assess

Published on
10/08/2026 – 7:43 GMT+2

Oil prices rose in early trading on Monday as market participants weighed mixed signals from the US and Iran, with concerns that a deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could take longer to materialise.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Futures for international benchmark Brent crude for October delivery gained 1.04% to $84.42 a barrel, while US West Texas Intermediate futures for September advanced 0.83% to $78.83 a barrel.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards insisted on Sunday that they would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the US complied with a list of demands.

Tehran insists on retaining control of the waterway – through which a fifth of world oil and LNG pass – after the war and wants to charge tolls for passage, which Washington has pushed back against.

Attacks in the strait, which was free to transit before the war, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire, and mediators have urged both sides to return to the terms of a subsequent June memorandum that set out a path for peace talks.

Iran on Saturday released a list of conditions for reopening the strait, including an end to the war on all fronts, the lifting of a US counterblockade of Iranian ports, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage, the Tasnim news agency reported.

Those conditions echoed the terms of the June agreement, which included a provision to create a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday that their strategy was to maintain their blockade “until the enemy accepts all our conditions… the strait is now actually a theatre of war for us and not just a waterway”.

For his part, US President Donald Trump said in an interview: “We are low-keying it.”

“We are only semi-negotiating with them,” he was quoted as saying. “We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.”

“It will work out,” he added. “It’s like a chess game.”

Additional sources • AFP

Caracas, August 1, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Venezuelan government and the United Nations have launched a joint 60-day plan to assess the country’s recovery needs following the twin earthquakes that struck the country on June 24.

The initiative, announced in a press conference on Wednesday, is titled the Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA). It will be led by Venezuelan authorities with technical support from UN agencies, the European Union, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF), and other “strategic partners from various sectors.”

Under the proposal, a multidisciplinary team will work jointly to evaluate nine socioeconomic sectors in the hardest-hit regions and produce technical recommendations to guide reconstruction policies and investment decisions.

“The plan will provide a common and objective assessment of damages, losses, and recovery needs,” outgoing UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Venezuela Gianluca Rampolla told reporters in a televised broadcast with Acting President Delcy Rodríguez.

Rampolla stressed that “the success of this process will depend on the commitment, collaboration, and continuous exchange among all participating institutions.”

For her part, Rodríguez forecast “extraordinary results” from the initiative and expressed confidence in her government’s ability to establish “highly effective coordination mechanisms with international organizations and the United Nations system.”

The acting leader emphasized that the objective goes beyond simply restoring damaged infrastructure.

“It is not only about recovering what existed before; it is about going further. The double earthquake also affected sectors already living in poverty,” she affirmed. “We must move beyond the humanitarian phase and advance toward a recovery process that places the human being at the center in every dimension,” she said.

Education Minister Héctor Rodríguez, who also participated in the press conference, said that the working groups would begin immediately and produce a “detailed and realistic report” with general policy guidelines within the 60-day deadline.

Real estate subsidies and reconstruction plans

The acting president had previously announced that both public and private banks would offer housing loans to affected families. Homes valued at up to US $70,000 will receive an 80 percent state subsidy for their purchase, with the remaining 20 percent provided via a bank loan to be paid over 25 years. For properties valued between $70,000 and $100,000, the state will subsidize 50 percent, while the remainder will also be granted 25-year financing plans.

Venezuela’s present minimum income stands at $240 a month for public sector workers.

Rodríguez added that residents who lost their apartments will retain their property rights to the land and receive support for reconstruction.

“I have requested that the Supreme Court establish a special jurisdiction to address civil matters related to property ownership and personal identity,” she explained during a meeting with government officials on Tuesday.

The Venezuelan acting president likewise met with a delegation from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Wednesday to discuss the possible use of international reserves to finance the Venezuela Rises Plan, through which the government aims to deliver 4,000 homes before the end of the year and build at least 10,000 additional ones in 2027.

According to reports, the talks additionally focused on the Caribbean nation’s macroeconomic outlook and economic policy priorities.

On July 17, the acting president announced access to$346 million from Venezuela’s IMF reserve tranche, funds that are immediately available to address urgent humanitarian needs arising from the disaster. However, the fund has yet to release around $4.5 billion in Special Drawing Rights that have been frozen since being issued in 2021.

The World Bank has estimated the immediate earthquake damages at $19.6 billion and warned that a slow reconstruction process could hinder Venezuela’s economic recovery for the next decade.

According to the latest official figures, the twin earthquakes left at least 5,546 people dead, 16,740 injured, and over 20,000 people homeless.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

July 16 (UPI) — U.S. Army medics in Europe said Thursday they are testing a new handheld diagnostic tool that can identify traumatic brain injuries in as little as 15 minutes.

Military officials predicted the new i-STAT Alinity device, made by Abbott Laboratories, can revolutionize the way medics can detect and treat such injuries quickly in the battlefield environment.

Rather than traditional methods of assessing brain injury or concussion by making subjective judgements based on questioning patients, the new device can yield objective information by measuring unique biomarkers that are present in the blood of the injured.

Lt. Col. Bradley Dengler, the neurosurgery consultant to the Army Surgeon General and director of the Military Traumatic Brain Injury Initiative at the Uniformed Services University, said the development of the i-STAT Alinity is a game-changer.

“This is probably the single most important advancement in traumatic brain injury care in the last 15 to 20 years,” he said in an Army release. “Historically, we’ve missed a lot of these injuries.”

Abbott Labs received clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to use the device with whole blood two years ago. The company says it allows doctors to help assess patients with suspected concussion at the bedside and obtain “lab-quality” results in 15 minutes.

Prior to that, the tests were only cleared for use with plasma or serum, requiring samples to be sent to a lab for processing and testing.

With that approval, the Army is now integrating the devices into air defense forward units under 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command. These units were judged to be among the most likely to benefit from the devices because they often operate in far-flung locations, hours away from advanced medical facilities and sophisticated brain scanners.

The i-Stat device measures two biomarkers from the brain that may be released into the bloodstream indicating a possible brain injury — ubiquitin C-terminal hydrolase L1, or UCH-L1, and glial fibrillary acidic protein, or GFAP.

Dengler said the tests are extremely valuable because if the blood biomarkers are not elevated, there is a 99% chance that there is no bleeding in the brain.

That’s deemed a major improvement over the widely used Military Acute Concussion Evaluation, a 15-minute standardized cognitive assessment involving memory lists and concentration exercises.

Arsenal will assess William Saliba’s back injury when he reports back to the club after World Cup duty.

The France centre-back has been dogged by a back issue for several weeks and carried the problem into the World Cup.

The issue appeared to be exacerbated during France’s semi-final loss to Spain when She was forced off after just 30 minutes.

Surgery is among the options that will be considered by the Gunners when he returns to London, though an operation would probably require a long-term lay-off to recover.

The 25-year-old made 50 appearances in all competitions for Arsenal last season, as they ended a 22-year wait to win the Premier League and reached the Champions League final.

Earlier in the World Cup, Saliba said: “I’ve had some minor niggles for several months.

“I’ve been gritting my teeth because there was the Champions League and the Premier League.

“The World Cup comes round only once every four years, so you’ve got to grit your teeth.”

He missed France’s final group game against Norway before returning to Didier Deschamps’ side for the knockout stage.

France play England in the third-place play-off on Saturday (22:00 BST).