Global situation update (Post 2 of 3): the wider world

China fired a ballistic missile from a nuclear-powered submarine across the Pacific on Monday, over the Philippines and into the water between Tonga and Nauru, on the same day Australia signed a mutual-defence treaty with Fiji. Hamas relinquished control of Gaza after nearly two decades. Russia's largest oil refinery burned while Moscow faced its largest drone attack in two years.

This is the wider-world post; Australia domestic follows separately.

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[The missile test - between Nauru and Tonga, on signing day]

• The launch. A PLA Navy nuclear submarine fired a missile with a dummy warhead toward the Pacific at 12:01pm Monday, per Xinhua ("routine"); Taiwan's Joseph Wu tracked it over the Philippines into the water between Tonga and Nauru. China's last ICBM test was in 2024.
• The response. Albanese, in Honiara: "a provocative act by China, which does destabilise the region"; he said the 48-hour notice standard was not met and the "real concern" was the nuclear-powered launch platform. Wong called it "destabilising"; notice accounts differ from two hours to a day. ASPI's Frank Rose read it as most likely a JL-3 submarine-launched missile from a Type 094 boat, validating China's sea leg, and argued the trend, not the test, matters (the US Defense Department projects China past 1,000 warheads by 2030).
• The Pacific reaction. Solomons PM Wale: China is "a good friend ... but this is not something a friend does ... Be our friend, but don't threaten us." PNG and Fiji joined the condemnation; Vanuatu stayed silent; Tuvalu was still "assessing whether the missile report was real." Victor Gao of the Centre for China and Globalisation told 7.30 that Australia should "treasure" being nuclear-free and warned China can reach "any corner ... within 20 minutes or so."
• The signing. Australia and Fiji signed the Ocean of Peace mutual-defence alliance, Fiji's first and Australia's fourth, with A$1 billion over the decade; the Australia-PNG Pukpuk treaty came into force, and Rabuka said the deal does not threaten Fiji's ties with China. It follows the Vanuatu pact and precedes accelerated Solomons treaty talks.

The structural finding. The test and the treaty are the same conversation held in different languages. China demonstrated it can put a submarine-launched missile into the South Pacific; Australia demonstrated it can put mutual-defence obligations around the islands the missile flew past. Wale's line about friends captures the position of the states in between: they are being asked to choose infrastructure creditors or security guarantors, and they are trying, loudly, to refuse the choice.

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[China - the pressure architecture]

• At sea. China ran a coast guard "law-enforcement patrol" east of Taiwan in June (the US, UK, France and Germany called it "deeply destabilizing"); the Fujian carrier transited the Strait; Taiwan tracks a record 110-plus Chinese vessels along the First Island Chain and told its ships to ignore boarding demands; at the disputed Senkakus, China and Japan gave mirror-image accounts of an expulsion. China and Russia began their Joint Sea drill in the Yellow Sea.
• The reach outward. China's ethnic-unity law took effect 1 July claiming jurisdiction over people abroad ("almost boundless," per a Taiwanese official); two men including a UK Border Force officer were jailed in Britain for spying for China; a Reuters investigation reported Putin's defence minister personally approved covert Chinese training of Russian forces, prompting a German summons.
• The status-quo warning. Taiwan's Kuan Bi-ling: grey-zone pressure "risks creating an entirely new status quo ... we may suddenly discover that no decisive war ever occurred ... yet the original status quo no longer exists." Senator Tammy Duckworth visited, the first US senator since the May Trump-Xi meeting. Lowy polling per the NYT: more than 60 per cent of Australians now view China more as economic partner than security threat.

The structural finding. The pattern across the fronts is jurisdiction assertion: coast guard law-enforcement framing east of Taiwan, boarding demands, an ethnic law with extraterritorial reach, expulsion announcements at the Senkakus. Each individually is deniable as administration rather than aggression; together they describe a state practising the paperwork of ownership over spaces it does not control, and testing who files an objection.

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[The AI war - both empires close their doors]

• Both doors. On 12 June the US Commerce Department restricted Anthropic's Mythos and Fable models over military-misuse fears; access was suspended, then lifted on 30 June. Beijing is examining curbs on overseas access to its own top AI models, with leaks potentially punishable under national-security law.
• The extraction fight. Anthropic told US senators (in a 10 June letter) that Alibaba-affiliated operators ran a "distillation" campaign generating 28.8 million exchanges through nearly 25,000 fraudulent accounts; Alibaba, added to the Pentagon's military-companies list and suing over it, banned staff from using Claude Code. Qihoo 360's Zhou Hongyi unveiled "China's version of Mythos" while conceding a "20%-30% gap in base capability."
• The capability dispute. David Sacks on Z.ai's GLM-5.2: "as good as the currently available models from OpenAI and Anthropic," "just a tick below Opus 4.8." RAND found Chinese models' global share jumped from 3 to 13 per cent after DeepSeek's R1.
• The sovereignty ripple. Ukraine will favour self-hosted models it can run itself, limiting reliance on Anthropic and OpenAI; its chief AI officer Roman Kyslyi said the policy "was reinforced after the U.S. government ordered Anthropic to cut access to powerful models" and that "AI sovereignty isn't just a defensive talking point, it's a necessity."

