Pakistan-Afghanistan conflict escalates from long running tension into an “open war” after Pakistani officials have just made the claim despite recent months of combat on the border. The conflict stems due to accusations that Afghan territory is being used by militants to launch attacks inside Pakistan, in particular by groups like the TTP (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan). Both sides have reported casualties as Pakistan carried out air strikes on major Afghan cities including Kabul and Paktia. Civilian areas have been affected by strikes, raising concerns about humanitarian impacts.

The Green Party has won the Gorton and Denton by-election in Greater Manchetser capturing a historic first ever parliamentary by-election victory and obtaining a seat in Westminster. The Greens secured 14,980 votes to Labours 9,364 ( a fall of 25% from the 2024 election ) signalling a greater move to far left within the region.

Sir Kier Starmer described the result as “very disappointing” and spoke about his future continuous battle to fight political “extremes”

Reform UK who posed second in the by-election of the Gorton and Denton area received 10,578 votes however spoke up about “cheating” within the region and the council not looking or interfering with the Democracy Volunteers Organisation telling of 12% of votes experiencing family voting which is illegal within the United Kingdom. Farage (Refrom UK leader ) talks about greater restriction upon postal votes especially those not elderly, infirm or working/living abroad. Farage speaks positively of the votes Reform UK received in comparison to other previous giants Labour and The Conservatives. On a serious note Nigel spoke about the vandalism on Sir Winston Churchill’s statue overnight and the problems arising with this issue.

U.S. stock index futures fell on Friday, reflection caution as markets close out a volatile February. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq were all negative pre-market.

Technology stocks - especially those in the AI sector also underperformed despite strong earning reports due to market valuations rising on future expoectations, inflating the price of stocks. Nvidia (Big Tech and AI Firm) exceeded Wall Streets forecasts at a quarterly revenue of $68.13 billion - despite the stock still fell 5%. Some other firms followed a negative surge in share price however Dell Technolgies jumped 10% in pre-market - showing investor optimism after a strong report - due to surging AI hardware sales. Creating an interesting watch

European shares and commodities such as oil have also rose (+2.93% today), being mainly pushed up by geopolitical concerns - creating economic unceratainty in the region - possibly due to recent failed negotiations coordinating the sanctions on Russian Oil.

This global uncertainty links to patterns Bitcoin and other commodities have shown also within the market with bitcoin remaining stable but Gold increasing 3.41% in the previous week, Silver doing a massive 12.16%.

Global Equity Funds (investment funds which used pooled money from investors to buy diversified stock portfolios) also showed to sky down - showing less eager investors. Funds only reccieved $19.75 billion this week - the lowest level in 5 weeks. The slowdown is predicted to be from AI stock valuations such as that of Nvidia. However the news although signalling hesitation does still show a positive inflow, showing investors are not abandoning stocks.

The European Union has agreed to a new free trade deal with the Mercosur bloc ( a South American trading group including the nations : Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Why does this matter ? Together these regions create the World’s largest free trade zone - covering staggering 700 million people and eliminating tariffs on the vast majority of goods between the nations.

The deal includes the cutting of around €4 billion in duties on European exports and allows European companies easier access to South American markets such as cars and machinery.

Some nations say it gives the EU a “first-mover” advantage to have a competitive edge over other nations given the European Union greater economic ties as well as diversification amid a time of great reliance on China and the United States of America.

However, controversy also arises from the deal which has faced several delays and legal battles due to lack of concern from farmers who say many Mercosur nations lack food-safety and environmental standards and will as a result undercut local producers.

The deal which received objections from nations such as: France, Hungary and several others pushed the trade deal to the EU Court of Justice to wait of approval. Despite this however the European Commission President has provisionally announced the trade deal to start meaning parts of the agreement such as tariffs can begin to be cut to start.