🇪🇬🇹🇷🇸🇦🇵🇰⚡️ — Egypt declined to join the new Mecca defense pact between Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan despite sustained efforts by Ankara to bring Cairo into the arrangement, according to Middle East Eye.

Turkish officials had initially viewed Egypt as a natural fourth member because of growing coordination on Gaza and regional security, but Cairo ultimately chose to stay out as it balances sensitive ties with Israel and the UAE.

Egypt is a U.S. ally with full diplomatic relations with Israel and reportedly feared additional pressure from Tel Aviv if it joined a pact containing a collective-defense clause. Cairo is also reluctant to take sides amid growing tensions between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, on which Egypt remains financially and militarily dependent.

Egypt also wants to avoid being drawn into an emerging alignment of Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan against a competing bloc centered on Israel, the UAE, and India.

Türkiye still hope Cairo will eventually join the alliance as it develops and demonstrates its ability to serve as a credible deterrent against regional threats.

🇨🇴🛢🇺🇸 Colombia Revives Oil And Gas After Four-Year Renewable Energy Push

New President Abelardo de la Espriella plans to revive oil and gas exploration, allow tightly regulated fracking, and strengthen state oil company Ecopetrol while maintaining investment in renewables.

Oil output fell 4%, foreign investment in mining and oil dropped 34%, gas imports surged to 31% of consumption, and Ecopetrol’s 2025 profits fell nearly 40%.

Its 2026 investment plan targets up to $7 billion, with roughly 70% directed toward upstream oil and gas and as many as 430 development wells.

Over the past couple of years, Colombia’s clean energy transition has shifted into overdrive under President Gustavo Petro’s "Just Energy Transition" agenda, with the country pivoting away from fossil fuels towards wind and solar energy. Petro, Colombia’s first ever left-wing president, instituted a strict ban on signing new oil, gas and coal exploration contracts while securing multi-billion-dollar international funding partnerships for clean energy projects. This strategy helped Colombia’s renewable energy capacity to explode from 200 megawatts (MW) in 2022 to over 4,300 MW by 2026. The solar sector, in particular, enjoyed a major boom under Pedro, with solar energy generation in Colombia officially surpassing coal-fired electricity generation for the first time in history in 2025. Colombia is South America's largest coal producer and its second-largest petroleum and liquid fuels producer, trailing only Brazil. However, Colombia’s fossil fuel sector is about to regain its dominance under the country’s newly elected, right-wing leader.

Ecopetrol, Colombia’s national oil company (NOC), faced falling profits and growing government interference during Petro’s presidency. Petro repeatedly clashed with management over investment and strategy, disrupting the company’s long-term oil and gas expansion plans.

Last year, Petro ordered the termination of a potentially lucrative U.S. Permian Basin joint venture with Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY), claiming fracking represented a huge environmental hazard. Petro previously blocked a $3.6 billion deal to buy a 30% stake in shale producer CrownRock. High-profile board members quit in protest, citing mixed messaging and government resistance to investing capital abroad. Petro’s government also replaced hundreds of technical staff with political appointees, while higher income-tax surcharges on hydrocarbons and new corporate wealth levies increased Ecopetrol’s tax burden.

Ecopetrol’s total transfers to the government, consisting of taxes, royalties, and dividends spiked under Petro to 35 trillion Colombian Pesos (~$11.1 billion) annually, far outpacing the comparative historical windows of prior administrations like Iván Duque and Juan Manuel Santos. Ecopetrol accounts for nearly two-thirds of Colombia’s fossil fuel production.

🔗 https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Colombia-Revives-Oil-And-Gas-After-Four-Year-Renewable-Energy-Push.html

🛢 15 Saudi oil tankers are returning to the Persian Gulf to pick up more oil after completing their voyages to East Asia.

Iranian-KSA relations are about to be tested as they will likely attempt to enter the Persian Gulf with American help using the southern/Omani lane.

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🇺🇸❌⚖️ The ICC ordered a new standalone investigation be opened into the alleged gender based persecution inside Taliban Afghanistan, separating it from the wide Afghanistan inquiry which looked into, besides alleged war crimes committed by the Taliban and the Islamic State (IS-K), the alleged war crimes committed by the US-backed Afghan Security Force, the CIA and the U.S. military.

The move is likely to raise questions about whether the court is seeking to ease tensions with Washington by signalling that it will no longer pursue allegations against US forces and their allies.

The chamber's communication came days after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio threatened to "dismantle the ICC, brick by brick", in remarks referencing the court's 2020 decision authorising an investigation into alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan.

Since February 2025, the US has imposed retaliatory financial and visa sanctions on court officials in connection with the Afghanistan and Palestine investigations, citing efforts to prosecute nationals or allies of the US. 

​​The first target was Karim Khan, the former prosecutor of the ICC, who was controversially removed by member states last month after an 18-month long misconduct probe. 