The structural finding. The two governments disagree about who is ahead and agree about what the technology is. Washington restricted its own champion's models within days of release; Beijing is drafting laws to stop its models leaving; each treats frontier AI as export-controlled strategic material. The capability question stays contested on the record, Zhou's 20 to 30 per cent gap against Sacks' "as good as," but both states are acting as if the answer no longer matters to the policy.

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[China - the economy underneath]

• The conquest. BYD posted a second month of global sales growth on exports; Chinese brands are pushing premium EVs into right-hand-drive markets from Australia to Southeast Asia. GM, VW and Renault are handing EV development to Chinese engineers: GM's PATAC-built Buick Electra E7 sold more than 10,000 in a month, and the German industry's share of R&D done in China rose from 12 to 33 per cent in two years.
• The doors closing. The EU plans duties on Chinese hybrids; the US ended Polestar's US sales under its connected-vehicle rule and barred Digitalsystem Technology from the telecom market; the FCC is drafting an inverter ban. China told mills to refuse two Fortescue products from 15 July, added MP Materials to its export-control list, and the G7 set up a critical-minerals alliance.
• Underneath. China's flexible-work force is set to reach 320 million as the gig economy absorbs mass layoffs; factory activity returned to expansion in June on chip and AI-related exports.

The structural finding. The West's China trade agenda has inverted: the problem being negotiated is no longer access to China's market but defence against China's competitiveness. Tariffs on hybrids, connected-vehicle bans, inverter bans and minerals alliances are the policy of parties that expect to lose open contests. China's own vulnerability runs underneath: an export machine riding the AI boom on top of a labour market absorbing its pain through precarious work.

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[Israel - the Gaza handover, Lebanon, and the courts]

• The handover. Hamas relinquished Gaza after nearly two decades to make way for a civilian-led government; a US-led Board of Peace (Blair, Mladenov) will assess "by actions, not promises," with a leaked draft reportedly seeking legal immunity for its members. Israel's Sa'ar rejected the move as the "Hezbollah model" and demanded full disarmament; donors reneged on $17 billion in pledges.
• On the ground. A strike near a Gaza City hospital fuel station killed at least three; a separate strike before the Egypt-Argentina World Cup screening killed aid official Mohamed al-Wahidi, a driver and two child brothers (Israel said he "was not a target"). Since the October truce, the Government Media Office counts at least 1,053 killed and the Health Ministry at least 1,027 including 258 children; the overall toll since October 2023 stands at 73,098. B'Tselem released CCTV of a Border Police officer throwing a stun grenade into a car in Qalandia.
• Lebanon. Netanyahu, visiting troops in the south, said the military "will not leave" while Hezbollah remains; the 14-point framework signed 27 June is rejected by Hezbollah, with Rome talks set for mid-July. The toll stands at 4,303 killed, and Israel occupies 5 to 6 per cent of Lebanese territory.
• The courts. The government unanimously declared it will not comply with a High Court freeze on its new broadcast regulator ("the rule of law is not the rule of judges"); the court warned of "anarchy." The Knesset gave a first reading to a government-structured October 7 inquiry.

The structural finding. The handover and the defiance are the same week's answer to the same question: who governs, and answerable to whom. Gaza gets an unelected Board assessing a population by "actions, not promises" under a draft that would immunise the assessors; Israel's own government tells its highest court that compliance is optional. Authority is being reallocated on both sides of the fence, in both cases away from the institutions that used to hold it.

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[Syria - the visit and the bombs]

• The visit. Macron became the first Western leader in Damascus since Assad's 2024 ouster, warning Sharaa against sending Syrian forces into Lebanon; Sharaa agreed, and 15 bilateral agreements were signed.
• The bombs. Two explosions about 125 metres from Macron's hotel injured at least 18 people, four police officers among them, per Syria's state agency SANA and AFP; devices in a parked car and a bin detonated as specialists moved to defuse them. No group claimed responsibility.

The structural finding. The reconstruction opening and the bombs arrived at the same hotel. Post-Assad Syria is being courted and contested simultaneously, and the contest is not over who visits but over whether the state hosting the visit can secure a city block.

