Evening Brief, Sunday 12 July

The United States launched a third wave of strikes on Iran within a week, hitting roughly 140 military targets after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked the Cyprus-flagged container ship M/V GFS Galaxy near Oman. Washington said the vessel caught fire, suffered severe engine-room damage and had one civilian crew member missing; Tehran said the ship had taken an unauthorised route and disabled tracking systems. US forces targeted missile and drone sites, naval assets, ammunition depots, communications networks and coastal surveillance posts, while American officials said more than 300 Iranian targets had been struck during the week.

Pete Hegseth framed the operation as punishment rather than signalling.

“Iran made the wrong choice. Now they are paying for it.”

Iran answered with missiles and drones aimed at Gulf-region targets, including facilities in Oman, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain, and the IRGC declared the Strait of Hormuz closed until further notice. Maritime advisers still reported the southern route along Oman open, which makes the announcement as much coercive signal as practical blockade. The strait normally carries about 20% of global hydrocarbon trade, so even partial uncertainty can tax oil, gas, insurance and freight before a single tanker turns back.

Diplomacy has not disappeared, but it now trails the guns. Talks on administering the waterway failed to produce a breakthrough, while Qatari and Omani channels continued amid public threats from Donald Trump and Mojtaba Khamenei. Hormuz is not just a channel today; it is the meter by which traders will price miscalculation.

Typhoon Bavi made landfall twice in eastern China, first at Yuhuan and then near Yueqing, after driving winds of 144 km/h and heavy rain across the coast. Chinese authorities evacuated nearly 2m people, including more than 1.7m in Zhejiang, while Shanghai, Fujian and Beijing also moved residents from risk zones. Taiwan reported 134 injuries and the Philippines counted at least 17 deaths from monsoon flooding linked to the storm system, mostly in landslides. China’s government allocated 40m yuan in relief funds and suspended schools, ferries, outdoor work, flights and train services as the storm weakened inland.

• Zhejiang1,700,000
• Fujian130,000
• Beijing100,000
• Shanghai34,000

Europe’s emergency was hotter and drier. France placed 37 departments under its red heat alert, covering 26m residents, as temperatures pushed toward 41°C and wildfires had already burned more than 25,000 hectares this year. One in three Intercités trains was cancelled during the hottest hours, a campsite evacuation in Loire-Atlantique moved 220 people, and officials warned that most fire starts come from human activity. Patrick Marlière stripped the message down to numbers.

“We are approaching 40 degrees in the shade across all sectors.”

South Korea, meanwhile, issued its highest heat alert for the first time, ordering outdoor activity to stop in Gyeongsan and Pohang after felt temperatures passed 35°C and forecasts pointed near 39°C.

Spain showed what follows when heat, wind and dry scrub combine badly. The Los Gallardos wildfire in Almería stabilised after killing 12 people, injuring 18, burning about 7,000 hectares and forcing around 1,400 people from their homes. The weather map now looks less like a forecast than a public-service roster.

Volodymyr Zelensky opened a sweeping cabinet overhaul, saying he had offered Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko a new role and wanted a renewed government to carry an updated political strategy. The move is Ukraine’s fourth major government reorganisation since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and it arrives as Kyiv presses deeper drone and missile strikes against Russian oil facilities and military infrastructure. Zelensky said the reshuffle would focus the state on priority foreign-policy tracks, including the United States, European missile defence, the EU, Poland and Hungary, the Gulf, China and international organisations.

Zelensky described the rationale directly.

“Ukraine is changing its political strategy. These changes require a renewal of the Cabinet of Ministers.”

Svyrydenko, a 40-year-old economist who became prime minister in July 2025 after leading negotiations on a US minerals deal, accepted the change and is widely expected to become ambassador to Washington. Naftogaz chief Sergii Koretskyi has emerged as a leading candidate to replace her, while Denys Shmyhal and Mykhailo Fedorov are also being discussed. The president also promised changes among law-enforcement chiefs after the Midas corruption case at Energoatom, which involved an alleged $100m kickback scheme.

The politics are more delicate than the announcement suggests. Parliament must approve ministerial changes, and although Zelensky’s Servant of the People party holds a majority, deputies have not always voted obediently. His reshuffle is a bet that wars are won not only with drones and air defences, but with a government machine built to chase weapons, money and patience abroad.

Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, died on Saturday evening aged 71 after what his office called a brief and sudden illness. He had served in the Senate since 2002, chaired the Budget Committee, sat on Appropriations and Judiciary, and was running for re-election in November 2026. Graham’s career traced one of the Republican Party’s larger arcs: he mocked Donald Trump as unfit in 2016, then became one of the president’s most reliable Senate allies while keeping his old appetite for military power.

Donald Trump answered with a personal tribute.

“Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the greatest people and Senators I have ever known, is dead! He was always working, and was a true American Patriot. Lindsey will be greatly missed!!! Details and arrangements to follow. How sad!”

Foreign leaders reacted quickly because Graham made himself hard to ignore. Benjamin Netanyahu called him one of Israel’s greatest friends, Volodymyr Zelensky praised his wartime visits to Ukraine, and Mark Rutte remembered him as a supporter of NATO. His final Kyiv trip came on Friday, when he and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal announced that the White House had agreed to a sanctions package targeting countries that buy Russian oil and gas outside existing restrictions.

Graham’s record was admired, feared and often denounced. He backed Ukraine, Israel, a hard line on Iran and strong US intervention abroad, positions that put him at odds with the party’s isolationist wing. Washington has lost a senator who treated foreign policy like a contact sport; the next fight is whether his sanctions bill keeps moving without its loudest Republican salesman.

Oliver Blume tried to reassure Volkswagen workers and politicians by saying he wanted to avoid closing German factories, even as the group’s restructuring fight deepened. In an interview, the chief executive said German production-site costs had fallen by 20% in the past year and that the new entry-level ID. Polo family had sold more than 50,000 units in its first four weeks. Yet the works council accused him of withholding details from tens of thousands of affected employees after he briefed managers but missed a deadline to address the broader workforce.

Blume offered the line workers wanted to hear, but not the guarantees they want in writing.

“There are smarter solutions than closing factories.”

The contested sites are Zwickau, Emden, Audi’s Neckarsulm plant and the commercial-vehicle plant in Hannover, which together employ 40,000 people. Volkswagen has already announced plans to cut production capacity by 1m vehicles to 9m a year by 2030, halve its model range by 2035 and eliminate 5,000 of 21,000 management posts worldwide. Reports have put possible global job cuts far higher, at up to 100,000 or even 120,000, though no final closure decisions have been announced.

• German site costs-20
• Global sales-9
• China sales-37

The boardroom arithmetic is as awkward as the factory arithmetic. Worker representatives and Lower Saxony command a 12-to-7 majority on the supervisory board, and they rejected Blume’s Zukunftsplan last week. Volkswagen has proved it can still sell cars; now it must show it can shrink without turning Germany’s industrial crown jewel into a labour-relations demolition site.