🇨🇴🤝🇮🇱🇺🇸 Colombia is the latest country after Chad and Venezuela to withdraw from the International Criminal Court.

Colombia's new president, Abelardo de la Espriella, was inaugurated president on August 7th and the first thing he did as Colombia's new head of state was to break off diplomatic relations with Palestine, restore diplomatic relations with Israel and move the Colombian embassy to Jerusalem, followed by recognising Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

US Defense Secretary Hegseth has explicitly urged allies to leave the ICC, calling it "fake and illegitimate."

🔗 Clash Report

🇮🇱 Former Israeli PM and opposition leader, Naftali Bennett:

We have lost the United States. We have lost the world.

We are at the most terrible low point in Israel’s international standing since the establishment of the state.

We have to work on this.

In the next government, we will establish a national public-diplomacy body under the Prime Minister’s Office.

Just as there is Unit 8200 for intelligence, we will establish 8300 for the battle over public consciousness and influence.

It will take the fight to Qatar, Iran, and the enemies of Israel.

This time, I’m talking about it on steroids.

🔗 Clash Report (@clashreport)

🇮🇱⚔️🇱🇧🇮🇷 Former Israeli PM and opponent of Benjamin Netanyahu, Naftali Bennett, pledged to strike Iran anytime Hezbollah attacks Israel.

"If Hezbollah fires at us, we will strike Iran. Any attack by Iran's tentacles within the borders of Israel will result in a price being paid within the borders of Iran."

🔗 https://t.me/N12chat/222565

🇮🇱☢️🇸🇦 Opposition politician and opponent of Benjamin Netanyahu, Yair Lapid, said Israel will not allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium on its soil.

"An agreement with Saudi Arabia is, of course, a central goal in the coming years. We can and should work towards a peace agreement with them, but there is one caveat: Israel must prevent, at all costs, the enrichment of uranium on Saudi soil."

🔗 https://t.me/N12chat/222570

🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇸 Contrary to popular belief, the USS Abraham Lincoln isn't supplied from Diego Garcia. It is supplied from Singapore.

The New York Times falsely reported that Diego Garcia is serving as a logistics support base for Navy ships in the Middle East.

Sal Mercogliano corrected the record with data showing logistics is running out of Singapore and Mombasa, Kenya. He argued, due to proximity, Diego Garcia should be used instead, but thanks to the Army defunding its prepositioned ships there, Ready Reserve ships and logistics personnel would have to surge first.

It is unclear whether these ships will carry people to the island to build out logistics capacity or simply replace the passenger planes already serving it.

Here is the part nobody in the Pentagon wants to say out loud: sealift is the pressure relief valve for every air plan that fails. When the sky closes, the ocean is the only way out, and the ocean requires ships, crews and escorts we have not built.

The Ready Reserve Force is not a fleet. It is a museum with a maintenance budget. Average hull age north of 45 years, steam plants almost nobody is trained to run, and a mariner pool too small to crew a full activation for a sustained campaign.

The NVSM ships, that also serve to train maritime cadets, that might activate in support of this mission are new but California Maritime Academy hosts the only training ship in the Pacific and their NVSM is still under construction in Philly.

Their current ship, the TS Golden Bear, is old and has less bed space. The Department of Transportation under Biden foolishly scrapped the old training ship already replaced on the East Coast rather than putting them in the once crowded, now almost empty, Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet (know as the pacific Ghost Fleet).

No reserve ships have anti-air defenses installed aboard.

Bottom line is this activation, if it happens, is a tell. You do not reach for the Ready Reserve to move passengers unless the air option is degraded or expected to degrade.

Watch three things this week: MARAD activation orders, any change in Navy Military Sealift Command traffic through Singapore and Mombasa, and whether Diego Garcia starts receiving sealift instead of airlift.

🔗 John Konrad

🇺🇸🚙 Subprime Auto Loans Just Hit Their Worst Delinquency Rate in 32 Years.

Subprime auto lenders can make huge profits when times are good because of the shockingly high rates they can charge customers. But during a recession, their customers often stop paying. And that can cause deep financial strain for subprime auto lenders. Often, a recession isn't even necessary; it can just be an economic soft patch.

The subprime auto loan delinquency rate began 2026 at around 6.8%. The 60-day delinquency rate remains above levels seen during the Great Recession.

📝 Huge difference between what's happening now versus 2008.

In 2008, people were losing their jobs, that's why they were missing payments.

We are fully employed now and people are missing payments.

🔗 https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/subprime-auto-loans-just-hit-023500411.html

🇮🇷⚔️🇺🇸🇧🇬🇨🇾 Iran has considered striking U.S. military targets in southeastern Europe, including Bulgaria and Cyprus, if Washington escalates the war, according to two regime insiders cited by the FT.

📝: Iran has missiles capable of hitting targets over 2000km away meaning U.S. bases in Italy (Sicily) and even Germany could become a target considering that Iran has attempted to strike Diego Garcia in the past.

Also, the city of Mombasa, Kenya (not visible on the map) is within the 4000 km range. Mombasa is a key U.S. Navy logistics hub used to resupply the CSGs in CENTCOM's Area of Operation.

