The price of gold futures have soared to a record high after it was reported that the US would put tariffs on imports of 1kg bars in a further trade blow to Switzerland, which dominates the world’s refining industry.

Swiss exports to the US were hit by a crippling 39% tariff on Thursday after the country’s president returned empty-handed from a last-minute dash to Washington in an attempt to get the rate, among the highest imposed by Donald Trump, lowered.

It has subsequently emerged that US customs recommended that certain imports of gold bars that had been in a tariff exemption category should also be covered by the 39% rate.

The detail in a ruling letter – used by the US to clarify its trade policy – was signed on 31 July and seen by the Financial Times.

Government sources confirmed in early August 2025 that preliminary contacts had been indefinitely suspended.

Spain’s decision to cancel the F-35 acquisition was driven by a mix of budgetary rules, industrial policy, and strategic concerns.

The government’s €10.471 billion defense plan requires that 85% of funds be invested in European programs, making the U.S.-built F-35 incompatible with current spending priorities. Although Spain had allocated €6.25 billion in 2023 for a fighter to replace the AV-8B Harrier and C-15M Hornets, and had submitted a non-binding Request for Information, those steps were suspended.

Officials cited restricted access to the F-35’s critical systems, which limits national control and prevents integration of local technologies. The cost of the necessary infrastructure to maintain the aircraft and a unilateral price increase were also cited as negative factors.

The government aims to avoid dependence on non-European suppliers and instead support European initiatives like the Eurofighter and FCAS, aligning procurement with industrial participation and strategic autonomy objectives.

The decision also aligns with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s resistance to NATO’s 5% GDP defense spending target, limiting the government’s financial flexibility while reinforcing its emphasis on European defense autonomy.

JERUSALEM, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Israel's Leviathan natural gas field has signed the largest export agreement in the country's history, worth up to $35 billion to supply gas to Egypt, NewMed , one of the partners in the field, said on Thursday.

Leviathan, off Israel's Mediterranean coast with reserves of some 600 billion cubic metres, will sell about 130 bcm of gas to Egypt through 2040, or until all of the contract quantities are fulfilled.

The Leviathan reservoir began supplying Egypt shortly after production began in 2020. It signed an initial deal in 2019 for 60 bcm - or 4.5 bcm a year - that is expected to be fully supplied by the early 2030s.

The vast majority of Israelis say they are not troubled by reports of famine and suffering in Gaza, a new poll released by the Israel Democracy Institute shows.

The survey shows that 79 percent of Jews in Israel were not troubled, or troubled at all, whereas 86 percent of “Arab” respondents were somewhat or very troubled by the reports about the war on Gaza.

The survey was conducted between 27-31 July.

One afternoon in late 2021, Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, met with the commander of Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200. On the spy chief’s agenda: moving vast amounts of top secret intelligence material into the US company’s cloud.

Meeting at Microsoft’s headquarters near Seattle, a former chicken farm turned hi-tech campus, the spymaster, Yossi Sariel, won Nadella’s support for a plan that would grant Unit 8200 access to a customised and segregated area within Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.

Armed with Azure’s near-limitless storage capacity, Unit 8200 began building a powerful new mass surveillance tool: a sweeping and intrusive system that collects and stores recordings of millions of mobile phone calls made each day by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

Revealed here for the first time in an investigation by the Guardian with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call, the cloud-based system – which first became operational in 2022 – enables Unit 8200 to store a giant trove of calls daily for extended periods of time.

LAHORE, Pakistan -- Police arrested more than 200 supporters of former Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday as they tried to hold rallies in cities throughout Pakistan to mark the second anniversary of Khan’s arrest, a party spokesman and officials said.

The detainees included Rehana Dar, 73, a politician from Khan’s party known for her fiery speeches against the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. She was seen being thrown into a police truck in the northeastern city of Lahore.

The crackdown on PTI supporters came hours after Pakistan’s election oversight body disqualified opposition leader Omar Ayub Khan and several other PTI lawmakers following their convictions over their alleged role in riots that broke out in May 2023 after Khan’s initial arrest in a corruption case.

NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of Palantir Technologies sailed past previous record highs Tuesday after booking its first $1 billion sales quarter and raising its performance expectations for the year.

The stock rose above $170 Tuesday after breaking previous records four times this year in the global artificial intelligence race. The previous closing high for the stock was set this week at $160.66.

Since going public in 2020 when it posted a $1.17 billion annual loss, the artificial intelligence software company has swung swiftly to a profit and sales are booming. Profit rose 33% to $327 million in the second quarter.

Its $1 billion quarterly revenue haul was fueled by a 53% spike in government sales, despite massive spending cuts under President Donald Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, once led by the world’s richest man Elon Musk.

TEL AVIV/CAIRO, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu favours a complete military takeover of Gaza for the first time in two decades, media reported, and was to meet senior security officials on Tuesday to finalise a new strategy in the 22-month war.

Mediation between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas has collapsed despite intense international pressure for a ceasefire to ease hunger and appalling conditions in the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Eight more people died of starvation or malnutrition in the past 24 hours, Gaza's health ministry said, while another 79 died in the latest Israeli fire. Netanyahu was to meet Defence Minister Israel Katz and military Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir to decide on a strategy to take to cabinet later this week, an Israeli official told Reuters. Strategic Affairs Minister Rob Dermer, a confidant of Netanyahu, would also be present.