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Analysis

The deep, long-form source work on the structures that move money, power, and risk. The distilled takeaways live in Articles. Where a piece touches the country-risk scores, it cites them; where it doesn't, it doesn't pretend to. RSS.

Analysis

Refresh: a courtroom, a tariff, and a ceasefire on the table

A one-day window, so most of the board held. But the day carried three things worth recording: a US federal judge ordered the National Guard out of Washington, reversing the deployment we had scored as a fresh institutional low; Washington hit Canada with 50% tariffs; and, even as the tenth straight night of strikes fell on Iran, a 10-day ceasefire proposal reached Tehran — the exact exit the framework refused to score away. Seventeen countries moved.

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Analysis

Refresh: the war that didn't break

Last pass caught the ceasefire cycle snapping into escalation. This one records the escalation refusing to break: a ninth consecutive night of US strikes on Iran, the first American combat deaths of the war, Iran hitting Kuwait's water and power for the first time, and the Houthis opening a maritime blockade on Saudi Arabia. Around it, the EU froze the Russia oil cap rather than let it lapse, Nicaragua's Ortega declared there would be no more elections, DR Congo's Ebola outbreak began outrunning its own contact-tracing, and a claim we excluded on sourcing turned out to be true. Thirty-four countries moved.

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Analysis

Refresh: the week the cycle broke

Three days after the last pass, the ceasefire cycle stopped cycling: three consecutive nights of US strikes across Iran, retaliation on six Gulf and Levant states, and a reinstated naval blockade with a transit toll the UN's maritime agency calls baseless. Around it, the EU formally opened Ukraine's and Moldova's next accession cluster the same week its Russia sanctions package failed, Colombia's rupture reached the inauguration itself, Venezuela's constitutional clock ran out unanswered, and Washington extended a military deployment in its own capital through the next inauguration. Forty countries moved.

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Analysis

Refresh: the ceasefire that keeps collapsing, and a wider net

Four days after the last pass, the US-Iran ceasefire turned over again - the same announce-then-collapse cycle it runs almost weekly: Hormuz tanker strikes, OFAC revoking the oil waiver the same day, US strikes on ninety Iranian sites, Iranian retaliation on four Gulf states, and then talks resuming. Around it, a fuller sweep - Russia turned fuel importer, Colombia's transition ruptured, Syria came off the terror list, Ethiopia and Eritrea mobilized, and a European instability cluster surfaced. This pass widened the net past the prior watch-list and kept every source it could verify.

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Analysis

Refresh: the reversible ceasefire, and the news we stopped throwing away

The US-Iran ceasefire proved repeatedly reversible - a remote MoU and a 60-day roadmap punctuated by strikes on US bases in Kuwait and Bahrain and fresh tanker attacks - even as real sanctions relief landed and Hormuz volumes recovered. Russia's fuel and budget crisis deepened, Venezuela took a twin shock, and Peru and Colombia certified contested elections. This pass also starts a persistent news store behind the ratings.

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