🔗 Faytuks

🇺🇦 Vladimir Zelensky dismissed deputy presidential chief Irina Mudra on Wednesday following an anti-corruption raid on her home over allegations she helped launder $3.4 million through a state-owned bank. - FT

🔗 Faytuks

🇺🇸 The U.S. is spending 3.31% of its GDP to service its debt, surpassing the 3.2% milestone it hit in the 1990s.

@CIG_telegram

🇷🇺⚔️🇺🇦 The battle for Dobropolye has begun.

Russian troops broke into the city and occupied a dozen houses on the city's northern outskirts.

🔗 AMK Mapping

🇮🇱⚔️🇸🇾🇹🇷 Israeli strikes on Abu al-Duhur Airbase in northwestern Syria came just one day after a Turkish delegation visited the base to inspect ongoing rehabilitation work.

The timing makes it pretty clear the strike was a message to Turkey not Syria.

🔗 EGYOSINT

🇦🇪❌🇮🇷 The UAE's decision to sever economic ties with Tehran threatens Iran's primary commercial lifeline, cutting off a trade conduit that supplies more than 30 percent of Iranian non-oil imports and handles up to $29 billion in annual bilateral merchandise flows.

Clear numbers on the trade volume between the UAE and Iran are tricky, as reports from the two nations and international bodies provide vastly differing figures. However, one thing is clear: bilateral flows are extremely lopsided.

UAE and international reporting mechanisms like UN Comtrade registered $6.6 billion in total non-oil trade in 2024, while Iranian customs authorities (IRICA) reported annual volumes reaching $29.1 billion, reflecting the immense volume of third-country goods transiting through Emirati ports into Iranian markets.

The outbound flow is heavily tilted toward Tehran. In 2024, UAE-reported exports to Iran stood at $6.07 billion, which is 91 percent of the $6.6 billion in total non-oil trade between the two nations.

Meanwhile, Iranian official data indicated imports from the UAE reached approximately $21.9 billion in 2024, 75 percent of the total trade reported in Iran. Goods re-exported from third nations typically comprise 85 to 95 percent of all outbound shipments leaving Emirati ports for Iran.

By contrast, Iranian shipments in the opposite direction have been in decline for several years now.

UAE data logged just $545 million in imports from Iran in 2024, down sharply from $5.81 billion in 2018.

Even under the significantly higher figures that Iran reports, non-oil shipments to the UAE reached only $7.2 billion, demonstrating that Abu Dhabi’s direct domestic exposure to Iranian merchandise is negligible.

🔗 https://clashreport.com/world/articles/explained-uae-wants-to-cut-off-iran-trade-it-could-cost-tehran-billions-3i6xt27w5u

🇦🇿❌🇷🇺 Baku summons Russian ambassador as rift deepens again

Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry summoned Russian ambassador Mikhail Yevdokimov on August 18 to protest what it called provocative, insulting and threatening statements against Azerbaijan, its people and leadership circulating in Russian media, a day after the Prosecutor General's Office placed three Russian citizens on an international wanted list.

The dispute coincided with the deportation of Bakhtiyar Hasanov, chairman of the Moscow Azerbaijani National-Cultural Autonomy, from Russia, deepening strains between the two countries that have built up over the past two years.

The Prosecutor General's Office said on August 17 that Ivan Knyazev, a presenter on the Moskva 24 television channel, political consultant and media expert Semyon Uralov, and Aleksey Chadayev, an adviser to Russia's transport minister who also works as a television correspondent, are accused of inciting terrorism, calling for the forcible change of Azerbaijan's constitutional order, and stirring ethnic hatred and enmity.

As the men are outside Azerbaijan, prosecutors said they have asked partner states to locate and detain them, and have sought an international search through Interpol channels for their extradition to Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry's statement on August 18 also referenced other broadcasts it deemed hostile, including a Sputnik radio programme on August 7 concerning claims that Azerbaijan's leadership had been placed on a Russian list of terrorists and extremists, and further material aired on the Spas television channel on August 16. The ministry said discussion of interference in Azerbaijan's domestic political processes and calls for physical violence against its people and leadership were unacceptable, adding that Baku expected urgent and effective measures from Moscow to end what it called provocations, threats and violent rhetoric in the Russian information space.

Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded that the views of the individuals named do not reflect Russian government policy, saying Russian-Azerbaijani relations should continue to develop on the basis of the existing bilateral legal framework, including the Declaration on Allied Interaction signed in Moscow on February 22 2022, according to a report by NEWS.ru cited by Report.

The latest friction comes as Azerbaijan has more visibly diverged from Moscow's position on Ukraine. Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov visited Kyiv and Irpin on August 6, his first official visit since Russia's full-scale invasion, reaffirming Azerbaijan's support for Ukraine's territorial integrity within internationally recognised borders and discussing possible gas supplies to Ukraine. Former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko visited Baku on August 16-17 and met Aliyev, who was presented with honorary citizenship of Irpin, a gesture likely to be read in Moscow as symbolic.

🔗 https://www.intellinews.com/baku-summons-russian-ambassador-as-rift-deepens-again-462013/

🇪🇸🇲🇦⚡️ — Spain plans to transfer 500 unaccompanied migrant girls from Ceuta to the mainland, reversing its earlier position that irregular arrivals would be returned to Morocco.

The government says the girls are being prioritized because of their vulnerability, with minors placed in protected facilities following reports of sexual violence and assault during the migration crisis.