NATO Secretary-General Rutte said he held productive talks with UK Prime Minister Starmer at the prime minister’s residence; both emphasized increasing defence spending, strengthening defence production and continued robust support for Ukraine. Rutte said allies will demonstrate at next week’s NATO summit how they plan to implement those commitments.

Several Beijing startups focused on embodied intelligence and brain‑computer interfaces report recent technical breakthroughs and say valuations have exceeded 10 bln yuan as iteration speeds up. Founders attribute progress to professional incubators that provided capital and helped refine technical positioning and business models, enabling commercialization amid financing and customer shortages. Beijing has rolled out a tiered city‑wide incubation network covering 16 districts and economic development zones — roughly 600 incubators and about 8 mln sqm of incubator space, including five MIIT excellence‑level incubators, 34 MIIT standard‑level incubators, 30 Beijing benchmark incubators and 133 municipal incubators — aiming to fast‑track early-stage tech to market.

Iranian state media: IRGC in Hormozgan province will conduct a two-day disposal of legacy munitions/unexploded ordnance in the suburbs of Bandar Abbas port starting tomorrow; operation may produce audible detonations.