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[Ukraine and Russia - the fuel war deepens]

• The strikes on cities. Russia's 2 July attack on Kyiv killed 30, the capital's worst of the war (Klitschko); a fresh 8 July barrage killed at least three (AP) to seven (Al Jazeera, Guardian) across four regions. Zelenskyy: "We are fighting alone. The victims are only Ukrainians."
• The refinery war. Ukraine struck Russia's largest refinery (Omsk, 6 July) and hit shadow-fleet tankers, and more than 430 drones hit Moscow in its largest attack in two years. Russia is importing gasoline from India and jet fuel via Japan, Russians are queuing to convert cars to LPG, and Russia jams Starlink (the "Volna Kupol Garant") to blunt Ukraine's drones.
• The NATO bid and the front. Zelenskyy argued in Ankara for membership and European anti-ballistic capacity; a NATO official put Russia's advance at 3.79 square kilometres a day in June at 30,000 to 35,000 casualties a month. Russia claimed Kostiantynivka and Ukraine denied it (contested); CSIS puts total war casualties past 2 million.

The structural finding. Both capitals are now fighting energy wars against civilians' winters and their own front lines simultaneously. Ukraine's refinery campaign has made a petrostate a fuel importer; Russia's missile campaign has made a European capital a nightly shelter. The CSIS numbers say the attrition is roughly three to one in Ukraine's favour and catastrophic for both.

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[Europe - rearmament and the summit]

• The summit. The NATO summit in Ankara affirmed an "ironclad" Article 5 and unveiled at least US$50 billion in arms deals; a British commander will take NATO's Norfolk command and the UK will lead a £37 billion missile project. Trump said he was "very disappointed," wants Greenland "controlled by the United States," ordered US trade with Spain cut, and will consider selling F-35s to Türkiye; Netanyahu opposed that on CNN and Hegseth reportedly cancelled a meeting over it. Rutte called the US strikes on Iran "absolutely necessary."
• The rearmament. Germany approved reservist call-ups toward a 200,000 reserve; the Commission proposed a 28-country drone wall and nine countries committed to a global defence bank; an appeals court upheld Le Pen's conviction but shortened her ban, potentially reopening a 2027 path.

The structural finding. Europe is rearming into an alliance whose leading member calls the relationship one-sided while its summit text calls the commitment ironclad. The reservist laws, drone walls and defence banks are hedges against the words being truer than the text.

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[United Kingdom - handover fortnight]

• The transition. Andy Burnham is expected to become prime minister on 20 July; Vance said Britain had been "failed by its leadership for a long time," and Celtic-nation governments have reportedly begun contingency planning for a UK breakup should Reform win. Starmer issued a formal state apology for forced adoptions affecting around 185,000 women: "the shame is ours." A Rochdale grooming-gang ringleader was released on licence, unable to be deported under a pre-1973-arrival provision of the Immigration Act, a loophole Burnham vowed to close.
• The sovereignty warning. A Commons committee said the US export ban on Anthropic's tools "should be a powerful reminder that the UK may not be able to count on even its allies for access to vital technology," urging the next government to protect AI sovereignty; four of the nine Sovereign AI Fund firms are US-controlled.
• Also. The National Crime Agency uncovered an international network drugging and assaulting women (more than 270 suspects); Britain summoned Iran's Chargé d'Affaires after two men were sentenced for the state-directed stabbing of journalist Pouria Zeraati; three men were acquitted of Lyra McKee's 2019 murder; and the NCA and Internet Watch Foundation urged parents not to post children's photos online, citing a rise in AI-generated abuse material.

The structural finding. A government eleven days from ending is apologising for old state failures while the incoming one inherits the live ones: a deportation loophole written in 1971, an AI supply chain owned elsewhere, and a union whose members are drafting exit contingencies. The handover is orderly; what is being handed over is not.

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[United States - the term of expanded power]

• The court. The Supreme Court term overturned Humphrey's Executor, freeing Trump to fire independent-agency leaders (Sotomayor dissenting), while striking down his global tariffs, blocking the firing of Fed Governor Cook, and rejecting his birthright-citizenship order; it also allowed TPS to end for Haitians and Syrians.
• The money and apparatus. A 927-page disclosure shows Trump was paid more than $2.2 billion last year, including more than $500 million from a family crypto venture; an FBI memo surged 260 staff to a Fulton County 2020-election "priority investigation"; the US will not renew USMCA in its current form, moving to annual reviews.
• Cuba. "Turn on the lights" protests broke out across Havana amid a six-month US fuel blockade, a third nationwide outage this year; at a UN debate, envoy Michael Waltz blamed Cuba's government ("Change your ways and turn the lights back on for your people") while most speakers urged Washington to end the blockade.

