already owns 375 aircraft leased to airlines including Etihad, Qantas and Frontier, and it previously rescued Scandinavian Airlines. The structure of this deal shows how European aviation remains political as well as financial: EU rules require majority EU ownership, so Castlelake would hold 49% of the acquiring entity, while former easyJet manager Peter Bellew and aviation expert Mark Breen, both EU citizens, would take 51%. Regulators still need to approve the arrangement.

The timing helps explain why easyJet listened. Its shares had fallen about 30% over the past year before bid interest emerged, and airlines have been squeezed by high fuel costs, thinner margins and disruption linked to the Iran conflict. Condor is also looking for new owners, with Gulf and Turkish carriers named as possible suitors. Castlelake is not buying a trophy; it is buying a low-cost carrier at a moment when scale, balance sheets and regulatory engineering matter as much as cheap seats.