Morning Brief, Saturday 22 August

Russian forces launched a two-wave drone strike on a shopping complex in Kryvyi Rih, killing at least 14 people and injuring at least 103, according to Ukrainian officials. The second drone hit about 30 minutes after the first, while emergency crews were evacuating the wounded and fighting fires, a pattern Ukraine described as an attempt to strike rescuers as well as shoppers.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who grew up in Kryvyi Rih, condemned the attack on his hometown and demanded pressure on Moscow. The strike followed a deadly barrage on Kyiv and a run of attacks that have strained Ukraine's Patriot interceptor stocks, while Ukrainian forces have answered by targeting Russian oil infrastructure and supply lines.

Germany, meanwhile, investigated a weapons cache found in a Brandenburg forest after intelligence officers uncovered two handguns and ammunition, disabled the guns and watched the site for months. Federal prosecutors are treating the case as suspected foreign-agent activity linked to an operative held in Romania, while German officials suspect Russian intelligence sought tools for targeted killings or sabotage inside Europe.

Alexander Dobrindt said the discovery showed the pressure on German security services. The danger is that Moscow's war now tests not only Ukrainian air defences, but Europe's ability to spot sabotage before it turns into politics by explosion.

Scott Bessent said Washington will detail a new sanctions package against Iran on Monday, framing economic pressure as an alternative to a large military restart. Tehran rejected the threat, while China, Iran's main oil customer before the war, opposed unilateral penalties and urged a political settlement. The sanctions push lands as shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed, with Kpler recording just seven commodity vessels on Thursday compared with more than 130 a day before the conflict.

Germany showed what that pressure means once it reaches household bills. Gas storage stood near 49% to 50% in mid-August, far below last year's 67% and well short of the legal 80% target by November 1. High summer prices have broken the usual incentive to buy cheap gas now and store it for winter, leaving officials to hope that market manager Trading Hub Europe can step in if private buyers stay away.

The squeeze also fed the broader inflation story. US debt passed $40 trillion as long Treasury yields touched levels last seen in 2007, while oil and fuel prices added another worry for voters and central bankers. Europe can survive expensive gas; it struggles when expensive gas, debt anxiety and sanctions uncertainty arrive in the same invoice.

Climate forecasters now expect an exceptionally strong El Niño to peak late this year, after Pacific temperature anomalies moved far beyond normal thresholds. The Niño 3.4 region already measures 2.6C above the 30-year average, and models point to a possible 3.9C peak in November, with a 69% probability that the event surpasses every recorded episode since 1950.

Nick Dunstone of the Met Office said the main global temperature effect usually arrives in the calendar year after a winter El Niño peak. That makes 2027 very likely to beat 2024 as the hottest year on record and to temporarily exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, after a European summer that already brought heatwaves, low rivers and stressed infrastructure.

The regional forecast cuts in different directions. Forecasters expect drought across parts of the tropics, southern Africa, north-east Australia and South America, while north-western Europe and Britain may see wetter and stormier conditions from autumn. Those shifts threaten sugar, coffee and cocoa harvests, and they will test rail, drainage and power networks already trying to adapt. The forecast gives governments months, not years, to treat heat, water and rail lines as budget problems rather than weather chat.

TikTok and ByteDance agreed to pay $400m to settle US Justice Department litigation over alleged child privacy violations, ending a case that accused the platform of collecting data from users under 13 without proper parental consent. The deal requires $300m upfront and another $100m after a court vacates a 2019 Musical.ly consent decree, with no formal admission of wrongdoing by the company.

Uber received an even larger blow in Europe, where the Dutch Data Protection Authority fined it €825m, about $966m, over automated driver deactivations without adequate human review. The regulator said drivers lost access to income after software flagged alleged fraud, low ratings or route problems, breaching EU rules that restrict fully automated decisions with major livelihood effects. Uber said it would appeal and argued that the disputed systems are no longer in use.

The two cases hit different business models but point in the same direction. TikTok must show that its US restructuring and youth-screening systems do more than reassure politicians, while Uber must persuade courts that human review now exists where algorithms once moved first. The old internet bargain, take the data first and apologise later, is getting pricier on both sides of the Atlantic.