The structural finding. The term's arithmetic is the finding: the court blocked the president three times loudly and enabled him structurally once, and the structural one, ending ninety years of independent-agency protection, outweighs the three. Add a security apparatus re-tasked to relitigate 2020 and a disclosure showing the presidency operating as a revenue centre, and the American system's constraints look less like walls than furniture being rearranged.

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[Africa - the wars and the outbreak]

• Sudan. Amnesty accused the RSF of crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing around el-Fasher, with a survivor describing nearly 1,000 bodies; the UN sounded a "red alert" over el-Obeid, where Turk cited 45 killed in 15 strikes in June, an 18-month siege and at least eight fuel stations bombed, with about 100,000 displaced sheltering there. The war has displaced nearly 14 million.
• The outbreak. Congo's Ebola outbreak reached 1,708 confirmed cases as of 8 July, with 506 deaths as of about 6 July; treatment centres are full and one was attacked.
• The pullbacks. The US withdrew most troops from Nigeria and will defund Somalia's AU mission; in Mali, Tuareg-led rebels and the al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM attacked army and Russian-fighter positions; Ghana postponed a planned Ramaphosa visit amid South African anti-migrant violence, with about 25,000 migrants displaced across the affected states.

The structural finding. Three of this section's stories are the same story: security architecture being withdrawn faster than anything replaces it. The US exits Nigeria and defunds Somalia's mission, Russian fighters absorb Mali's, and in the gap the RSF industrialises atrocity while an outbreak burns through displacement camps. The vulnerability is structural before it is medical or military.

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[Venezuela - the aftershock state]

• The toll. The 24 June twin earthquakes' official toll climbed through the week toward 3,000, with a later Reuters figure of 3,535; NASA estimated about 58,870 buildings damaged against the government's count of 855, and both are recorded here.
• The politics. The US has 900 personnel on the ground and repaired the Caracas airport; acting President Rodríguez governs with US backing after Maduro's removal by US forces in January, and American firms have expressed interest in oil and gold. Australia pledged $2 million.

The structural finding. The quake response doubles as a sovereignty demonstration: the state doing the rescuing at scale is the one that removed the previous president, and the reconstruction interest arriving behind it is denominated in oil and gold. Disaster relief and regime consolidation are running on the same runway.

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[Also moving]

• North Korea. Kim Jong Un observed tests of a nuclear-capable cruise missile from the new destroyer Kang Kon.
• Weather. NOAA confirmed a June El Nino expected to reach historic strength; Typhoon Maysak flooded Guangxi and triggered rare tornadoes in Hubei, killing at least 17 in China; the Met Office warned of a possible "extreme" marine heatwave off England.
• Afghanistan. Two senior UN officials urged Western engagement; nearly 6 million people have returned since 2023, with about 2 million more expected this year.
• Also. A UN scientific panel warned unchecked AI may pose catastrophic risks; South Korea, Japan and the US agreed to cooperate on small modular reactors; West Papua separatists killed a US pilot; and Pegasus spyware targeted a Greek former MEP.

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[Watch points]

• NATO aftermath: whether the Türkiye F-35 deal and the Spain trade cut proceed.
• The US-Iran MoU's 60-day window to mid-August against Israel's Lebanon posture; Rome talks mid-July.
• The Board of Peace pilot in Tal as-Sultan; whether the leaked immunity draft resurfaces in the UN text.
• Israel's High Court confrontation; Burnham's expected accession, 20 July.
• Ebola trajectory against the 1,708-case count; El Nino intensification; Kostiantynivka (contested).

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[Where I'm drawing conclusions]

Casualty and damage figures in conflict zones come from the parties and bodies named beside them and cannot be independently verified; where counts differ (Lebanon's toll, Venezuela's toll and building damage, Kyiv's early counts, Gaza's percentages) the spread is shown rather than resolved. The Kostiantynivka capture claim and the Senkaku accounts are opposing state assertions, both reported, neither adopted. Capability claims about AI models are attributed to the company or official making them; none is adopted as fact, and the restriction timeline reflects differing published descriptions of the same government action. Chinese state-media characterisations are attributed as such throughout. June-dated Taiwan and UK items are background to this window, not this week's events.

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[Sources]

Reuters, Xinhua, Al Jazeera, BBC, AP, The Guardian, The Times of Israel, The Jerusalem Post, 7NEWS, ABC, CBS, Taiwan News, The Moscow Times, The Kyiv Independent, BBC News Russian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Crikey, AFR, Kyodo, OCCRP/Tempo, Citizen Lab, Amnesty International, UN OHCHR, CSIS, RAND, NASA, WHO, official statements and releases as attributed in text.