Morning Brief, Friday 17 July

The United States carried out a sixth consecutive night of strikes on Iran, hitting sites in the south after President Donald Trump threatened power plants and bridges unless Tehran returned to talks. Iranian media reported hits near Qeshm Island, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr, Chabahar and Iranshahr, while US Central Command said it aimed to degrade Iranian military capabilities. Iran, in turn, has instructed Yemen's Houthis to prepare to close Bab el-Mandeb if Washington strikes Iranian power infrastructure, according to sources cited by Reuters, a move that would pair with Tehran's blockage of Hormuz and squeeze two of the Middle East's main energy routes.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed attacks on US-linked bases and facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan, while Kuwait said 32 drones targeted vital sites and caused material damage. Brigadier General Ebrahim Zolfaghari warned that Iran would answer infrastructure strikes across the region.

Oil markets stayed calmer than the geopolitics, with Brent around $85 a barrel, far below March's $118 peak but still high enough to reward energy majors and worry manufacturers. The effective closure of Hormuz, once carrying about 20% of global energy supplies, has already cut vessel flows sharply, and China has cushioned itself by slashing crude imports and drawing on large stockpiles. The risk now is less one dramatic explosion than a shipping war that grinds down trade, insurance and Gulf confidence one tanker at a time.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed Mykhailo Fedorov as defence minister and chose General Oleksandr Syrskyi's side in a rare public rift at the top of Ukraine's wartime state. Fedorov accused Syrskyi of blocking reforms and running a "dysfunctional culture of lies", while Zelenskiy said the defence ministry and military command had failed to find unity. More than 1,000 people protested outside the presidential office in Kyiv, chanting against Syrskyi and asking why a popular reformer had been removed.

Parliament then confirmed Serhii Koretskyi, a 48-year-old energy executive with no party base, as prime minister. He won 289 votes and promised to protect the energy system, stabilise the economy, spend foreign aid effectively and expand arms production. His appointment followed Yulia Svyrydenko's resignation and the installation of SBU chief Ievheni Khmara as acting defence minister, making this more than a personnel tweak.

The calculation looks clear enough: Zelenskiy wants discipline before another winter of Russian strikes, and he has chosen managers and security officials over a disruptive innovator. The danger is equally plain, because a wartime presidency that asks citizens for sacrifice cannot afford to look allergic to the people who helped keep the state modern and honest.

Canadian wildfire smoke pushed air quality across the US Midwest and Northeast into dangerous territory, with Detroit recording an Air Quality Index of 600, twice the US hazardous threshold. New York distributed KN95 and N95 masks, Philadelphia issued a Code Red alert, and parks across the Midwest moved programmes indoors or restricted fires as ash fell and visibility shrank. Canada counted 858 active fires, 111 of them out of control, and about 2.4m hectares burned this season.

Texas faced the other face of a warmer, wetter atmosphere. Torrential rain sent the Guadalupe River at Center Point up 32 feet in four hours and forced evacuations in Kerr, Uvalde and Kendall counties. Governor Greg Abbott confirmed one death in Kerr County, said more than 75 people had been rescued, and stressed that the siren system had worked after last year's flood killed 139 people along the same river.

France and Spain supplied the European echo. A Fontainebleau fire scorched 2,000 hectares under heat, wind and dry-air conditions, while violent storms and hail battered central and eastern France, overturned trucks and cut power to thousands. Climate policy often arrives as a debate about targets; this week it arrived as masks, rescues, closed parks and a river rising faster than a family can pack.

Uber launched a $14.8bn all-cash offer for Delivery Hero, proposing €41.50 a share and seeking to build the biggest food-delivery platform outside China. The deal would nearly double the countries where Uber offers both rides and delivery, and Prosus has agreed to sell its 17% stake. To ease antitrust concerns, Delivery Hero will sell operations in 14 overlapping markets to SSW Partners for about $1.6bn.

Britain took British Steel into public ownership, returning the company to state hands for the first time since its 1988 privatisation. The Scunthorpe plant employs about 2,700 people and remains the country's last site capable of making primary steel from iron ore, but it costs the government about £1.3m a day. China protested the takeover of Jingye-owned British Steel, and Business Secretary Peter Kyle said the alternative would expose Britain to foreign supply shocks.

TSMC showed why industrial policy now stretches from furnaces to fabs. The Taiwanese chipmaker posted record quarterly net profit of T$706.6bn ($22bn), lifted its 2026 capital-spending budget to as much as $64bn, and pledged another $100bn for Arizona, taking planned US investment to $265bn. These stories point in different directions, yet share one lesson: scale is no longer just a corporate ambition, it is the language companies and states use when they fear being trapped outside the next supply chain.