Also targeted were eight judges, three of whom - Kimberly Prost, Solomy Bossa and Luz Ibanez - were members of the 2020 Appeals Chamber that authorised the Afghanistan investigation.

The sanctions came despite the decision by Khan in 2021 to deprioritise the strand of the Afghanistan probe concerning US military and CIA personnel, as well as former Afghan government forces, in order to focus the investigation on the Taliban and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province. 

The ICC already issued arrest warrants a year ago for Supreme Leader of the Taliban Hibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the group's Chief Justice, for the crime against humanity of gender persecution.

MEE reported in December that diplomats at the ICC's annual Assembly of States Parties meeting in The Hague said the Trump administration had pressed the court to drop its investigations into Afghanistan and Palestine as a condition for lifting sanctions. 

It also demanded states to amend the ICC’s founding treaty - The Rome Statute - to prevent the prosecution of nationals from countries that aren’t members of the court, such as the US and Israel. 

At the end of its meeting, however, the assembly issued a declaration resisting those demands and rejecting calls to amend the Rome Statute, without naming the US directly.

🔗 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/icc-judges-order-taliban-case-split-from-afghanistan-probe-that-covers-us-nationals

🇸🇾 A court in Damascus sentenced former Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad and his brother, Maher, to death in absentia for committing crimes against humanity during the Syrian Civil War.

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🇺🇦🇷🇺 Ukraine has stopped reporting how many missiles Russia fired during attacks as it has run out of interceptors

While the Air Defense Forces said 98 of 120 Russian drones were downed overnight, it omitted data on the number of missiles fired. That came days after it ceased reporting interceptions of ballistic missiles, following an attack last week in which Ukraine failed to stop any of 28 projectiles.

The Air Defense Forces has changed its reporting format as a security measure in response to Russian strikes, according to a person familiar with the matter, asking not to be identified because the matter is sensitive.

Ukraine is scrambling to obtain more interceptors from allies as it struggles to defend against intensified Russian air attacks in recent weeks. It’s particularly seeking more supplies for the US-made Patriot system that’s most able to knock out Russian ballistic missiles, amid a surge in global demand sparked by the Middle East conflict.

Shipments of air defense missiles to Ukraine from its allies have dropped threefold in the first half of the year compared with 2025, Zelensky said Aug. 5, after at least 17 people had been killed and dozens injured in Russian strikes that Kiev’s forces were unable to knock out. The city of Zaporozhye was struck by North Korean-supplied ballistic missiles as well as Russian Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles, he said.

Ukraine intercepted 29 out of 195 Russian ballistic missiles fired in July while another 40 failed to reach their targets, according to data compiled by the Defense Ministry in Kiev.

🔗 https://unwall.app/www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-11/ukraine-stops-reporting-russia-missile-data-as-defenses-struggle

🇺🇦🌾🇲🇩🇷🇴 Ukraine demanded Moldova lower its freight rail tariffs for Ukrainian grain shipments as Kiev shifts from its own ports to Romanian ones.

Sources in Ukraine and Moldova have said that Kiev would like to transport ​its grain via Moldova to the Romanian port of Constanța with a 50% discount of the ⁠nominal rate.

A source with Moldovan Railways said Ukraine had sought the 50% discount during ​discussions. Moldova, he said, had countered with a proposal for Ukraine to provide guarantees of volumes of Ukrainian grain to be transported.

"At this time, the two sides are discussing a time frame and volumes of transit of Ukrainian grain through Moldova to the (Romanian) port of Constanta," the ​source said.

The former head of Moldovan Railways, Oleg Tofilat, told Reuters that a transit rail corridor through Moldova could ​carry 4.5 million metric tons annually.

Ukrainian estimates say that a working corridor could provide for 10% of the country's exports. Moldova had already ‌provided ⁠rail transport for Ukrainian grain in 2022-2023.

Moldova's Infrastructure and Regional Development Minister, Vladimir Bolea, visited Ukraine's adjacent Odessa Region on Monday and discussed improved rail links and expanded transit with his Ukrainian counterpart, Mykola Kalashnyk.

The need for a rail route through Moldova to Romania has arisen in connection with Russian attacks on the Odessa port hub and a historic drought on the Danube rendering Ukraine's ports on the river unusable for large, heavy ships.

Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tofan said on Monday that his country should not lose ⁠the ​opportunity to earn millions of euros in transit revenue from Ukrainian grain ​cargos. He dismissed suggestions by Moldovan farm groups that the price of Ukrainian grain would undercut their own produce.

🔗 https://www.reuters.com/business/ukraine-moldova-consider-shipping-grain-by-rail-through-moldova-sources-say-2026-08-10/

🇦🇪🤝🇮🇷 An Emirati Boeing 737-700 Business Jet (BBJ) operated by charter airline RoyalJet, designed for VIP passengers took off from Abu Dhabi and landed in Tehran earlier today.

🔗 EGYOSINT