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Iran says its agreement with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz is in the final stage of drafting, with US President Donald Trump saying an announcement could come within days.

This comes as Germany investigates a drone carrying explosives found at Leipzig airport, and as Ukrainian intelligence says North Korea has sent a missile unit to Russia.

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3️⃣ 🇩🇪 Drone carrying explosives found at German airport: Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the device discovered near a runway at Leipzig/Halle airport represented "a new quality of threat" and had been "very professionally carried out", without directly blaming Russia. Bild reported the drone was found close to a Ukrainian Antonov cargo plane, and Ukraine's ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, blamed Moscow, asking "who else could it be?"

4️⃣ 🇲🇲🇹🇭 Myanmar's junta leader breaks isolation in Bangkok: Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Thailand for his first official visit since the 2021 coup, receiving a red-carpet welcome from Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and an official dinner, and will preside over a Thai-Myanmar business forum. He remains barred from ASEAN meetings over his refusal to implement the bloc's five-point consensus, and the campaign group Justice for Myanmar said Bangkok was lending the junta "false legitimacy".

5️⃣ 🇰🇵🇷🇺 North Korea sends a missile unit to Russia: Andrii Cherniak of Ukraine's Main Directorate of Intelligence said around 90 North Korean personnel will be based in the Voronezh region within Russia's 112th Missile Brigade, and that Russia expects the deployment to involve 120 ballistic missiles and six launchers. Reuters could not independently verify the claims, which Cherniak said were based on intelligence he could not disclose.

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Major Story

🇮🇷🇴🇲🇺🇸 Hormuz deal enters final drafting

Iran says an agreement with Oman on the Strait of Hormuz is in the final stage of drafting, with a joint statement to follow if what its foreign ministry called certain parties do not obstruct the process.

US President Donald Trump said an announcement "could happen. Tomorrow or the next day."

Two regional officials told the Associated Press that negotiators have finalised a draft and are waiting on approval from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who is believed to have been wounded in the war's opening strikes and has not been seen in public since.

Under the arrangement they described, ships would enter the Persian Gulf through an Iranian-controlled route and leave through one controlled by Oman, with service fees charged for security and protecting the maritime environment, something Washington has said it strongly opposes.

The officials cast the deal as a temporary solution tied to the US-Iran agreement that collapsed in June, and said it would pave the way for the two sides to resume negotiations on Tehran's nuclear programme.

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Other News

1️⃣ 🇺🇸 Washington rejects reports its interceptors are running out: President Trump said "we have far more munitions than anyone in the world, and far more than we need", blaming his predecessor's transfers to Ukraine, with Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell echoing him. CNN reported that 80% of THAAD and about half of Patriot interceptors have been depleted, a figure Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called "not true", while CSIS calculated on 27 July that just over a third of Patriots remain and that restoring pre-war levels would take at least three years.

2️⃣ 🇨🇳🇺🇸 China sanctions US firms weeks before Xi's visit: Beijing's commerce ministry sanctioned several American entities and tightened export controls on drones and related technologies, saying it had "no choice but to take necessary countermeasures" after Washington banned imports from 43 Chinese companies over alleged human rights abuses. The measures land ahead of an expected summit between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump in the United States next month.

3️⃣ 🇺🇸 Pentagon drafting new nuclear strategy for regional war: NBC News reported that the Defense Department's policy chief is writing a strategy that emphasises the possible use of shorter-range tactical weapons in a regional war with China or Russia, according to five people familiar with the plans. The classified document informs the nuclear options available to the commander in chief during a crisis.

4️⃣ 🇮🇱🇱🇧 Israel hits southern Lebanon after two soldiers killed: The Israeli military said two of its soldiers were killed and four seriously injured when an explosive device blew up during an operation to demolish Hezbollah infrastructure, and that it had begun strikes in response to a "blatant violation" of the ceasefire. Lebanon's health ministry said one man was killed and 12 people injured in a strike on Tibnin, and the military issued its first evacuation order in southern Lebanon in more than a month.

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